Page 64 of Wicked Prince of Mirrors
My shadow stepped forward.Silly princess. You can’t use Mirror Magic against us. We are magic, created from magic, it cannot harm us. We consume it, our strength relies on it. Give us more.
More?
I pressed my hands to my head which throbbed. A wail came out of my throat. “Get out of my head! Get out of my head!”
I sank to my knees, repeating the command, but the whispers grew louder and the shadows closed around me. Laughing and jeering.
23
ESMIRA
Iscreamed at the shadows until my throat was raw and cries came no more from my lips. Still they remained, haunting me. Sometimes they took various shapes as they stood over me, dressed in silver armor, horns coming out of their heads, swords glittering, mirrors reflecting. My bones ached, my head throbbed, my lips were dry and cracked. Yet I repeated the words like some dark mantra.Get out of my head.
But I had no standing with the shadows. I did not command their respect and somehow, in Astrahal, they were stronger than ever before. My mind did not belong to me. I could not think or even open my eyes without seeing them.
Periodically, there came glimmers of otherness, someone spooning broth into my mouth, whispering, “Eat.”
Occasionally a warm hand pressed to my forehead, but most of the time there was mist and shadow, ahorrible nothingness. This was what it meant to go mad, to lose my mind to the control of the shadows. To act yet not know if I were acting, what I was saying or doing. Nothing remained except the swirl of shadows.
Was this what it was like for Prince Methrin? The constant whispers that would not quiet? The need to lash out, but no one to strike?
Then came the sharp smell of incense, and I choked, emerging like one who’d been drowning.
I snapped awake, mind clear, the shadows gone. Around me was a sea of white clouds, and I floated within them. A female voice called out of the nothingness. “Esmira? Can you hear me?”
“Lyra?” I responded. “What happened? Where am I?”
“We don’t have much time,” Lyra said breathlessly. “They are coming. I’m using my magic on you, which is why you can hear me. You’ve lost yourself to the shadows, to Mirror Magic. They plan on taking you to the temple as a sacrifice to their new dark god, the Destroyer. When I release you from my magic, you have to fight it, you have to overcome.”
“Where’s Methrin?”
“He will try to save you, too, but understand, we’ve been captured. We’re in chains because they believe our magic is evil. They plan to sacrifice all of us, one by one.”
“We have to fight,” I protested, panic sweeping in.
“Yes, fight the shadow, overcome it Esmira. That’s all you have to do.”
“How?”
“You know how, just don’t give in, don’t let it ruleyou. You are in control and have always been in control of your magic.”
The clouds wavered and flashes of black light filtered through.
“But Lyra.” Tears rose thick in my throat and sobs threatened to burst out. “I don’t know how.”
“Command it. It is you and you are it, but you are the one in control.”
I should have asked sooner: How did Methrin split himself? How did he overcome the shadow?
“I have to go, Esmira, you can do this. You have the strongest magic I’ve ever seen.”
The white light parted as her calming presence vanished, and I was left alone. Darkness invaded my mind, but I sat upright, barely aware of the chains clanking around me. Sitting cross-legged, I reminded myself of Methrin’s lessons on control, on feeling the magic. The moment I sank into my consciousness, the voices whispered around me, demanding my attention. They were loud, insistent, hard to ignore. A common thread rose among them, one of hate, of violence, of failure and of death.
Impossibleto ignore.
I shifted my focus to Lyra, her kindness, her uncanny magic. She knew who I truly was, a princess with forbidden magic yet she embraced me, she helped me. I held onto the threads of magic she’d left behind. Her calmness lingered and the voices of the shadows lessened.
A thread of gold pulsed through me, and once again my thoughts shifted to the beautiful words Methrin hadshared with me. Just as I was discovering my feelings for him, he was also discovering his feelings for me.
