Page 35 of A Taste of Silver
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Chapter 14
Aurea
Of course the Crown had declined to see me as soon as I had arrived and instead I’d been shuttled off to a waiting room of sorts. One with a bed. One that felt more like a prison cell.
It didn’t help that the palace bed was too soft. Every shift made me sink deeper into feathers and silk, the luxury suffocating after years of thin mattresses and rough wool. I'd kicked off the coverlet an hour ago. Now I lay rigid in the palace-provided nightgown, shadow-silk gloves tight against my burning marks.
Footsteps echoed in the corridor. Regular. Measured. The third patrol since midnight.
I counted the guard's paces. Twenty-seven from the far stairwell to my door. A pause, checking the seal they'd placed there, no doubt. Then twenty-seven more to the opposite stairwell. The pattern hadn't varied in three hours.
The marks pulsed harder. Silver lines of heat crawled up my arms despite the gloves' suppression. Something in the palace called to me, a resonance that made my teeth ache and myvision blur at the edges. Not Silvyr's presence. Something older. Heavier. Like recognition stirring in my bones.
Twenty-seven steps had passed. I held my breath as the guard paused at the door.
Twenty-seven steps away.
I waited another full rotation to be certain, then slipped from the bed. My bare feet met stone cold enough to steal feeling, but shoes would echo. The nightgown whispered against my legs as I moved to the door. No locks on this side, guests didn't need them, after all. Just the wax seal outside that would break if the door opened.
Unless the door never fully closed in the first place.
I'd wedged a sliver of paper in the jamb hours ago, invisible in the shadows but enough to prevent the latch from catching. The door opened on silent hinges. The corridor stretched empty in both directions, lit by oil lamps that threw more shadow than light.
The seal remained intact on the outside, an illusion of compliance.
Left led to the main thoroughfare. Right disappeared into older architecture, where the palace's polished facade gave way to raw stone and ancient ambition. The air to the right grew thin, vibrating with a low hum that resonated in my teeth. It was a dissonant chord in the palace's silence, and my marks burned in answer, urging me toward it.
The corridor narrowed. Tapestries covered the walls here, their patterns indistinct in the dimness. No windows. No doors for fifty paces. Then an archway, wider than the rest, with symbols carved into the lintel that hurt to look at directly.
Through the arch, the space opened into something vast.
A name surfaced in my mind, unbidden, a whisper of memory that tasted of dust and old magic,The Hall of Covered Mirrors.
The ceiling vaulted up into darkness, supported by pillars that might have been marble or bone. Draped frames lined the walls, dozens of them, hundreds maybe, their coverings stirring in air that shouldn't exist. No windows here. No wind. Yet the black cloth rippled like water disturbed by something beneath.
Between the mirrors hung portraits.
The first one stopped me mid-step. A woman in royal regalia, crown bright against dark hair, but her eyes were as silver as moonlight, as silver as the marks beneath my gloves. The brass plate read,Queen Morwyn, Third of Her Line.
The next portrait was another queen, different features but the same eyes.Queen Selara, Fourth of Her Line.
And the next. And the next.
All queens. All Mirror Queens. All with eyes that belonged in my own skull.
My ancestors stretched along the wall, a legacy painted in silver and shadow. Some young, barely older than I was now. Others aged into sharp dignity. All watching me with those familiar eyes, as if they'd been waiting.
The pull intensified, drawing me deeper into the hall. My feet moved without conscious thought, past covered mirrors that whispered my name in voices like breaking glass, past portraits of women who shared my blood and my burden.
There. At the hall's heart.
The largest portrait dominated the far wall. A woman in her prime, beauty sharpened by intelligence and tempered by loss. Dark hair crowned with silver, not age but birthright. The same sharp cheekbones I saw in my own reflection. The same stubborn set to the jaw.
Queen Lyralei, Last of Her Line.
My mother.
