Page 13 of A Taste of Silver
"Silvyr."
CHAPTER SIX
Chapter 6
Aurea
The walk back to the apothecary stretched through empty streets, each step echoing against shuttered windows. Snow fell in thick curtains, erasing footprints as soon as I made them. The silver markings on my arm pulsed beneath my sleeve, a heartbeat of light that had nothing to do with my actual pulse.
The name still burned on my tongue. Silvyr. Speaking it had changed something fundamental, like breaking a seal on a door I hadn't known existed.
The apothecary's crooked chimney appeared through the snow. No smoke rose from it. The hearth would be dead by now, the protective wards grown cold. I pushed through the garden gate, its squeal muffled by the blanket of white covering everything.
The front door stood open.
I froze. I never left it unlatched. Neither would Melora.
Light spilled from within—not the warm glow of candles but something sharper, more ethereal. The light of another world.
I pushed the door wider.
Every mirror in the shop stood uncovered.
The old standing mirror from the back room. The small hand glass Melora used for checking tincture clarity. Even the polished copper pans hanging from their hooks, anything that could hold a reflection had been stripped of its protective cloth.
And none of them showed the apothecary.
The standing mirror reflected a garden of crystal roses. The hand glass showed a corridor lined with portraits I'd never seen. The copper pans held fragments of starlight, of serpent scales, of a boy's brown eyes shifting to black.
I moved through the chaos, my marked hand tingling with each reflection I passed. As I passed, the mirrors stirred, their surfaces rippling like disturbed water. In one, I glimpsed myself as a child, laughing. In another, older, weeping. In a third?—
"No."
Melora's voice cracked through the shop. She stood in the doorway to the back room, still in her nightgown with a heavy cloak thrown over it. The warmth fled Melora's face, leaving it the bloodless, fragile color of a pressed flower, her eyes stark and dark within the sudden pallor.
"Step away from them, Aurea. Now."
"They uncovered themselves." I turned slowly, taking in Melora's wild eyes, the way my mentor's hands shook as she grabbed for the nearest cloth. "I didn't?—"
"It doesn't matter." Melora rushed to the standing mirror, fighting to throw a sheet over it. The fabric wouldn't stay. It slid off like water, pooling at the mirror's base. "Help me. We need to cover them before?—"
"Before what?" I caught Melora's wrist as she reached for another cloth. "Before I see what they're showing me?"
Melora's gaze dropped to where I held her. To the silver markings visible through the torn sleeve, spiraling up from palm to elbow in patterns that looked almost like writing.
The cloth slipped from Melora's fingers.
"Oh, child." The words came out broken. "What have you done?"
"What have I—" I released her, stepping back. "What have I done? You're the one who's been lying to me. All of you."
"To protect you."
"From what? From who I am?" I thrust my marked arm forward. "Look at this. Really look. This isn't something new, it's something that was always there, waiting."
Melora's shoulders sagged. She moved to the workshop table, sinking onto the bench as if the strength had been siphoned from her limbs. For a long moment, she simply stared at the swirling patterns on my skin.
"I mixed silver dust into the leather of your gloves." Her voice came out hollow. "Moonshade root. Forget-me-vine. Seventeen other herbs that suppress magical resonance. Changed the mixture every season to keep it strong."
