Page 52

52

Reborn

Anya

I t happened exactly the way the Mirror of Death showed me.

Idris, handsome and formidable, backlit by a splash of dimming stars and purple dawn. His shoulder-length hair, dark and tangled and drenched with the sweat of a fight I had not witnessed. His blood-soaked hands cradling me with extraordinary gentleness. His mouth—one that had whispered to me, worshipped me, lavished me with passion—set into a grim line. And those beautiful eyes. Blue-green as the river I’d grown up on. Shining tearfully in the twilight. Filled with concern and resolve and love.

Then: water .

Not the Wend as I’d thought when I first saw this Fate, but a magical pool hidden deep within a haunted wood. The water that created the Mirror in which I’d seen this exact vision.

As Idris submerged me, the numbness in my injured leg cleared, revealing a pain I thought I’d escaped. I cried out, water filling my mouth, muffling my scream, bubbles fizzing all around. I felt bone, muscle, and skin knitting back together again. Making me whole again.

Impossible. Excruciating. Brilliant.

I opened my eyes and underwater I saw the silver storm of a Mirror’s surface. New visions played out before me. Wicker licking Idris’s face. Hattie’s nose wrinkling with amusement. Sunlight filtering through tree branches; lily pads on water. Blue-green eyes staring at me across a pillow, across a table, across the hill of my stomach. Wrinkled hands— my hands—tracing a faint round scar on a big, creased palm. The sound of my own laughter. The sound of his murmurs. A full life. A happy life.

Then I saw other Fates. Flashes of life and death all across this land.

Babies born, homes built, raging fires, freak accidents. Hordes of monsters streaming from the woods and knights of all orders marching out from the capital. I saw the Lord with a soot-streaked face, his silly robes tattered. I saw flaming swords and axes, blood and gore and mud. Stone walls crumbling and repaired.

I saw snowfall and clouds parting. Buds forming, flowers opening. The decay of animal carcasses, seeds sown and grown from their flesh. Forests and mountains burgeoning with growth.

Underneath the surface of the pool, I saw the Fate of all stretching out before me like a map of time itself. I saw the world turning from far, far away.

This didn’t feel like drowning.

This felt like pressure, like weightlessness, like a new life unfurling before me.