Page 36 of Wicked Prince of Mirrors
Lyra dropped her bedroll on the ground, followed by her sack. “Anyone hungry? Father, is a fire wise?”
“A fire is mandatory, while it is a beacon to our position it will keep the predators away, that and the wards.” Holding out his staff, he walked away from us and started chanting, pausing at intervals to raise and lower his staff.
I watched him, a frown on my forehead.
“He’s setting the wards of protection,” Lyra explained, patting down the grass.
I joined her, helping to make space for a fire.
Methrin did not participate, instead he faced the forest, an unnatural stillness coming over him. My eyes were drawn toward him again, watching him pace, like a predator stalking its prey. Even though I didn’t know him well, I was aware he was anxious, nervous about returning home. How long had it been since he’d been there? More importantly, why was he exiled?
“How do the wards work?” I asked Lyra, distracting myself from him.
“The wards are similar to what we had around thecastle,” she explained. “My father sets a magical circle which repels anyone or anything who tries to enter.”
“Like the wolves.” I looked up at the darkening sky. “What if something comes from above?”
“You need not worry,” Methrin said, folding his arms across his chest. “The beasts that live here are not a threat. They are curious, some, vicious, but they are not hungry hunters and we are not easy prey.”
I studied him. He still intimidated me yet I forced the words out of my mouth. “When will you teach me how to use Mirror Magic?”
He flinched but otherwise held my gaze. “Soon. It will be easier since we are no longer being hunted.”
I frowned. We hadn’t been hunted for days, not since arriving at the sorcerer’s castle. Yet he stood, arms folded around himself, shoulders slightly bent. And then there’d been that flinch of reluctance. He didn’t want to teach me Mirror Magic. Why?
Tucking that thought away I turned my attention back to the fire. It took me a few tries before it caught. As it licked through the grass, Lyra and I gathered sticks and bramble from the edges of the wood, feeding it.
Rydlin returned and we ate, warming our food over flickering flames. As darkness gathered, Rydlin sat in front of the fire, sharing tales of old. I lay back on the bedroll listening to the cadence of his voice, the rhyme of verse.
Again my gaze roamed to Methrin. He lay on his side, facing me but it was impossible to tell if he were watching me or sleeping.
Something flickered on the edges of my vision,shifting my focus to the forest. A shape moved so quickly it faded back into the darkness, but not before I caught a halo of red. A shiver went through me and I squeezed my eyes shut. Tight.
It was just my imagination. Nothing more.
But sleep would not come.
I lay on my back, hands resting on my stomach, head cradled by the bedroll. The sky was ablaze with the crystal light of stars, far away in the darkness like a sea of diamonds. I wanted to reach up and drag my fingers through them, watch them scatter and resettle into new constellations. I kept my gaze above while thethump thumpof my heart steadied, and my thoughts drifted to my mother.
What had happened to her? If she had magic, I must have gained mine from her bloodline, although why it manifested so late in life, I wasn’t sure. If she had Mirror Magic, it would explain her disappearance, yet more questions lingered. Why would she walk in the wood with me, and offer her soul to a shadow? Perhaps the very monster that had been unleashed from the mirrorverse? Did my father know about her magic and demand her execution? Or did the Captain of the Venators have something to do with her disappearance?
I wanted the truth, all of it, no matter how desperate and ugly it might be. However, answers would be impossible to get once I left my kingdom for Methrin’s, a place where mortals did not dwell. I’d be walking away from answers, but how would I gain the truth about my mother without confronting my father, or the Captain of the Venators?
A cry had me sitting upright, flinching as I stared at the forest. Rydlin sat by the fire, poking it with a stick, humming under his breath. Lyra lay close to me, still, as though she did not fear what might come in the night or hunt among shadows.
Arough, wet tongue licked my cheek and I opened my eyes to daylight, then scrambling off my bedroll, a shriek on my lips.
A lizard-like creature the size of my hand scrambled away from me, hissing as it ran.
Lyra burst into laughter.
I glared at her, wiping at my face. “What was that?”
I hadn’t seen those creatures in my book of beasts.
“They are harmless.” Lyra giggled, rolling up her bedroll. “A nuisance, but they won’t harm us.”
More of the tiny creatures scattered away from the ash of the fire, chirping as they went. A shiver of revulsion went through me and I stood, snatching at my bag. One hopped out of it, hissing.
