Page 94 of Mountain of Mirrors and Starlight
Jasper blinked at him for a long moment before breaking into a polite smile. “Of course!” he said. “Come this way. We’ll find space for you in the stables.”
Dillon followed, glancing backwards only once. His gaze lingered a little longer on Luna.
“He’ll befine,” Minerva insisted. “Jasper’s a good chap.”
The cat slunk off after them, ignoring Beau’s pouts of ‘traitor.’
“Come on,” Bell insisted. “Not long now.”
Aislinn followed the others through the great steel gates. As she passed the threshold, a brief, sharp coldness washed over her, like someone had torn off a layer of clothing. Beau gave a long, hard shudder, staring at his fingers. He shook them like he was trying to summon fire.
“Odd,” he said. “I didn’t think I’d miss it.”
Aislinn’s eyes shied towards Caer, to the hand dangling at his side. “I don’t,” she whispered.
Beau jogged up to Bell’s side, ignoring Aislinn’s remark and the direction of her gaze. “How can you repel magicwithoutmagic?” he asked.
“The walls around the palace are lined with crystal,” Bell explained. “Dampens magical power. Place enough close together, and it creates a shield. Very valuable stuff.”
“Fascinating. Do you think…”
Beau’s voice trailed off, or perhaps all sound had. Everything seemed to have narrowed to the slow swing of Caer’s hand.
I could take it,Aislinn realised.I could slip my own into his, right now. Nothing would happen.
But suddenly the touching of hands seemed too extreme, too monumental, and there were so many people around—
The guards stopped shortly ahead of them, and Aislinn realised they’d reached the entrance to the throne room. Two dwarves in gold guarded the entrance, halberds crossed. They unlocked their weapons as the others approached, and the guards lining the corridor performed something like a dance, a clashing of steel and stomping of feet.
“Hail, Minerva Mountain-Cast, Sister to the Queen!”
“Hail!” the rest responded.
They parted in a solid, swift moment, their bodies clapping back into position.
The throne room opened before them.
Like the rest of the city, it was made of finely cut stone, but painted bronze and red. A tiled floor gleamed like molten gold. At the end of the room stood a shining throne, stretching to the enormous ceiling, and upon it sat a woman in blue and purple, a long panelled train running down the steps in the pattern of stained glass. She wore her silver-brown hair in elaborate braids, the huge spikes of her crown woven through it, framed by a large ruff stitched to her collar.
“Hail, her Great Majesty, Queen Venus, Monarch-Under-The-Mountain.”
When she rose to her feet, everyone sank into a bow—including Aislinn. It was automatic. Overwhelming.
The queen’s shadow sank closer.
“Arise, sister,” she beckoned.
Aislinn looked up into the face of Queen Venus, and her stomach dropped.
The dwarven queen was Minerva’s twin.
QueenVenuswasanexact, polished version of Minerva, her creases smoothed by impeccable cosmetics, her lips red and full, her brows coloured, her thick, glossy hair wound and braided. Minerva was a stone cut from the earth, Venus the sparkling gem.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, Aislinn had assumed the two must have had decades between them, even a century. She thought there must be a huge gap between them to have aided whatever chasm existed there now… because she could not imagine leaving Beau, could not imagine anything he could ever do that would not have her forgiving him eventually.
And Beau was just her brother. But a twin…
“Arise, sister,” Venus repeated, “did you not hear?”
