Page 47 of A Taste of Silver
Then Vaen was walking away, his form already less solid. "The bargain is struck," he said to someone outside the memory's view. "My mortality for her memories. I'll guard the boundaries between realms. Just... keep her safe. Keep her human."
The black flower crumbled to ash in my hand.
A strangled cry tore from my throat. The ground lurched. Around me, flowers withered to ash and exploded back into bloom, a frantic, silent scream of silver light. The mirror-bark on the trees cracked, the sound like breaking bones.
Vaen. My brother had traded his humanity to save me from my own power. Had made himself into the thing I was meant to be, a guardian between realms, to spare me that fate. He hadn’t died while I tried to bring Silvyr through at all. How was everything so wrong?
A thought kept repeating over and over in my mind. He'd stolen my choice. Broken me into manageable pieces. Left me to stumble through life half-blind and helpless, dependent on the mercy of those who feared what I might become.
The betrayal tasted like copper and ash. The love behind it made it worse.
The fox pressed against my leg, a warm weight in the metaphysical cold of the Garden. His presence grounded me, kept me from flying apart entirely.
Around us, the Garden began to settle, though the flowers nearest to me remained agitated, their light flickering between silver and deeper purples. I could feel them, all the memories here, not just mine but thousands of others, each a fragment of someone's abandoned truth.
The black flower's ash swirled up from my palm, forming words in the air before dispersing: She can never know what we did.
But I knew now. The question was what to do with that knowledge.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Chapter 18
Aurea
The silver rose on my pillow pulsed like a severed star.
My eyes snapped open to the dark of my guest chambers, the ache of Vaen's betrayal a physical weight in my chest. The flower hadn't been there. I'd collapsed into bed, the Garden's truths chasing me into a restless sleep, and the pillow had been empty.
I sat up, the movement stiff. The rose's light was soft, warm, not the harsh burn of silverfire. Its petals were perfect crystal, but the stem bent under my fingers, the thorns sharp enough to prick my thumb. A bead of blood welled, gleaming silver in the strange light.
Impossible. Roses didn't grow in Virelda's winter. Silver roses didn't grow anywhere.
"You're awake."
Silvyr's voice came from the mirror across the room. I turned to find him there, more solid than I'd ever seen him in glass. The usual blur at his edges had sharpened. I could count individual strands of his silver hair, see the rise and fall of his chest as ifhe breathed. He was beyond handsome, he was beautiful, like a carving done by one of the great masters.
"The rose." My voice cracked from sleep and emotion. "How?—"
"Look at it. Really look."
I held the flower up to the pale light seeping through the window. The petals caught the illumination strangely, seeming to exist at two depths simultaneously. When I shifted my angle, I could see through them to another place, a garden where the same rose grew from silver soil.
"It's in both worlds." Wonder and dread tangled in my chest. "At the same time."
"The barriers are weakening." Silvyr's voice was closer, more real. He wasn't a reflection anymore; he was a presence filling the glass. "That promise you remembered, it wasn't just a memory. It was a key. Now the realms are bleeding through."
The rose in my grip grew warmer, a phantom pulse that echoed the beat of my own heart. A current traveled up my arm, making the silver marks under my nightgown tingle and burn. I could feel him.
"Show me."
His gaze held mine, the starlight in his eyes swirling with concern. "It's dangerous, Aurea. Pulling things across…"
"So is having my life decided for me." The words were acid on my tongue. My hands clenched, the rose's thorns digging into my palm. "Vaen already made his choice for me. This one is mine."
Silvyr's expression softened. He pressed his palm to his side of the mirror. "Watch."
Light gathered at his fingertips. Not the harsh silver of my fire, but something more complex. Threads of starlight and shadow woven together. He reached toward something I couldn't see, his face tightening with concentration.
