by Sara Ella
Wait. Pause. Back up. I pivot toward Joshua. “If you don’t love me after my birthday, who will the Void inhabit when you imprison it?”
His gaze flits to my uncle. Back to me. “Makai has already agreed. He’s prepared to take on the Void for the good of the people. He’s strong enough to fight it.”
“And I’m not?” It’s not as if I want to become the Void’s prison, but does Joshua really believe I couldn’t handle it?
He averts his eyes.
I whirl on Jasyn. Descend one step. Two. “So what now?” The words are rushed. Difficult to hide my panic when the needle is so near to Ky.
“I am nothing if not fair,” Jasyn says. “I will give the Ever an opportunity to fulfill his responsibility. I suggest a celebration. You will be eighteen in a week’s time. I wish to hold a ball in your honor. The entire Reflection will be obligated to attend. I am sure your rebel friends will not resist the invitation. They merely require a little extra convincing.”
Haman fingers his gun. Blows on his snapping fingers as if they’re made of precious metal.
Convincing? Attend or die is more like it. “Is this some sort of sick game to you?”
“I only desire an audience when I reveal the Verity’s vessel. For every soul to witness his cowardice when he is unable to sacrifice you, an insignificant girl, for them.”
There it is. The real reason for his party. Does he have to make such a show of everything?
“It will be quite the memorable evening. An exhibit of true power. Here I am, a mere Amulet, yet the rare and nearly indestructible Verity’s vessel, an Ever no less, will not be able to touch me.”
“You’re wrong,” I say through clenched teeth. “Whatever happens on my birthday, Joshua will capture the Void. If that means I become its prison, so be it.” For Ky. And Mom and Makai. I glance at the Second Reflection tapestry once more.
For all of them.
“Allow me to prove you wrong,” Jasyn says. “I believe his love for you goes deeper than he will admit. Which means, when it comes down to it, he will not be able to send the Void inside you. An Ever’s blood heals, yet their emotions are their downfall. I could stab Aidan’s son one hundred times over, and he still would not die. But if I so much as break your skin, he weakens, folds like a poorly played hand of cards.”
Oh, crowe. Where’s he going with this?
Lips curled back, he reveals two straight rows of pearly whites. “Except now I have another weapon, something far more interesting than splicing your pretty little neck, my own flesh and blood.”
I’m dizzy and I can’t feel my hands or feet. I glance from Ky to Joshua to Ky and back again. This is bad.
Jasyn grabs Ky’s chin with his free hand, forces his face skyward. “I am able to keep my enemy weak simply by doing this.” He plunges the needle into Ky’s neck, pulls it out in rapid succession.
I feel it. Like a string connecting my soul to his, I sense the darkness pulling, yanking, drawing me in. I cry out. Clutch my chest. Fall to my knees.
Ky collapses, too, but he makes no sound. His veins are doing that thing again, crawling and darkening and . . . retracting just as quickly.
Three, two, one. It’s over. The tightness above my ribs relents. The intangible connection between us loosens. I look over my shoulder at Joshua. His questioning expression says he felt it, too, the Void trying to take Ky’s soul. The soul I saved with a kiss, linking the three of us for seven more days.
With a look of sheer disgust, Jasyn kicks Ky in the side.
Grunting, Ky doubles over.
“Please.” I can barely get the word out. I close my eyes. “Don’t hurt him.”
“What was that, granddaughter? Speak up so all in attendance may hear.”
I blow a breath through my nose, grind my teeth, and fume, “I said don’t hurt him. This isn’t his fight. You have what you want. Me. The Verity’s vessel. But let Ky go.”
“Oh, I beg to differ,” Jasyn says. “It is very much Kyaphus’s fight. You made it so when you bound your soul to his with a Kiss of Infinity.”
“El, no.” Joshua’s voice is drenched in grief.
As if in slow motion, I turn toward him.
Fresh blood dampens the bandage around his middle, but it’s the agony in his compressed expression that acts as my personal wound.
My chin quivers. I can’t look at him, envisioning what I might find. Anger. Grief.
