Page 55 of The Eternal Mirror (Lucifer’s Mirror #3)

Khaos

A fter I leave the temple, I head toward the main gates, then out of the city and along the road that leads to the Chamber of Mirrors.

I’m expecting to encounter some sort of opposition, but there are no guards.

Amber once told me that I needed to find my father’s weakness:

It’s clear to me now: arrogance.

He’s an arrogant fucker who believes he’s indestructible. Or maybe he doesn’t just believe it; he knows it.

Once in the Chamber, I find the mirror I need. It takes me to the cave on Valandria, not far from Hecate’s village, which is not much more than a pile of ash now. But it’s also close to the temple of Selene .

I’ve never seen the goddess before. She comes to Amber in visions, but never to me.

And believe me, I have prayed, yet I’ve never received an answer.

I gather from what Amber says that she’s been a little busy and preoccupied for the last few millennia.

Ever since she killed her mate, Vortex, she’s been bound to the void, trying to hold the Eternal Mirror together, so it doesn’t implode and take the rest of us with it.

But it’s always been said that if you want your prayers answered, then you should go to the temple. So that’s where I’m going.

I whisper the opening spell and step through the mirror into complete darkness.

But I’ve been here before, and I head toward where I know the entrance is.

My outstretched hand touches the wall, and I trail my fingers along it until I come to the opening.

I make my way along the narrow tunnel through the mountain, and soon the absolute darkness gives way to dim light.

The cave opens in a sheer wall of rock, and just ahead, twin stone towers mark the path I must follow.

By the placement of the sun, it’s late afternoon, and I want to be back as soon as possible, so I shift and take to the air.

The journey takes minutes, and soon I’m circling the crumbling temple.

It’s devoid of life, strangely empty—a huge amphitheater open to the sky.

I touch down in the center and shift back.

I close my eyes for a moment and pray for Selene to hear me. Nothing happens. But then, I didn’t think it was going to be that easy.

I take a look around. The walls are gray stone, worn with age and neglect.

Selene has been gone for thousands of years, and people will only pray for so long before they turn to other gods.

Overgrown vegetation crawls up the walls, covering the faded murals of stories long forgotten.

Vines creep up the columns. In the middle of the temple is a giant plinth that used to hold the statue of Selene.

It’s empty now, and the statue lies prostrate before the pedestal.

I run my hands along the stone at the base of the plinth. Amber once told me about this place, where she first briefly met the goddess. It’s what made me think to come here.

I see the engraving: an alicorn carved into the stone, wings spread.

I reach out to touch it, and a spark of electricity shoots up my arm, filling my body and piercing my heart.

I crash to the ground, and everything goes dark around me.

No sound, no light, no pain.

Am I dead?

But the darkness feels...comfortable, enveloping. Maybe that’s what death feels like.

It doesn’t last. There’s a blaze of silver light that flares blindingly bright, burning away the darkness.

It dissipates into silver mist and swirling constellations.

I’m still lying on the ground next to the statue in the temple of Selene, though it’s changed; there’s an ethereal quality about the place now.

It reminds me a little of Lucifer’s lands back on Astrali: neither real nor a dream.

I get to my feet at the same moment I realize I’m no longer alone.

Hope flares to life inside me. She’s come. And I realize I really didn’t expect a result; maybe I just needed to feel I was doing something. Or I needed some space while I try to decide what to do next.

The hope is quickly followed by despair.

Because if she’s here, then it’s a good chance she heralds the end of all my hopes and dreams.

A silver alicorn emerges from the mist, long silver mane rippling like liquid starlight.

So beautiful, I catch my breath. She tosses her head once, the spiral horn glowing silver, and then the alicorn is gone.

A woman, tall and beautiful, stands in her place, cloaked in hair of shimmering silver, stars glimmering in her dark eyes.

But she seems tired, somehow diminished, her light dimmed. She glances around, her gaze lingering on the fallen statue. The similarities are actually amazing. How must it feel to be worshiped as a god for thousands of years and then forgotten?

She gives a rueful shrug and then walks toward me, coming to a halt about a foot away. As she studies me, a flash of sadness crosses her exquisite face. “You remind me so much of him,” she says.

I frown. “My father?”

She snorts in a very ungodlike way. “No. Vortex.”

Well, that’s not good. So, I remind her of the man she killed. Great way to start a conversation. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s what attracted me to you in the first place. And you were a good choice. The only choice. I balked at first, because of who your father is. But maybe he made you the man you are.”

“The monster. ”

“You’re no monster. You’ve done what you had to do to survive when you were too young to know better. And as soon as you got the opportunity to change, you grasped it with all your heart.”

