The Mirror Prince

by Malan, Violette

  Blood stood, shaking his head at Cassandra’s offered hand. “Can you Move there, Twilight Falls Softly?”

  “He will know.” The Singer had grown so pale that her eyes looked like bruises in her face. “We were told that the Basilisk could feel Movement to and from the Citadel, and I . . .”

  From the trembling of her lips it was obvious the young Singer was terrified. To have escaped once, and to be asked to go back . . .

  “There is no one else,” Blood said gently. “None of us has been there since the building was completed.”

  “I have,” Max said. “Once I’m that close, I should be able to walk right to them.”

  “Max.” Cassandra couldn’t believe her ears. “The dungeon room? And if it’s locked?”

  “When I first woke up, I wasn’t in a dungeon room,” he said, his eyes, narrowed in memory, still on the map. “I was in a round tower room, full of windows, maybe even the room that overlooks the Garden.”

  Twilight nodded, scanning the map. “There was a broad table? Many small carpets? A divan? The Basilisk’s workroom. It is at the top of the Basilisk Tower, here.” She indicated the same spot that Blood had pointed out before. “There are other towers, though none so high, all along this perimeter wall. Between are public rooms, halls, barracks, and six courtyards.” She sketched in these details quickly before looking up at the faces watching her. “The rest of the Citadel is patrolled by soldiers, but none go without permission into the Basilisk Tower. If he knows there has been Movement, the Basilisk may send a guard, but providing the Basilisk himself is not there, you should have no trouble—”

  “And if he is there?” Blood was frowning.

  Cassandra knew her cue. “Then we should have no trouble.”

  “You’ll stay here with Blood and his Riders.” Max didn’t look at her. “It’s too—”

  “Dangerous, yes, I know.” She laughed at his openmouthed look as she stole his line. “He’ll know you’re coming, whether he can feel the Movement or not. You can’t go alone.”

  “Look—”

  “Fight you for it.” She looked at him with her eyebrows raised as far as they would go. What was the point of knowing someone for a thousand years if you didn’t learn how to win an argument?

  “If you would be guided by me, my Prince,” Blood said, his face lightened in what must pass for him as a smile, “do not part from Sword of Truth. Two can pass unnoticed as easily as one. And I fear that you have not held a blade in some time. If it were possible, I would suggest a small company of Riders, but as it is not . . .”

  “I may have another use for the Wild Riders,” Max said, “if they will consent.”

  “You have but to ask.”

  Walks Under the Moon had watched everything closely and behaved as carefully as she could. She had nodded when required, smiled when smiling was called for, bowed her head at introductions as befitted her. But all the time she had been watching her sister, hoping even now that Truthsheart would step away from the Exile, now that he had his own fara’ip, his own father, to help him. But no, the solution would not be simple after all. She would have crept into his chamber and killed him in his sleep, Basilisk or no Basilisk, but for the knowledge that they had slept in the same bed. Her sister and the Exile. Moon could see now that Truthsheart must indeed be mad. All those years in the Shadowlands, among the people she called humans . . . of course her poor sister was mad.

  There must be a way to save Truthsheart from this madness, to set her feet finally on the path back to sanity. Moon had thought the Basilisk had promised her this, but she feared now that she could not trust him. Never mind, she thought, I can do it myself.

  And so she had watched and smiled and bowed. And waited until her sister was gone, asked the Wild Rider who was assigned to her care where she might wash herself, and when he walked away to allow her privacy, she Moved.

  Max stood back to back with Cassandra, swords in their right hands, left hands linked behind them, grasping wrists. He could feel her bare skin under his hand. For where they were going, and what they needed to do, they had removed all their gra’if except what could be concealed under their clothes, and those clothes were the deep magenta of the Basilisk’s personal guard. Max hadn’t asked Blood on the Snow where the uniforms had come from.

  “I could have won the fight,” he said.

  “With a couple of centuries of practice, maybe.”

  “You’re just saying that to make me feel better.”

  SLAM!

  The smell told him they’d made it, even before he opened his eyes. The air that moved through the round windows smelled of flowers and ornamental grasses, not of rain-swept granite and pine needles. The circular room was exactly as Max had last seen it, the cushioned couch, the small table near it still holding its wine decanter and jeweled cups.

  He walked over to the couch, fingered one of the tassels on the edge of a cushion, remembering when he’d lain here, talking with the Basilisk.

  “Could you Heal him?” he asked without looking up.

  “I can only Heal the addiction, not the cause of it.” She was shaking her head, frowning. “I don’t remember any Song that tells of addiction to dra’aj.”

  Max tossed the cushion back onto the chaise. “Few people know of it, but that’s where the Hunt—”

  Cassandra held up her hand in a shushing motion and jerked her head. “They’re coming up,” she whispered.

  Max pointed at himself and then at the door; pointed to her and then to the backless stool in front of the worktable. Cassandra nodded as Max flattened himself against the wall behind the door. Max might be known, but no one would recognize her, and that might buy them some time. She sat down and crossed her ankles like a student awaiting the arrival of the vice principal. She held her sword low down at her side, where it could not be seen from the doorway.