“How sweet,” Jasyn blusters. “The Ever who would do anything for his beloved, and the girl who kissed a traitor. Which leaves us with the Shield who, despite his shady past, allowed himself to fall in love. This is quite the complicated triangle, indeed.”
“You’re wrong,” Ky grunts, speaking for the first time in what seems like hours. He rises, rolling his shoulders, taking on the same manner he had the night we met. Cold. Cruel. “I am not in love with her. As always, I remain loyal to you, my liege.”
My body goes rigid.
He faces my grandfather and—bows?
No. Flippin’. Way.
“Master,” Ky appeals.
It’s a ruse. Has to be.
Jasyn lists his head. Amused? Suspicious? I can’t tell. “What can you offer as a token of your loyalty?”
Ky lifts his head. “What did you have in mind?” A smile lilts his voice, and a slant of his head oozes cunning. Well, well, the boy from the party returns.
Jasyn’s eyes glint. “I am sure you can come up with something.” He clasps Ky’s shoulder in a fatherly gesture.
Rounding on me, Ky pauses a sniff away. The contours of his face harden further, if possible.
I shut my eyes. Oh no you don’t—you’re not using your Calling on me.
He leans down, places his lips next to my ear. “Would you rather it be me or Haman?”
Eyes narrowed, I face him.
His regard snatches mine with ferocity, and I can’t look away. Numbness travels through my veins, my organs, rendering every part below my neck immovable.
Snap!
No feeling, no pain, but the deafening note triggers an awareness. I glance down. My hand hangs limply from my wrist. Contorted. Swelling. Broken.
Ky scoops me into his arms and carries me away as Jasyn steps up beside Joshua, leers down at him.
Joshua’s face contorts. He clasps his wrist. Unlike me, he is not numb to the ache Ky caused.
But there’s a greater ache there, something that splices me open, emotions bleeding onto the pristine floor. The broken wrist is trivial compared to the true agony he endures, far worse than any broken bone.
If he feels what I feel, it’s not the physical pain that renders him immovable. It’s the knowledge that I was able to give Ky a Kiss of Infinity. I still don’t understand it, but one question rises to the surface above all the others.
If I’m linked to Ky, heart and soul, what does that mean for him if I become the Void’s new prison?
THIRTY-FOUR
Before We Part
Ky hasn’t said a word since we left the throne room.
My head throbs, a headache setting up camp between my eyebrows. I glance up.
Ky’s face is a portcullis. He has yet to meet my gaze. Away from the tiered balconies, down enclosed halls and corridors he carries me. Ignores me.
I stare at the ceiling. Cradled. Helpless.
When we’re some distance from the throne room, he sidesteps into an alcove. Peeks over his shoulder. Then his face lowers, a mere hair away from mine. When his lips part, I inhale his breath, stare at him, will my concentration not to falter and find his mouth. Our kiss was so fleeting. Why can’t I expel it from my mind?
“Why did you do it?” he asks.
He doesn’t have to elaborate. I know what he means. I don’t have an explanation. I kissed him because I wanted to. Because I thought I was saying good-bye.
When I give no answer, he continues, “You do know even when your link with David breaks, you are still bound to me. Forever. I’m over eighteen. You chose
me. And I—”
My insides mush. “You what?”
“Never mind.” He straightens, steps into the hall, and continues in silence.
Two more corridors and a spiraling stairwell later, Ky enters a circular room—a sort of attic-slash-tower. The accommodations are modest. A low cot with a hay mattress and faded quilt. A single wooden chair, a matching bowl resting on its seat and bucket beneath it. Straight ahead, a barred window emits the meager moonlight. Better than the stinky dungeon, at least.
He lays me on the cot. The hay rustles beneath my weight. “This is the Captive’s Tower. Nobody will bother you here.” He brushes my bangs from my eyes, then crouches and begins digging through his pack. His shoulder muscles flex against his taut jacket.
I find a cobweb hanging from the coned ceiling and ogle it.
