Page 45 of A Taste of Silver
We stopped at a grove where the trees formed a natural amphitheater. At its heart grew a cluster unlike the others, flowers that pulsed in rhythm with my heartbeat, their silver tinged with violet at the edges.
My memories. My lost pieces.
The fox sat, his posture conveying patience and warning in equal measure.
The first flower called to me, smaller than the others, its petals barely formed. I knelt beside it, my hand trembling as I reached out.
I touched the petal.
Silver fire erupted between my small fingers, alive but not hot. I was three again, and my mother's hands were guiding mine. "Gently, little star," my mother's voice, real as yesterday. "Power without control is merely destruction." A butterfly of flame landed on my nose. I giggled.
The memory settled into place with an almost audible click, filling a gap I hadn't known existed. The silver marks on my arm brightened, spreading another inch toward my elbow.
The second flower bloomed larger, its light steadier.
Four years old. The glass of my bedroom mirror parted like water. I stepped through into a corridor of infinite reflections. Each showed a different version of myself, older, younger, a me that might have been. I walked between them without fear. My mother's voice guided me back. "Remember, sweet one, every mirror is a door. But not every door should be opened."
The memory integrated, bringing with it understanding of how I'd navigated the palace's hidden passages so easily. My body remembered what my mind had forgotten.
The third flower pulsed with my mother's presence.
Six years old. I sat in the Binding Chamber. My mother drew complex diagrams in the air with silver light. "Power is not a gift, Aurea. It is a responsibility. We guard the boundaries not because we must, but because we can. Because if we don't, who will?" My mother's eyes were sad, seeing futures I couldn't yet imagine.
Fresh tears tracked down my cheeks. My mother had tried to prepare me, even then. Had known what was coming.
At the cluster's heart grew a flower different from the others. Its petals were perfectly formed, almost too beautiful to be real. The memory it contained felt heavier than the others, dense with significance.
I reached for it.
The garden,thisgarden, but more solid, more real. I was six, wandering the paths. The flowers sang to me, sharing their secrets.
A boy sat by a pool that reflected stars from no sky I knew. His hair caught light that didn't exist, silver strands that moved like living things. He looked up. His eyes, which were as dark as winter nights but rimmed with starlight, widened.
"You can see me," he said, wonder in his voice.
"Of course I can see you." I plopped down beside him. "You're right there."
"But I'm... not all here," he said, his edges blurring when I looked too hard. "A curse. People from your world aren't supposed to see me."
"That's stupid." I dipped my fingers in the pool. Ripples spread into words I somehow understood. "You're my friend now. Friends see each other."
The boy stared at me with an expression I was too young to recognize as desperate hope. "Friends?"
"Best friends," I declared. "I'm Aurea. What's your name?"
"Silvyr." He said it carefully, like he wasn't used to speaking it aloud.
"Why are you cursed?"
His shoulders hunched. "I tried to cross between worlds without permission. The punishment is to exist in neither fully. I can take form here, in the Garden, but nowhere else. In mirrors, I'm just..." He shuddered. "I'm something else."
I considered this with the seriousness of a child confronting injustice. "That's not fair."
"The Mirror Realm doesn't concern itself with fairness."
"Then I'll fix it." I stood, brushing imaginary dust from my dress. "When I'm grown, I'll break every mirror in the world if that's what it takes to free you."
Silvyr's eyes went wide. "You can't say things like that here. Words have power in the Garden. Promises especially?—"
