Page 208 of Mountain of Mirrors and Starlight
Aislinn believed it. She’d seen it. She’d seen all that Gwyn saw in him now. But how could this be, when his body was so miniscule that a mere whisper of wind looked like it would carry him away?
Aislinn hovered over him, waiting for a miracle, for those eyes to open, for that mouth to cry.
But nothing happened.
There’s something wrong with your heart,Hawthorn had told him.
And suddenly, Aislinn understood why the ceremony hadn’t worked. She understood what was different about his heart. Why she hadn’t been able to give him a part of hers.
Because she already had.
Caerwyn had grown up with it. It had saved his life as a baby.
And condemned him too.
Because Aislinn was still radiating with the magic she’d taken from the mirror, buzzing with it, and she already knew, no matter how hard she tried, when she did what she was about to do, a part of it was going to latch onto Caer.
And the Mirror was going to want it back.
It lived beyond time and space. It bent the rules of life and death. Always in its history had she been supposed to come here, and take its power, and give it away.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. But there was no other choice.
The queen gasped. “Is there someone there?”
Aislinn mentally kicked herself. She had not thought to spell her voice. “Be not afraid,” she whispered back, “I am here to help. Your son will not die, Gwyn, I promise you. He will live. He will grow. He will be all that you want and more. So much more.”
She placed her hand to his still, silent chest. His body was so small, so frail. Her whole hand swamped it.Come on, Caer. Breathe for me.
Her own heart swelled in her chest, like a giant, monstrous thing. It banged like a drum, a beat calling for an answer. Aislinn thought of how Caer had described the pulse of other people, how hers lit up like a beacon. She imagined it like a physical thing she could dislodge, divide as easily as butter.
Light splayed from beneath her fingertips. An ache grew in her chest, so hard and hot she wanted to cry out. It was like someone cracking her ribcage in two.
But she did not let go. She would not stop.
Until Caer’s chest moved.
The light faded. Aislinn stared down at him. For a moment, all was still and quiet. He was still pale, still silent—
His lips blossomed bright red, the rest of his limbs turning plump and pink, and his mouth opened in a wide, toothless ‘o’.
He started to cry.
“Thank you,” Gwyn cried, clutching him to her chest, but then her attention turned fully to the child in her arms. “You are blessed, my darling boy, and blessed I shall name you.”
Cursed,Aislinn realised. She had cursed the man she loved, cursed him as an infant just so she could meet him.
I hope you don’t hate me for this,she whispered.
Aislinn was back inside the Mirror, back inside the void, missing the powers she’d taken—but it didn’t matter. Caer had her heart, and she his. She knew where to find him.
She fled through the fog until it rolled away, and a glass container appeared in the middle of nowhere. Smoky tendrils pulsed around it, still searching for an entrance; the Mirror had not yet taken his powers. Aislinn could still feel them shaking inside him. Whatever she’d sucked from the Mirror, it still remained inside Caer’s body, through the shapeless, limitless fog of time.
She knew he wanted his powers gone, but she also didn’t know where he began and they ended, didn’t know how to remove them without hurtinghim.
But it didn’t matter. With his powers or without, they would find a way to be together. She had not come this far to lose him now.
She lifted the lid, brushing the hair from his eyes.