A long while passes before either of us speaks again. I don’t feel a thing, but I assume he’s tending the bone he broke, something he learned from his Physic mother, no doubt.
“I’m done.” His low, throaty tone further contorts my dilemma.
When I look at my wrist, it’s splinted, wrapped in a bandage. I almost thank him but refrain. He only fixed what he fractured in the first place.
In slow motion, as if making sure I’m watching, he leans down and kisses the top of my dressed hand.
Again, I don’t feel it, but the action sets off a siren in my brain’s warning station. The heat between us is undeniable, energizing the atmosphere like a twister waiting to funnel. The slightest shift in the air and whoosh! Ky is a tornado—exciting and unpredictable. If I don’t ground myself, he’ll carry me away.
Since I can’t extract my hand, I ignore him, acting as if the kiss doesn’t affect me one bit.
“The numbness will wear off soon since my Calling doesn’t affect you the way it does others.” He rises, stretches his arms above his head. “Your wrist will hurt before David’s connection heals it. I’m sorry.”
He backs away, sits on the floor, and crosses his legs, tucking his feet beneath him. He looks so boyish and innocent, picking at the fibers in the dusty rug at the room’s center. I imagine knowing him at a younger, more innocent age. If I met him before Jasyn got ahold of him, would his life have turned out differently? Would mine? And what about Joshua? If he hadn’t bound our souls, would he have already captured the Void?
My pulse quiets. The possibilities are endless. But we’re here now. Time to stop wondering and prepare myself for what’s to come. I can’t let Makai take on the Void. Mom deserves some happiness for once in her life. Which means I have to figure out how to convince Joshua he truly loves me. To persuade him to stop fighting it.
When Ky finally stands, he shoulders his pack. “I’ll bring you some food in a bit. Is there anything else you need?”
My eyelids droop. “Nothing.”
“I’ll be back.” Ky crosses to the door. He gives me one last apologetic look before slipping into the stairwell. The click of the lock preludes his fading footsteps.
I allow my eyes to close completely then, dreaming of my birthday and the nightmare it might bring.
I chew my nails, peering through the barred window as the final round of onlookers file—are herded—into the castle. For the past week people from all over have trickled in—Jasyn’s welcomed guests.
More like involuntary spectators.
Ky was able to snag my pack from the throne room and smuggle it up here. Since then, I’ve pored over Ember’s theory, over the drawing of the composition. But I still can’t complete the arrangement. I’ve written and erased and crumpled and started again. What I have down, penned on one of the blank pages from The Reflection Chronicles, is broken, incomplete. But it will have to be enough.
A faint reflection considers me from the frosty glass beyond the bars. I slip my hand between them and rest my palm against the window, my skin chilling the way it does when I go ice-skating at Rockefeller Center and forget to wear gloves. My breath covers my reflected nose in fog, expanding, then shrinking. I wipe away the moisture, staring at what I expected to vanish at midnight.
My birthmark.
Since it’s still here, does this mean Joshua truly loves me? That his feelings transcend the broken link, allowing my mirrormark and Calling to remain? I cradle my head against the bars. Ember’s theory provides nothing on the matter, probably because this is the first time something like this has happened. I should be disappointed, knowing what this means. Instead, a fire ignites inside me.
I’m ready.
Ky has visited me every day over the past seven. Bringing me food. Water. Clean clothes. He even brought me some purple dye at my request. The process was a mess but worth it. My blonde ends are now the color of eggplant, a symbol I stand with the Verity.
Last night Ky delivered a little something extra alongside my dinner. I wait in the most gorgeous gown I’ve ever had the pleasure of touching. Cornflower-blue chiffon cut into an A-line, a lace appliqué scoop neck embellishing the ensemble.
The lock clicks. The door whines. I twist.
Jaw limp, Ky leans against the doorframe. He’s decked in black from vest and tie to slacks and formal shoes. His hair is combed off his forehead, and his face is clean shaven. Strange. When I first met him I thought him unattractive. The acne. How cruel he seemed when he kidnapped me. Now I see who he is beyond the surface. Kind and good. Brave.