  The swift, tapping footsteps halted in the open doorway. Cassandra looked up, widened her eyes, and gave the Sunward guard, drawn sword in his hand, a small smile. She knew that Max had his hands up, ready to push the door into the guard if anything went wrong.

  “What are you doing here?” the guard said.

  “The Basilisk sent me,” she said. “He told me to wait for him here.” The tremble in her voice wasn’t faked, but she hoped she sounded convincingly proud of herself. She’d heard many young women, noticed by their princes, sound just that way.

  Evidently the guard had, too. He swallowed and looked away, suddenly unable to meet her eyes.

  “You know you’re not supposed to Move within the Citadel,” he said brusquely.

  “Well, I know, that is, they told me that, of course, but when the Prince himself ordered me, I thought . . .”

  The guard nodded. “See you wait quietly, then.” His eyes flicked up and away from her again. For a moment, Cassandra thought the Sunward Rider was going to say something more, but he jerked his head at her again, turned on his heel, and started down the stairs.

  Cassandra relaxed her grip on her sword hilt and stood up as Max stepped from around the door, rolling his eyes skyward. She shrugged.

  “Where to?” she mouthed.

  Max closed his eyes, felt for the flames within him, though he wasn’t surprised when he felt in which direction they pulled him. Where else could they go? “Down.”

  Cassandra nodded, gesturing for him to take the lead with a mocking half bow.

  He paused at the next landing, keeping his heart open, feeling for the flames of the Phoenix’s nest. Here, a wide archway opened into what could only be a conference room. Wall hangings embroidered and brocaded in Guidebeasts of all kinds, ten chairs around a long oval table, the chair at the head elevated slightly above the rest. Everything in the room elaborately decorated—each chair carved and painted, the table a mass of marquetry. Even the floor was parqueted with both stone and wood—and not, as Max saw with a twist to his stomach, in darkwood. Nothing could express his relief at not having to enter the room. It would have
been like walking on rugs made from the skins of friends. He felt Cassandra’s grip on his arm, and met her eyes, dark and stormy gray in a face set hard as stone. He swallowed and motioned her on.

  The bottom of the tower had two exits. Max went without hesitation to the double doors at the left of the stair. Cassandra took hold of his sleeve in her fingers.

  “Outside?” she whispered, a worried frown creasing her brows.

  He nodded, and mouthed the word “courtyard.” She shrugged and went to the left leaf of the carved wooden door. Again, this was Wood, not darkwood, and Max felt his stomach lurch with nausea. The door’s bolts and hardware were darkmetal, new, and perfectly fitted. Cassandra grimaced, lips pulling back from her teeth as she reached for the door. Managing not to touch the Wood, she slid the bolts back, taking such care that Max only heard the smallest “snick” as the last bolt slid free.

  The doors opened into an interior patio, a large rectangular space surrounded by a pillared arcade. The pillars held up a covered gallery fronted with an elaborate lattice, as if there were a harem to be hidden from public view. Colored flagstone paths radiating out from a central fountain divided the patio into sections. Each section was itself a different color, created by a careful choice of flowers, small shrubs, and a single tree. Stone seats invited people to rest and listen to the beauty of the water.

  “Is there anyone in the water?” she breathed as she followed him down the path.

  Max shook his head. “This is plumbing, not a Natural, and there’s not enough water to hide anyone else.”

  The tree farthest from the doors was a slim ash, and Max approached it slowly. He knelt before it, and placed his palms on the silver-gray bark. The tree shuddered, exactly, Cassandra thought, as a woman might shudder under her lover’s hands.

  Max stood, and the tree was gone. In his hands was an ash wood spear.

  “It’s a war spear.” Cassandra’s hand was out before she was aware of moving, already imagining the feel of the spear’s time-smooth shaft under her fingers. Its head, gleaming like gra’if, though she couldn’t guess whose gra’if it might be, was fully the length of her forearm.

  “Hence the name,” Max said. “Porre’in, Spear of War.”

  Cassandra looked at him, her mouth twisted sideways. “I meant,” she said, drawing back her hand, “that it is actually a war spear. For some reason I expected it to be,” she held her hands a few feet apart, “symbolic in some way.” It was, in fact, longer than the human war spear, almost a lance. “It seems so ordinary,” she added.

  “Touch it,” Max said.

  Cassandra took hold of the shaft in the middle, between Max’s hands, and for a second, he let her bear the weight of it. At once she felt it warm and pulsing, like a living thing, and felt herself flying through the air, not like a bird, but like a missile, the rush of wind created only by her own forward movement intoxicating, sucking the air away from her before she could breathe it in. Her blood sang, and she felt herself gasping. She took a step back to keep herself from falling, met Max’s shining eyes above the spear he held between them.

  “Did you feel it?” he said.

  “It’s in flight,” she said, clearing her dry throat with difficulty.

  “It always is,” Max said. “It’s a true symbol.”

