Page 140 of A Tale of Ice and Ash
“Mother, don’t do this!” he screeched. “I will never forgive you if you do this.”
Bianca’s face softened, only for a moment. “Don’t worry, dearest. Once the Mirror has imbibed her heart, he’ll make it so we’ll live forever. You can’t be angry at me forever. You’ll forgive me eventually.”
“Not after this,” he said. “If you kill her, I will never,everforgive you. I don’t want to live forever. I don’t want to live at all without her.”
She sighed, patting his cheek. “My poor, sweet boy. Love isn’t forever. It’s foolish to rely on it. Sooner or later, she’ll break your heart. It’s best to get it over with.”
“She can have my heart,” said Cole, glancing up at Eirwen.She can have everything I have. Everything I am,his look seemed to suggest. “But right now, you’re the one breaking it.”
Bianca shook her head, but something flickered in her eyes. “You’ll forgive me,” she insisted. She repeated the words, almost like a mantra, and the guards dragged Eirwen towards the coffin.
This could not be happening. This could not be it. Her eyes scanned about the room, searching for something, anything, that would delay this. Something she could use as a weapon if she could just get free–
But she could not.
And no one was coming.
“No.” She struggled against her bonds. She was not going gently, quietly, like a good little girl. She was going to fight until the last moment, despite the iron-like grips around her arms, the shackles on her wrists.
“Eirwen!” Cole’s voice was wretched. “Eirwen,no!”
She cried back, straining against the guards, bound hands reaching for him and he surged against his chains.“Cole!Cole, I’m sorry!”
There was more, there was so much more, so much more they didn’t have time for–
Hinges squeaked open. Her legs were lifted from under her. She kept squirming, kept kicking, kept moving. She didn’t, not for one moment, ever give up, even as her limbs were squeezed inside and the lid fastened over.
Something rose at the foot of the coffin, a faint, white mist. Ice shot up the glass. Dense, cold pain clawed at every inch of her. It was like being plunged under ice, a cold so intense it felt like fire.
She punched the pane dividing her from the world, from home, from Cole and safety and anything good, and kept screaming his name until sensation finally dribbled away.
∞∞∞
She woke in a field of white, devoid of feeling. There was no pain, no numbness, nothing. Just a bright, endless, unyielding white plain.
Am I dreaming?
She touched her body, praying for sensation.
Am I dead?
“Well, this is interesting.” A face appeared before her, paper-white with black, empty eyes. As she focused, a shape formed from the mist, a pale and indistinct body to match the head.
“You… you’re Janus,” she whispered.
The face smiled. “It is good to hear that name uttered again, and with such reverence. I was beginning to think I had faded out of history entirely. But no matter. Soon I will be free of this prison… thanks to you.”
“Prison?” Eirwen stood up sharply, amazed her legs could support her in this place of nothing. “Are we… inside the mirror?”
“In a manner of speaking. I wasn’t expecting to see you here as I sucked the life from you…” He raised a long, smoky finger to her cheek, sighing as it made contact. “I knew forcing you to touch the sun stone was the right decision.”
“What?” Coldness gripped her insides. “No, there’s no way–”
“The shades answered to Jasper,” Janus crooned. “And Jasper answered to me. The minute I knew you had gone Under the Mountain with the prince, when I heard you speak to that dwarf about resurrecting the sun stone… I knew I could trick you into using your own blood, that it would fuel your pure heart rather than destroy it.”
“But… but I made that decision myself!”
“Of course you did. As I knew you would. Once I took out the dwarf. Once you were trapped in that room. When it looked like the only way you could save that boy–”