He’s never looked so handsome.
I shift. “What?” Why is he just staring? I twirl a curl between my fingers. “What is it?”
He blinks, snaps his mouth closed. “Nothing. You look”—cough—“are you ready?”
Was he going to say beautiful? I almost wish he did. I’m almost relieved he didn’t.
“What’s with the fancy digs?” I do a little pirouette, the gown’s delicate fabric swirling around my legs.
“Crowe likes his show, remember? He requested I make sure you look your very best.” Ky does a little bow, a smirk lifting his lips.
I tuck the curl in place and swallow the thrum, thrum, thrum in my throat before meeting him at the door.
The corner of his mouth twitches as he inhales. Before we part I want to say everything and nothing. To escape with him and never look back. To run down the stairs, far away from his complex gaze. To explain that even though my mirrormark—the one Joshua gave me—remains, I still care for Ky.
My traitorous thoughts are bandits. Stealing my oxygen. Robbing my resolve.
His throat throbs. My pulse speeds. How did we get so close? Our fingertips brush. His breath caresses my face. Will he try to kiss me? If he does, will I let him?
His expression ticks to serious. He crouches, withdrawing his mirrorglass blade from the back of his pants. Then he lifts my dress just enough so my ankle shows.
Tingles. Everywhere.
He removes the strap from his own ankle. Next he attaches it and the knife to mine with care.
His fingers are hot, melting my skin.
Without a word he rises and ushers me downstairs. I’m a prisoner and he’s the warden. Silence festers, the knife at my ankle like a shackle. If he thinks I need a weapon, Jasyn’s plan is more than he let on.
As we near the party, a murmuring hum floats outward, accompanied by the soothing strings of a Swan Lake pas de trois. The music sweeps me up, and I can’t help but sway as I walk. Once we reach the tiered balconies, gads of bodies pelt my sight. They lean against railings, huddle in groups against walls. Their chatter a jumbled whir, undecipherable. I stare straight ahead, attempting to ignore their sidelong glances. Their confused expressions. Everyone is thinking the same thing.
Why are we here?
The throne room has been transformed. White globe lights and tulle wrap marble columns and drape window ledges, where beyond a lazy snow falls from the night sky. Tea light candles glow dimly, decorating tall tables adorned with freshly cut fir branches. And . . . is that the scent of chocolate? Too bad I have zero appetite.
Everyone is dressed
in their best. Even the Soulless guards scattered throughout model sport coats and ties. A string quartet to the right of the dais transitions into a gentle waltz, though nobody dances. It’s a nice picture, but the people’s fearful faces suggest anything but merriment. Jasyn is nowhere to be seen, probably planning a majestic entrance.
Ky leads me down the grand staircase and toward the dais. Light bounces off a painted, domed ceiling featuring Mom’s handiwork. I’d know those broad strokes and swirling colors anywhere. The chandelier is brilliant, thousands of crystals sparkling and tinkling. Straight ahead, the throne waits. Chairs have been added to either side of it. And there, occupying one of them, is Mom.
I rush toward her, and she embraces me.
“Mom.” Her name is an exhale of shock and relief. “What are you doing here?”
“When you didn’t return, I knew I had to come back.” She smooths her black evening dress when I draw away. “Even if I wasn’t bound by a Kiss of Accord, I would’ve returned for you.” She leans up and kisses my cheek.
“What do you mean?” I sit in the chair beside her. Ky has already taken his station at the bottom of the grand staircase, acting the guard he’s supposed to be.
She places one hand on her stomach. “I am with child,” she breathes. “Just a couple months along.”
Every inch of me wants to regurgitate. “Did Haman—?”
“No, my darling.” A glance over her shoulder. “We, Makai and I—we went to the courthouse last year. Married in secret. I wanted to tell you, but I couldn’t. How would I explain myself?” The pink in her cheeks is embarrassment and excitement. The glass over her eyes sorrow and wonder.
What does this mean? Isabeau. And Haman. I cup my hand over my mouth. He meant his promise. He’s going to try to take Mom’s baby.
