Page 16 of The Book of Legends
The memory of my aunt telling me how beautiful I was every time I stood in front of it. How I reminded her so much of my mother. “Beautiful,” she would say.
But that’s not what I see. I see the flaws everyone talks about. Soon, I won’t be able to see them, but I will know they’re there.
Nostalgia hits me like a train wreck, knowing I will soon lose the precious gift of sight. No one will be here to guide me. To help me wrap my dark hair in a messy bun. I won’t hear my aunt's voice or her laugh. All I will see is darkness. No need for large goofy glasses or caring if my clothes match. I won’t be able to see anything. All I will be able to hear are my flaws.
My reflection suddenly warps. A whisper slides through the air like a breath of wind.
Aen’viorr thra’zaal. Saorith. Saorith vior’el drakohal.
My blood turns to ice. Then to heat.
Aen’viorr thra’zaal. Saorith. Saorith vior’el drakohal.
The mirror shifts. I rub my eyes, hoping it’s a trick of the light. I push my glasses up my nose, but I swear—for a second, just a split second—it ripples. Like a lake rippling from a single drop of water.
When I blink, a gasp rips from my throat. The mirror boils. The ripple turns into a churning storm. Water brims to the surface, boiling like a pot on a hot stove. Then suddenly?—
Two large black hands burst out of the glass. Blackened fingers. Clawed nails reaching for me.
I try to scoot back, terror gripping me in its fist, seizing my lungs. I push myself with the bottoms of my shoes until my back hits the edge of my bed. I scramble to get up, but then?—
The hands grab my thighs hard, dragging me across the floor. Black vines snake over my legs, tangling me in their web.
The last thing I hear is my own scream before?—
Everything. Goes. Dark.
My eyes flutter open to a thudding sound. My hands feel something soft. Not grass, not dirt, but something grittier, finer. I blink rapidly, my vision adjusting behind the lenses perched on my nose. Everything looks normal. Maybe too normal. I push myself up, the weight of my thick glasses sliding down my nose. I adjust them with one finger. I raise my fingers to eye level and realize I’m covered in black soot. It clings to my skin like ink, seeping into the cracks of my palms.
I continue to push myself up on trembling arms, my knees sinking into ashen ground that shifts like burned sand. My breathing is ragged, uneven, and wrong. The air smells of charred wood, smoke, and something metallic beneath the glow of three moons in the sky. Which is not normal, because it almost looks like liquid. When have there ever been three moons in the sky?
Normally, with my glasses, there are some blurred shapes and mild distortion, but my vision isn’t straining at all.
And then, I see him.
A man—or something close to one—stands a few feet away. His obsidian eyes reflect no light, only black depths, swallowing the stars overhead as the sun dips slowly on the horizon. My gaze trails downward, following the carved planes of his bare chest, the lean muscle of his stomach until his form changes. My breath catches. Legs. No, hooves. Sleek, powerful, and covered in black fur like velvet.
I freeze when he tilts his head, his expression unreadable. “Are you lost?”
His voice is liquid silk, smooth yet heavy, like it’s meant to settle deep inside me.
What. The. Fuck.
I must be dreaming. I have to be.
“I—” I turn, and that’s when I see it.
A river flowing like the rapid, the color of blood. It’s moving, pulsing like a living thing, the rapids thick and crimson as they carve through the land, separating this dark, burned terrain from the other side where the ground is white as snow.
I whip my gaze back to the creature in front of me. “Where am I?”
His lips curl, not quite a smile, not quite a smirk. “Nithya,” he says, watching me closely. “The lost kingdom.”
A shiver rips through me.
This isn’t real. It can’t be. He studies me like he’s never seen something like me before. Maybe he hasn’t. “Do you have a name?” he asks, stepping closer.
“Selene,” I manage.
