If this is true, then I’m still a Mirror. I just have to find a way to make it manifest. To make my mark return. Perhaps then I can squash the Void in me once and for all.
“Do you care to explain how you can possibly carry both Verity and Void?” Her head tilts the other way. She never blinks. “Up until now I had assumed to carry both was almost impossible.”
My theory is confirmed. I voice what I am now certain of. “We all have light and darkness in us. We all have the choice to take either path.”
The Lioness dips her head, a wide grin spreading across her golden fur. “No, child. Sometimes there is no choice at all. Sometimes there is only one path.”
“Which is?”
Her eyes twinkle.
I’ve never been more terrified.
“Why, the path that leads to death, of course.”
Oh. Crud.
TWENTY-TWO
Ky
Good riddance, Gage. Good-bye, mirrorglass blade.
Hello, Princess.
I make my way back through the dark compound. The tents sleep now, most every lantern extinguished. How many hours remain for rest? Do I care? I have my prize. Snoozing isn’t my favorite pastime anyway. At night my guard lowers, and then it all comes back to me. Every punch and blow feels fresh.
But worse than any bruise Tiernan could have given is the gash that never healed.
“Mom?” I forced steadiness into my voice as I pushed the already-ajar door inward. “Mom?”
My gaze landed on a shoe. Her shoe. In the middle of the entry. If the open door didn’t ignite fear, the abandoned piece of footwear did. My mother wasn’t one to be careless. She always locked the door and never left anything lying around.
The floorboards creaked as I rounded the corner from the foyer into the main hall. Our modest home near the docks in the Third was nothing to boast about, yet it was more home than the Second ever was. A safe place for my mother and Khloe, where they could live in peace far away from Tiernan and his drunken dissatisfactions.
Until then. Until I saw her lying at the bottom of the stairs in a rag-doll heap.
I fell to my knees. “Mama.” I hadn’t called her that in years, but in the moment the word was everything. Her hand lay lifeless. I took it in mine and held it to my lips.
I’d never felt skin so cold.
It was minutes before I rose. When I finally gained the strength, I punched a hole through the nearest wall. Then another, then another. I swung until my hands were a bloodied mess, but I couldn’t help it. The loose board on the middle step was something I’d been meaning to repair. But the faulty stair structure didn’t end her life.
He did.
“Yessss,” Kyaphus eggs. “Remember. Remember how good it felt to let me out. To release all your anger and frustrations and become the man you truly are. Me.”
“Get out of my head, monster.”
“No can do. When you tried to kill Tiernan after what he did to our mother, that was when you finally behaved like a man. You sought justice for the wrong done to us.”
“Don’t be a fool,” I say beneath my breath. “I’ve learned my lesson. When I let you out that night, you almost killed us both. I won’t be so negligent again.”
“Details, details.”
The pain I’ve kept below the surface threatens to rear its evil head. I harness it before it causes a shipwreck in my soul and gaze up at the stars, a clouded half-moon hanging in their midst. My mother loved stars and chose her own names for the constellations, just as she did for most everything else. Flowers were “color wheels” and trees were “shade makers.” The Callings were “gifts” and the Void was “death” itself. The Verity had many names, but my mother’s favorite was simply “morning.”
“Because morning always comes,” she said. “Just like the Verity.”
Her unshakable faith in something better kept me going then in the same way it inspires me now. I think of her eyes and see through them, keeping my own eyes on the stars and returning to the most memorable night of stargazing.
“Legend says mirrorglass is nothing more than fragments of shooting stars.” My mother kissed my twelve-year-old mop of hair as she drew me into her side. We shared a blanket atop our flat cottage roof, peering through the treetops. Tiernan was gone a lot back then. “Guardian business,” he called it.
Guardian business, my rear.
I was a little old for forehead kisses and bedtime stories, but I couldn’t deny her affection.
Accepting her tenderness, even as I grew, made me feel more like a man. The man my father would never become. He thought she babied me, of course. Always had a problem with something.
“Someday. . .” She shivered and I moved off the blanket, wrapped it around her bare feet. “I’m going to be a real Guardian.” I stood on the roof, pointed to the sky. “I’ll travel the Reflections and find you one of those shooting stars. You and Khloe.”
“Oh, my sweet boy.” She looked up at me, clasped my hand, and squeezed. “You’ve been a Guardian since you came to us.” Her voice shook. She hung her head.
The guilt in her stature undid me. I wanted to tell her it was all right. That I was proud to protect her and my sister. I crouched beside her, squeezing her hand back.
“I have something for you,” she said. “Come.”
I followed her down the ladder and into our home. We stepped lightly, careful not to wake a sleeping baby Khloe. Once we were in the kitchen, she opened the knife drawer, reached to the very back, and withdrew a blade I’d never seen.
“Your father never cooks.” She laughed, wiped her teary eyes with the heel of her palm. “Never needed a better hiding spot for this than the one right under his nose.” Then she took the knife and cut a gash straight across her cheek.
The blood in my head drained. I scrambled for a towel, something to stop the bleeding. Tiernan had finally broken her. My mother had gone insane.
That’s when she grabbed my arm. Her very touch forced a calm I couldn’t explain.
“Watch,” she said. “Wait.”
I did as she asked, paying close attention as the cut healed right before my eyes. The blood remained, but it was as if the wound never was.
“I want to try!”
My reaction nearly put her into hysterics as she wiped the blood off her cheek with a damp towel. I ran the knife across my palm, hissing through my teeth at the pain. But as quickly as it came it vanished, leaving only a trickle of blood behind. I bent over to try it on my leg, but my mother stopped me.
“That is quite enough, son.” She took the knife and cleaned it. “You’ve had a demonstration. No need to put yourself through more pain, even if it is short-lived.”
The questions spilled out after that. “Where did you get this? Is it magic? It’s mirrorglass, isn’t it?”
“It’s yours. A way for you to defend against your enemies and save them at the same time.” She handed it over. I haven’t let it out of my sight since.
Until now.
My eye twitches, thinking about my younger, naive self. Tiernan tried for years to break me, to turn me into a son he could use as a weapon at will. I know it’s only because of my mother that the good in me survived, though I can’t deny I’ve considered alternatives to her plan. That a knife that cuts and heals could also be used as a torture device.