Page 65 of A Taste of Silver
I dipped the quill again, but my hand trembled. The weight of what we were attempting, rewriting the fundamental laws of existence, pressed down like ocean depths.
Then Silvyr began to sing. Not just hum but truly sing, his voice carrying harmonics that shouldn't exist. The unfinished opera he'd written in the margins came alive, and suddenly I understood.
He hadn't been writing about us. He'd been writing us into existence. Every verse a thread connecting past to present, dream to reality, what was lost to what could be found.
My hand moved without conscious thought, adding to his opera:
*Time is a circle, not a line,
Memory a door that swings both ways,
What was broken can be whole,
What was separate can be joined,
Not through breaking, not through binding,
But through choosing, again and again and again.*
The theatre filled with music, not just ours but echoes of every Queen who'd contributed to the songbook. Their voices rose in harmony, each adding their piece to what was becoming less of a song and more of a spell.
But it still wasn't complete. Something was missing. Some essential element that would transform pretty words into world-changing truth.
Through the walls, I saw the Crimson One approaching through the Garden. Not hunting anymore but drawn, pulled by the power we were weaving. His hunger had a different quality now, not just consumption but desperate need.
He'd heard our incomplete song and knew what it could become.
And he wanted to be part of it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Chapter 23
Aurea
The theatre walls erupted with movement, reality itself seeming to buckle and tear like fabric under impossible strain.
Wraiths poured through the jagged cracks where Aldric's binding circle had fractured the boundaries between worlds. Cracks that had made their way even to our theater. They emerged as smoke given malicious form, shadow-creatures with too many teeth that gleamed like obsidian shards and fingers that bent at angles that hurt to look at directly. Their voices scraped against my mind like broken glass dragged across stone, each whisper a promise of madness. The air grew thick with their presence, choking and cold, carrying the stench of forgotten graves and bitter tears.
"Back to back!" Silvyr's command cut through the chaos like a blade through silk.
I spun without hesitation, pressing my spine against his. The solid warmth of him, more real here in this fractured space than he'd ever been in the mortal realm or in my dreams, steadied my racing pulse and calmed the tremor in my hands. Throughour connection, I felt his serpent-nature coiling beneath human skin, ancient power ready to strike with deadly precision. His breathing matched mine, deep and controlled, as if we'd practiced this dance a thousand times before.
The first wraith lunged with claws extended like black lightning. I raised my voice in the ghost-melody, but this time I added harmonics I'd never tried before, notes that seemed to pull themselves from the air itself. The sound became visible, manifesting as threads of silver light that tangled the creature's smoky form like ethereal rope. Silvyr's voice joined mine without missing a beat, his deeper tones creating a bass foundation that made my higher notes soar and spiral with newfound power.
We moved as one entity split into two forms. When I stepped left, he pivoted right with fluid grace. When he ducked low, I leapt high, our bodies creating a perfect counterbalance. Our song became choreography, each note a strike that landed with supernatural force, each rest a dodge that saved us from claws that could rend soul from flesh. The wraiths circled us like hungry wolves, their forms rippling with frustration as our duet denied them purchase on our reality.
"The mirrors!" Silvyr's voice never broke from the melody, the words woven seamlessly into our battle-song. "Use them against themselves!"
Two hand mirrors materialized in my palms, pulled from memory or possibility, I couldn't tell which anymore, and perhaps it didn't matter. Their surfaces gleamed with inner light that seemed to pulse in rhythm with my heartbeat, reflecting nothing until I angled them with precise intention.
A wraith rushed forward, its form writhing like liquid shadow given murderous purpose. I caught its image in the left mirror, watching its essence become trapped in silvered glass, then turned it with careful precision so that the left mirror reflected into the right mirror. The creature froze mid-lunge, itsessence caught between infinite versions of itself, each reflection creating another prison within a prison. The mirrors hummed with strain but held firm, their surfaces growing warm against my palms.
"Recursion." The word tasted like revelation on my tongue, sweet and sharp. The idea coming from a memory I had been made to forget who knew how long ago, and yet it bubbled to the surface now, giving us a fighting chance. "Mirror against mirror creates an infinite corridor with no escape."
More wraiths pressed in from all sides, their numbers seeming to multiply in the fractured light. Our song grew more complex, incorporating fragments of the Queens' ancient wisdom and pieces of Silvyr's unfinished opera. Each verse we sang together strengthened the reality around us, making the theatre more solid, more defensible against the chaos trying to tear it apart. The walls grew brighter, more real, as if our music was painting them back into existence.
I trapped another wraith between mirrors, then another, my movements becoming more confident with each success. The recursive corridors multiplied around us, creating a crystalline labyrinth of reflected shadows that couldn't escape their own images. But I could feel the strain. Ordinary glass wouldn't hold them long. Already, hairline cracks spider-webbed across the surfaces like frost on winter windows.
