Page 37 of A Taste of Silver
"Behind me." His voice carried a commanding tone I'd never heard before.
"I can fight?—"
"I know." He caught a wraith mid-lunge, silver flames dancing along his arms. "Fight with me, not alone."
I pressed against his back, feeling solid muscle and heat that shouldn't exist. We moved as one unit, rotating to face each new threat. My silver blood, his silver fire. Light and heat against shadow and cold.
A wraith slipped past his guard. I caught it, actually caught it, my bloodied hands finding purchase on its smoky form. The silver in my blood made it solid enough to grab, solid enough to tear. I ripped it in half, the pieces dissolving before they hit the floor.
"The reflections," Silvyr gasped, shoving a wraith back with a burst of silver fire. "Their own reflections, they hate them! Turn one! Make it look at another!"
I understood instantly. Mirrors reflecting mirrors, infinite recursion, infinite trap. I broke from his back, diving toward the nearest covered frame. My bloody hands gripped the heavy glass, muscles straining as I wrenched it around.
A wraith lunged for my exposed back. Silvyr's hand closed on my shoulder, yanking me aside as his other hand painted silver fire through the air. The wraith hit the flame barrier and shrieked into nothing.
His fingers closed on my shoulder. The touch was a shock, a deep, biting cold that felt like touching a winter star, yet a fierce heat bloomed beneath it, a core of impossible life that made my marks sing.
Another mirror turned. Another. We worked in tandem now, him defending while I repositioned the ancient glass. The wraiths caught between reflecting surfaces screamed as they were pulled into infinite regression, trapped in their own reflections.
The last wraith dissolved. Silence fell like a hammer.
Silvyr's knees buckled.
I caught him as he fell, my arms wrapping around his chest. The weight of him, actual weight, actual substance, nearly took us both to the floor. I guided our descent, my muscles straining against his dead weight until we were a heap on the stone floor.
"Too much." His voice came out raw. "Manifestation without anchor... burns through essence."
"You're fading."
"Not fading." He lifted a trembling hand to my face, fingers ghosting along my jaw. "Just... returning. Can't hold this form without?—"
His fingers were translucent at the tips. I could see through them to my own skin beneath. The dissolution crept up toward his palms.
"No." I pressed my hand over his, trapping it against my cheek. "Stay."
"Aurea—"
The contact between us sparked. Not silver fire this time, something else. Memory given form, flooding through the touch. I saw myself as a young woman, standing in a garden made of glass and moonlight. Saw myself cutting my palm, letting silver blood pool in a crystal bowl. Saw Silvyr, young, desperate, appearing in his human form, matching the gesture.
"This binding will chain you," he said in the memory.
"No." My younger self smiled, fierce and certain. "It will free us both."
I dipped my fingers in the mingled blood, began drawing symbols in the air that hung like silver smoke. "I'm not trying to bind you to me or me to you. I'm trying to bind us together. One soul in two bodies. One existence across two realms."
"That's impossible?—"
"Everything's impossible until someone does it." I pressed my bloodied palm to his chest, directly over his heart. "Trust me."
The memory shattered. I was back in the hall, holding Silvyr as he dissolved in my arms. But now I understood. The ritual hadn't been about imprisonment or even freedom.
It had been about unity. Complete, permanent fusion of souls.
"I wasn't trying to bind you." The words tumbled out, tasting of truth and silver. "I was trying to bind us together. Forever."
His eyes widened, those impossible black-star eyes. "You remember."
"Fragments. Pieces." I pressed harder against his fading hand. "Enough to know I loved you beyond reason. Enough to know I would have broken reality itself to keep you."
