Page 212 of Mountain of Mirrors and Starlight
“Beau!” she screamed.
A black shape shot from the shadows in a blur of fur, straight into the face of a warrior.
“Hecate!”
Beau turned, spitting fire at the creature’s ankles as Hecate swiped at its face, shredding grey skin like slivers of paper. Aislinn skidded towards them, slicing the head off at the neck. Hecate sped off into the dark.
Beau stared at Aislinn. “You nearly got her tail.”
Aislinn groaned as she snapped her back against his. “Priorities, Beau.”
She decapitated another foe, Beau flinging out fistfuls of fire around them like whips. She’d lost sight of most of her family. This was a terrible position, blind, unsheltered. She could see so little of the vault or the throne room…
But she spied someone. A thin, bleeding person in white robes, scuttling away like a spider.
Aeron.
She remembered her vow. It pulsed inside her like a thread.
Aeron dragged himself across the debris, through the ruined vault, towards the stairs.
“Go,” said Beau, knowing exactly what she was thinking, “I’ll be fine.”
Aislinn nodded, wishing there was time to squeeze his hand, to utter some final word of wisdom or silly remark. But there was no time to do anything but trust him.
She raced after Aeron, into the throne room. Injured as he was, it wasn’t hard to catch up with him.
“Aeron!” she screamed.
He turned, launching a fireball in her direction, trying to crack the floor. His attacks were weak, desperate. One hand clutched his bleeding side. Aislinn fired back, stronger than ever, her flames infernos next to a candle.
Aeron dodged, rolling, staggering, still moving, crawling towards the balcony. He grasped hold of the baluster.
Aislinn cornered him. “What are you?” she asked. “How can you lie?”
Aeron snorted. “Idiot princess,” he laughed, “to have been fooled so easily. Yes, I am fae—but you never asked what else I was, too.”
Aislinn froze, realising what should have been obvious to her from the start. “You’re part mortal.”
Aeron grinned, his teeth bloody. “Don’t rub it in.”
“But I don’t understand. Why would you want to annihilate the fae—”
“Because you areweak,” he continued, “and misguided, and you have forgotten the old ways. I would have used the Mirror to remind you. I would have saved everything.”
“You’re mad.”
“I’mright,” he said. “Mark my words, Future-Queen-of-Faerie, you will come to regret your choices. The old ways are coming for you.”
Aislinn summoned a fireball in hand. “Then I’ll fight them, too.”
Aeron’s grin was frightening. “We’ll see.”
He tumbled over the edge.
Aislinn dived. Something cracked. She stared over the balcony, Aeron’s body smeared on the concrete below, surrounded by dozens of others. His eyes stared sightlessly at the crystal veined ceiling.
She stared at him for a long while, certain that he couldn’t be dead, that he wouldn’t have done this…
