Page 49 of A Taste of Silver
Syra solidified slightly, her mismatched features almost smiling. "Because the tenth time might be different. Or because I'm a romantic fool. Or because watching you two pine through glass for another century would bore me to tears." She shrugged, the gesture rippling through every reflection. "Take your pick."
She vanished, leaving only ordinary reflections behind.
Silvyr remained in the main mirror, his expression thoughtful. "She's not wrong about the danger."
"I know." I returned to stand before him. "I don't care."
"You should care. If we destabilize reality?—"
"Reality stole my memories. My brother. My mother. My entire identity was sacrificed to preserve reality's precious rules." My silver fire flared, making the mirror's surface ripple. "Maybe it's time those rules changed."
"Aurea..."
"Touch me."
The words hung between us. Silvyr's eyes widened, the stars in them spinning faster.
"Not through objects. Not through magic. Just... touch me."
"That's not possible."
"Yesterday, a rose existing in two worlds wasn't possible." I pressed both palms to the glass. "Please."
He mirrored my position. Where our hands aligned, the mirror grew warm. Then hot. Then it stopped being a temperature at all and became a vibration that hummed straight through my bones.
"Push with me." His voice strained. "But if it becomes too much?—"
"It won't."
We pushed. Not with physical force but with will, with magic, with the desperate need to close the distance between us. The mirror's surface began to give, becoming viscous, elastic.
My fingers sank into the glass as if it were thick, resistant water. The sensation was a paradox—an icy burn that shot up my arm, setting my marks ablaze in silver vines that crawled toward my shoulders.
His fingers met mine in the impossible space between worlds.
Skin to skin.
The contact wasn't just a touch. It was an avalanche. His loneliness, a chasm of centuries. His love, a patient, desperate fire. It flooded me, and I felt my own essence being pulled in return, silver threads of my soul unraveling toward him. Reality groaned, protesting the connection.
"Let go." His voice came from everywhere and nowhere. "Aurea, you have to?—"
"No." I gripped tighter. "I won't lose you too."
The mirror cracked. Spider web fractures spread from our joined hands. Through the breaks, I glimpsed other places, the Garden, a throne room of silver, a serpent coiled around a dying world.
"Please." He was begging now. "I can't lose you. Not again."
The please broke through my stubbornness. I released him, stumbling backward. He fell away from the glass, his form shuddering between human and serpent.
The mirror gave a final, decisive crack straight down its center.
Footsteps pounded in the corridor outside. Guards, drawn by the magical disturbance.
"Go." I pressed a hand to the broken glass. "Before they see you."
He faded just as the door burst open. Three guards entered, swords drawn, searching for threats.
"Lady Aurea?" The captain's eyes went to the cracked mirror, then to my translucent edges. "Are you... what happened?"