“And look how well that turned out.”

“Would you rather have stayed a monster?” she asks.

I think back to what I was, the countless lives I destroyed, most of whom I knew nothing about except they were my father’s enemies. Of Hella, the witch I delivered into his hands. So many others with no names.

Khendril’s message had been the catalyst that pulled me from my old life. But I also realize, looking back, that I’d been searching for a way out, a path forward that would allow me to live with myself.

“No,” I reply. “I’d rather be dead than go back to what I was before Amber.”

“Probably just as well,” she mutters.

My turn to snort. It’s strange, but I like her; she seems very human, and I never expected to feel this way. I’ve been holding her responsible for everything that happened, but maybe that was Vortex, and she’d had no choice but to do what she did.

“Did you ever consider going through the Eternal Mirror with him? Ending this world, starting afresh?”

For a minute, she looks away, and I think she won’t answer. But then she turns back to me, sadness dimming the stars in her eyes. “Of course I did. I still loved him, even then. A love like ours never dies, whatever happens. ”

I feel as if she’s telling me something here, but I don’t know what.

“But in the end, I couldn’t do it. And I think if I had, then the guilt would have driven me insane. All my children. And I love this land. How could I destroy it?”

“Do you still believe this world is worth saving?”

“I hope one day it will be.”

Not quite the same thing.

“Besides, while love like mine cannot die, it can be killed. And he slaughtered it. So I killed my mate, for this land, for Astrali, even for Earth. I will not give up on it now. I must save the Eternal Mirror—otherwise his death was for nothing—and then we can sort out the other problems.”

“Like my father.”

“Yes.” She takes a deep breath. “Now, why have you called me?”

So here it is. “I want you to sever the mating bond between Amber and me.”

Shock flashes across her face. I’ve surprised her. “Why?”

“Because it’s what she wants, what she’s always wanted. Her freedom.”

“You’re wrong. She craves to belong but does not trust her own heart.”

“It doesn’t matter. We’re running out of time. And I want to give her what she wants before it’s too late.”

“You think there is no hope?”

“I guess mine just about ran out when Amber told me she’d asked you to sever the bond. I can’t save the world and the people she loves from my father. I can’t even save her, and that is killing me. But I can give her this.”

“Your love is pure.”

“Yeah, pure shit.”

“Would you have taken the bond if I had given you the choice?”

I’d gotten the impression that we’d been given the bond before we were old enough to understand, that it had always been part of us. Was I wrong?

“Just when did you form the bond?” I ask.

“When Amber nearly died, and I gave her the choice of life and death. She chose life, but I knew then that she couldn’t fulfil her destiny alone. And so I gave what was left of Vortex’s powers to you.” Her lips twitch. “I nearly chose the heir to the Valandrian throne.”

“Thanouq?” I almost yell the name. “You nearly gave her to fucking Thanouq?”

“He is a moral man.”

“Unlike fucking me,” I mutter.

“Yes, you are not a moral man. But you would give up your life for Amber. Thanouq has other...loyalties. He answers to more than just his heart. Besides, Amber would have been torn in two if I had chosen anyone but you. Her heart is true.”

I frown. Is she telling me that Amber cared for me before the bond?

I know the moment she means, and it was months after we first met.

It was on a battlefield. I thought she had died, and I wanted to die as well.

To hurl myself into the fighting until I was beyond the pain that was tearing me apart.

But she rose from where she lay, and she was magnificent, defeating all our enemies, and in the aftermath, I had a moment of stunning clarity when I realized that I loved her, and she was all that mattered, and I would burn the world for her if she but asked.

Which she has sort of. Or rather, she asked me not to get in her way while she burns it.

Was that moment in the aftermath of battle the moment the bond was formed?

But I frown as I remember so many moments before that.

When she first crashed into me on that long-ago night, and I felt as though the world had shifted beneath my feet.

When she was attacked by the shadowguard and I knew I couldn’t let her die.

When I first kissed her and realized I wanted more; I wanted everything.

The many times she’s confronted me and made me want to be a better man.

I loved her before the bond.

And I think Selene is suggesting that Amber loved me.

For a moment, a wild sense of elation fills me.

And then it’s gone.

Because it’s too late. It doesn’t matter. She has closed off her mind to me. She believes love makes her weak when in fact, it’s everything that makes us strong.

But maybe it will give her a sense of peace that she has given me the chance to survive.

“Sever the bond,” I say.

She nods slowly. “I’m sorry it came to this. But since you both ask, then it will be done. ”

A strange calm settles over me. I thought it would break me. But all I feel is...emptiness.

I hope that’s what freedom feels like.