Page 58 of A Taste of Silver
She pinned a silver rose into the braids, its crystal petals catching the morning light. The same impossible rose that had appeared on my pillow, now repurposed as an ornament. A bridge between worlds worn as decoration.
"The third time was only two weeks," Melora continued, her voice taking on the hollow quality of someone reciting a litany of sins. "You were ten. I'd gotten better at recognizing the signs, seeing the way you'd pause at puddles, how you'd trace patterns in condensation on windows. That time, you fought the forgetting. Tried to write yourself notes, hide reminders. I found them all, of course."
"Of course." Bitterness crept into my voice despite my exhaustion.
"The fourth lasted a single day. You were eleven, and you woke from a dream screaming his name with such anguish that I..." She paused, swallowing hard. "I mixed the dose stronger. Made sure the forgetting would take deeper root."
Each confession was another weight on my chest, another stolen piece of myself I'd never get back. "How long was the longest?"
"Five months, when you were thirteen." Melora's reflection in the vanity mirror looked haggard, haunted. "You were so happy those months. You'd learned to speak with him through dreams, learned to pull moonbloom petals through reflections. You were becoming who you were meant to be, and you glowed with it."
"What happened?"
"You tried to pull him through completely. I found you unconscious in front of the old mirror in the shop's attic, silver blood pooling beneath you, your marks spread all the way to your shoulders." Her fingers ghosted over my covered arms. "You nearly died. The binding between you was too strong, but your body was still too young to channel that much power."
"So you broke us apart again."
"I saved your life. Again." Melora stepped back, surveying her handiwork. My hair was an elaborate architecture of braids and pins, silver roses nestled throughout like stars in a night sky. "Each time got harder. The herbs had to be stronger, the spells more complex. Your body was building resistance, and your soul was fighting to remember what I kept taking away."
I stood, the violet dress whispering around me. In the mirror, I looked like what I was—something caught between worlds, mortal and not yet fully other. The mask they'd provided lay on the vanity, silver filigree worked into the shape of butterfly wings.
"The seventeenth time," I said. "How long did that one last?"
"You don't remember because it never fully took." Melora moved to the window, her back to me. "When you went to Lord Valtier's estate. The suppressions had stopped working completely. Your power, your memories, they were all rising to the surface despite everything I did to keep them buried."
"That's why you were so frightened when I came back."
"I knew it was over." She turned to face me, tears tracking down her weathered cheeks. "Knew I'd lost the battle I'd been fighting for years. You were going to remember everything, become everything, and there was nothing I could do to stop it."
"Would you?" I asked. "If you could do it again, would you make the same choices?"
Melora was quiet for a long moment, considering. "Yes," she said finally. "Because for years, you got to be just Aurea. Not a Mirror Queen, not a bridge between worlds, not someone's destiny or prophecy or curse. Just a girl learning herbs, complaining about difficult customers, dreaming normal dreams. That's what I gave you—a childhood, even if it was built on lies."
"A childhood where I always felt like something was missing."
"Better than no childhood at all." Melora picked up the mask, holding it out to me. "Your mother never got to just be Lyralei. From birth, she was the Mirror Queen's heir, then the Mirror Queen herself. Every moment of her life was duty and power and impossible choices. I watched it hollow her out until there was nothing left but purpose."
I took the mask, its weight heavier than silver and crystal should be. "And you thought I deserved better."
"I thought you deserved a choice." Melora's smile was sad but fond. "Even if I had to take a thousand other choices away to give you that one."
"That makes no sense."
"Love rarely does."
A knock at the door interrupted whatever response I might have made. "It's time, my lady," came a servant's voice.
I looked at myself one last time in the cracked mirror. Behind my reflection, I could just make out Silvyr's form, faint but present. He'd been listening to everything, I realized. Hearing the full scope of what had been done to us, for us, in the name of protection.
His eyes met mine through the glass, and I saw my own complicated mix of anger, grief, and reluctant understanding reflected in those star-filled depths.
"The masquerade," I said, fitting the mask over my face. "What's the Prince really planning?"
"I don't know." Melora adjusted the mask's ribbons, her fingers gentle against my hair. "But Aurea, be careful. The court has been dancing around the question of the Mirror Queens for generations. Now that you're here, openly bearing the bloodline, they'll have to make a choice."
"Crown me or kill me."
"Or bind you." Melora's expression darkened. "There are other ways to control power besides death. Marriage, magical contracts, oaths that can't be broken. The Prince is young, unmarried, and pragmatic enough to see the value in a controlled Mirror Queen."
