Page 38 of A Taste of Silver
"You nearly did." His form solidified slightly, drawing strength from my touch. "The binding failed because we were too young, too eager. The magic turned inward, would have consumed you. I had to?—"
"I know." I did know, suddenly and completely. "You took my memories to break the binding. To save me."
"I'm sorry?—"
"Don't." I shifted, pulling him closer. His head rested against my chest now, my arms wrapped around him as if I could hold him together through will alone. "We were children playing with forces beyond our understanding. You saved my life."
"I lost you anyway."
"No." I pressed my lips to his silver hair, tasting moonlight and memory. "You kept me safe until I was strong enough to find you again."
He shuddered in my arms. The dissolution slowed but didn't stop. His edges blurred, reality losing its grip on him.
"The garden," he whispered against my throat. "When you're ready, find the garden where we began. It's still there, waiting."
"Silvyr—"
"Remember what you intended." His hand found mine, fingers interlacing despite their translucence. "Not binding. Unity. Remember that when?—"
He dissolved. One moment solid, the next... gone. I knelt alone on the cold stone, arms empty, skin still burning from his touch.
The hall stood silent. The wraiths were gone. The mirrors reflected only darkness and my own kneeling form. But something had changed in me, in the magic singing through my blood, in the very air around me.
I pushed to my feet, nightgown torn and bloodied, silver still dripping from my palm. The wound had already begun to close,knitting together with unnatural speed. I looked at my mother's portrait one last time.
"I understand now," I told those painted silver eyes. "What you tried to do. What you died trying to protect."
The portrait seemed to shift in the lamplight, approval in those familiar features. Or perhaps that was hope making me see things.
I made my way back through the corridors, each step careful and silent. The guard came up the stairs to check on my door just as I slipped inside, the paper sliver still holding the latch open. I removed it, letting the door close properly, then collapsed onto the too-soft bed.
My marks had gone quiet. The silver blood had dried to faint luminescence on my skin. But inside, in the space where my soul resided, something had fundamentally shifted.
I hadn't tried to bind Silvyr. I'd tried to become one with him.
And somehow, despite the failed ritual and lost memories, part of me suspected I'd succeeded.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Chapter 15
Aurea
A guard's sharp knock had dragged me from a fitful, dreamless sleep. A voice boomed through the thick wood, telling me I had a few minutes to dress. Now, standing before the advisory chamber doors, the exhaustion was a physical weight. The wood was carved with battles and harvests, a history scrubbed clean of everything I was.
I pressed my palms flat against it. Beneath my gloves, my silver marks answered the pressure with a faint, silver pulse. I am here. We are here. The memory of Silvyr's fading touch was a fresh burn.
The doors swung inward without a sound.
Twelve faces snapped toward me. They sat at a crescent table like vultures waiting for a verdict. In the center, Prince Aldric sat, his circlet glinting in the light, a cold metal, like a sliver of morning light in the dead of winter. To his right, Magister Drell was a hunched shadow over his books, silver glasses perched on his nose. To his left, Lord Vex leaned back in his chair, but hisknuckles were white where his hand gripped his sword hilt, a study in feigned relaxation.
"Aurea Miren Solis," Prince Aldric said, his voice filling the chamber, each syllable weighted with authority. "Approach."
My footsteps echoed on the polished floor, the only sound in the vaulted space. The air was thick with the scent of old parchment and beeswax. Beneath it, something sharp and metallic pricked my nose, the smell of fear. It rolled off the council in waves.
Tapestries covered every wall where mirrors might have hung, their threads depicting a history so clean it was a lie. No reflective surfaces anywhere, not even in the dull pewter of the water pitchers. The only thing that could potentially hold a reflection was the Prince’s crown, but to see a reflection was to look at the Prince directly. It was a challenge I realized.
I stopped at the designated mark on the floor, a silver circle inlaid in the stone. My boots hit the silver, and a surprising warmth shot up through the soles, a hum of dormant magic that made the marks on my arms answer with a faint thrum of their own.