  “Who holds it can call the People to War,” Cassandra said.

  Max shook his head, his lips pinched thin. “You heard Trere’if. The People won’t fight. And they’re right. I used this once already, thinking I was doing the right thing, and you know how well that worked out. There’s a lesson in that bit of history, and I have to listen to it. Whatever else—” he paused. Ravenhill would go with his instincts, he told himself, and you are fundamentally the same. “I believe the Talismans have their own plan and I—we—will have to wait and trust in them.”

  She scanned the covered gallery uneasily, took in the slant of sunlight on the flagstones. “Max, where to now? I think the Sun is turning.”

  Walks Under the Moon had gone home, to Lightstead, to where she could think without soldiers and Wild Riders and Exiles to distract her. She could not stay seated in her workroom chair more than three heartbeats before she was once more pacing about the room. If her movement could even be called pacing as she edged around the crowded dusty furniture, twitching her skirts out of the way as her hands touched, turned over, and replaced long disused objects. Bowls, stones, knives for paring fruit and cutting leather, hair ornaments, misplaced shoes, and on one table by the door, scraps of paper from the Shadowlands and old pens, the ink long-dried, remnants of her failed experiments in adapting the Shadowfolk’s invention of writing to the Rider language.

  Finally, she made her way to the windows and sat there, stared unseeing out of the window, and thought of her father. He had sat thus for months after the death of his wife, their mother, and after Truthsheart’s departure to the Shadowlands he had continued, dozing in his chair, barely touching his food, responding to his remaining child less and less until one day his chair was empty and he was gone. Faded.

  Moon sat now in her own chair. Was this what she had without her sister, she thought. A chair. A window looking out on nothing?

  Moon could see now that she had not thought about the Exile in the right way. She had thought of him, when she thought of him at all, as a piece in the Basilisk’s game. But he was real. Living, breathing, and real, and the hold that he had on Truthsheart—though based in falsehood and trickery—was a real hold. Merely separating them would not be enough. If her sister would not—or could not, a softer voice said inside her—listen to reason, the Exile would have to be killed. Then her sister’s eyes could be opened. Moon shivered with more than cold. It might not be what the Basilisk wanted, but she could do this, and more, to save her sister.

  She must go again to the Citadel, and await her chance.

  The other doors, darkwood Max saw with relief, and as elaborately carved but nowhere near as heavy as the ones leading onto the patio, opened into a large room, sunlight streaming in from openings high in the walls. After Cassandra’s words outside, Max automatically measured the angle of the light. There was still time, he thought. Just. He studied the room, frowning. The space was not large enough to be the great hall of the whole Citadel, and Max thought it was more likely a throne room or audience chamber as yet unfurnished. Here, again, the decor was crammed with details. From their vantage point at the doors, a few steps above the floor, he could see that every inch of it was covered with mosaic tiles, like a great Velazquez painting laid down to walk on. It was a battle scene, not conventional Riders with Cloud Horses, however, but a battle of Guidebeasts, as if this was taking place early in the Cycle, when the dra’aj was so great that Guidebeasts were commonplace. Even so, Max knew that this wasn’t a battle as old as the use of Guidebeasts might suggest. He recognized the central figures. A Phoenix was raising its sword in one flame-tipped claw, just as a Basilisk was bringing its petrifying vision to bear. The Phoenix was turning to stone even as it lifted its sword.

  This was a rendering of the final battle of the Great War. The final encounter of that battle.

  Max walked out into the center of the floor, drawn by the tiled depiction of himself.

  “Is this how it was?” Cassandra whispered from behind him.

  Max looked around, shaking his head. “I never crossed swords with Dreamer, but otherwise it’s accurate enough, I suppose. Look, there are the Trolls and Elementals, and there a few Naturals, both Springs and Trees, on my right flank.” The artist, Max saw, had played with the perspective somehow, so that though the participants were not shown as life-size, or even as properly proportioned relative to each other, somehow the sizing worked, and the field of battle looked natural. Or as natural as a field of battle can look.

  He nodded again. Yes, accurate enough. Except . . . Max squatted, traced the outline of the Phoenix with his fingertips, feeling a hot flush rise from the cold tiles. He was not, after all, raising his blade to
strike. He was reaching for it. It had clearly been knocked from his hand. Now Max frowned and reached out to touch the mosaic sword and found the warm pommel of Ti’ana in his hand.

  “Max?” He could hear the awe in her voice. “Is it . . .”

  He could understand her hesitation. It seemed no more than any old sword, a bit longer than a rapier, with a broad, double-edged blade, and a plain hilt covered with braided leather. Not so long as the great two-handed swords made for those who wore gra’if, the swords they had left behind in Blood’s camp, but with the same kind of curved cross guard. It fit into his hand like his own gra’if.

  Max reversed his grip and held Ti’ana out to her. “See for yourself,” he said.

  “It’s not just a thrusting blade,” she said as she reached for the rounded hilt.

  “No,” Max agreed. “It cuts.”

  With her hand inches from the grip, Cassandra froze and lifted her head.