Page 108 of A Tale of Ice and Ash

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“Who’s this chap?”

Eirwen glanced towards the writing. “Janus, I think,” she said. “An old god. ‘The One with Many Faces.’”

“Do you believe in the old gods?”

Eirwen shrugged. “I’m not sure they were gods. Niamh said they were fairies that got too big for their boots. Onyx said they were more like demons. I think whatever they were, we’re better off without them.”

The panel next to Janus showed him eating what looked like a heart. In the following segment, a city was on fire. Faces screamed from the flames. Cole shuddered, silently agreeing with her.

She paused beside another image, one of a man eating a fruit and collapsing as though dead, only to be awakened by a kiss from a lover. Her mouth twitched slightly, and he wondered if she was thinking of what transpired between them. She studied the writing for some time.

“Snow?”

“Yes?”

“What do you think happened to this place?”

“What?”

“There must be a dozen underground towns like this one. There’s all sorts of rumours as to what happened to the great dwarven empire, but I’ve never known what to believe. What do you think?”

Eirwen shook her head. “I don’t know. Onyx never told me.”

“You think he knows?”

“I think he was there.”

“What?” Cole stilled. “But that was… how longdodwarves live for?”

“A few centuries,” Eirwen said. “How do you not know that?”

“We didn’t really have dwarves in Florin. I kind of assumed the rumours about their longevity were just, you know. Rumours.”

Eirwen sighed. “I think they can live for around six hundred years, and Onyx isold.Much older than his brother.”

“But why wouldn’t he tell you?”

“Well, exactly,” she said. “That’s why I’ve never pushed it.”

They carried on through the endless corridors until light faded into oblivion. Eirwen took out her sunstone, faintly illuminating the passages until pinpricks of light drifted into view once again.

Eventually, they came to the end of a long hall. Two broken doors led to a throne room, grander than any of the others Eirwen had ever seen. The ceilings were enormous, the murals still intact, and the marble was stained with blood, black and brown and very, very old.

At the end of the room on a raised platform, a giant throne was split in two, and by the foot of that throne sat a hunched figure, piecing together a thousand shards of glass into a frame.

“Onyx?”

The dwarf turned to face them, but quickly turned away. “It figures you’d come. I’m surprised my brother isn’t with you.”

“We got separated.”

Onyx sighed. “He really should have known better.”

“Onyx… what are you doing down here?” Eirwen crept closer. Onyx’s mirror was almost complete.

A tired breath shifted from him. “It’s not a short tale. Nor one I ever hoped to tell. But I suppose… I suppose there’s no hiding it any more.” He swallowed. “A thousand years ago, there lived a… creature. One of the old ones. A being of immense power. Too much power. He called himself a god. He waged a war against his fellows, and was eventually subdued. But there was not enough human in him to die. He could not be killed. So they took him and imprisoned him inside a mirror, and locked that mirror deep in the dwarven underground.

“A few centuries later, it was found by an ambitious prince, a great general by the name of Jasper. The Mirror whispered things in his ear, told him of the great things he could achieve if only he were king instead of his brother. The whisperings grew too great, and Jasper eventually had his brother secretly murdered, and took the crown for himself. For decades, he ruled happily. And, by all accounts, well. But then he started to change. He wanted more. He was afraid. His brother had left two sons, one of which had reached maturity long ago. What if he decidedhewanted the throne now?