Page 33 of Lightlark
If she failed, this was where she would return. She would live out the rest of her short, cursed, powerless, mortal life hidden away again. The realm would need a better heir for the next Centennial, so she would be forced to have a child.
She would continue to be sheltered.
One book from the library at a time.
Visits to her people from a distance, if at all.
Choices made for her by Wildlings who knew better, who knew more than just these glass walls.
Secret travels with her starstick.
Not even training, because there would be nothing left to trainfor.
Forests and people that would continue to die, flowers that would become extinct, Wildlings forced to kill for survival, unable to ever fall in love, turning them more and more into the beasts the rest of the realms believed them to be.
No.
She couldn’t bear a life like that.
Lightlark was dangerous but full of wonders. Now that she had tasted freedom, she couldn’t be locked in her glass box again and be content.
She wanted more than she had ever wanted in her life.
Isla watched herself reflected in the glass windows before her. As if spurred by her thoughts, her reflection began to move of its own free will.
She watched as it paced around the room. Lay in bed. Read a single book. Again. Again. Again. The reflection sped up, her movements a blur, and the days passed by too quickly, like time had tripped over itself, again, again, again. This time, instead of reading the book, her reflection tore its pages out. Banged on the windows instead of staring out of them. Pulled at her hair instead of braiding it. Forced back the floorboards, one by one, searching for something, fingers bleeding. Her starstick?Had her guardians found and gotten rid of her starstick?Years seemed to flip by in seconds, and eventually the reflection stood still in the middle of the room as time continued to pass her by, her body weakening, hair falling out, her soul scooped out of her chest. Her eyes had gone lifeless.
She couldn’t see herself like this. Empty. All the best parts of herself stripped away. Isla reached a hand out to touch her reflection, to comfort it—
And suddenly, she was looking back at her own self.
Her heart was beating too quickly.
Was that her fate, should she fail? Was that what she was destined to become? A hull of herself?
A prisoner?
Something lurched, screeching—
The room became smaller.
Isla startled, moving closer to its center. Somehow, the walls had moved, the floor had been eaten up.
Smaller.
The glass rattled as it shrank. Perfumes fell from her vanity and smashed against the tile, her leftover makeup soon joining them, blots of color bleeding, bright powders making plumes of dust.
Smaller.
Isla’s heartbeat rang through her ears in warning; her fingers shook, and sweat dripped down her forehead. The room was going to swallow her whole, press its glass against her skin, make her and her reflection one and the same.
Smaller.
The ceiling concaved, nearly skewering her in place. The walls folded together, getting smaller, smaller, smaller.
Her bed was gone, her things were mangled in the mess, and the room was getting smaller still, shrinking all around her.
This was her fate. The reflection had told it to her.
