Page 74 of A Taste of Silver
"Your fire," Aurea whispered aloud, her voice strained but steady. "I need your serpent-fire. Not to burn but to temper."
Understanding flooded through me like ice water, followed immediately by terror so profound it nearly broke my concentration. She wasn't asking for my power, she was asking me to complete the working with her, to be not just witness but partner in reshaping reality itself. The trust in that request, theabsolute faith that I wouldn't lose control and destroy everything she'd built, nearly brought me to my knees.
I could feel the assembled crowd holding their breath, waiting to see if the serpent-born would prove worthy of their future queen's faith. Aldric's hands had begun to glow with his own power, ready to intervene if I faltered. Drell's tome was whispering faster now, pages turning of their own accord as arcane forces sought to contain what we were creating.
I reached deeper than I'd ever dared, past the human shape I wore like armor, past the serpent that coiled beneath my skin, to the core of what I truly was, a creature of threshold and transition, neither fully one thing nor another. That liminal fire, cold as starlight and hot as forge-flame simultaneously, flowed through our joined hands into the circle. The sensation was indescribable, like pouring liquid starlight through my veins while every nerve ending sang with harmonics that existed beyond mortal perception.
"Cool," we said together, our voices harmonizing in frequencies that made the Last Mirror sing in response.
The release was controlled, deliberate, each degree of temperature dropping with infinite care. I could feel Aurea guiding the process with instincts older than memory, while I provided the precise control earned through centuries of existing between states. Together we were glassmaker and glass, craftsman and creation, the ones who shaped and the thing being shaped. The magic flowed between us like molten silver, each of us tempering the other's power until it became something entirely new.
The combined circles began to solidify into something that had never existed before. It was not quite mirror and not quite doorway, but a threshold that belonged fully to both worlds without being imprisoned by either. Through it, I could see glimpses of other places, other possibilities, all of themaccessible but not mandatory. A door that opened by choice rather than force, invitation rather than compulsion.
"Beautiful," Drell breathed, his academic fascination overcoming his loyalty to Aldric's agenda. He stumbled forward, spectacles reflecting the impossible geometries we'd created. "The harmonic resonance is perfect. No distortion, no degradation at the intersection points. It's theoretically impossible but practically flawless."
Several courtiers began to applaud, their masks now fully melted away to reveal faces marked with wonder and naked greed. But their celebration was premature, their understanding incomplete. They saw only the surface of what we'd accomplished, not the deeper implications of a threshold that answered to no authority but its own.
The largest mirror exploded.
Not outward but inward, collapsing into itself with a sound like reality tearing. The massive mirror that had dominated the opera pit simply ceased to exist, leaving behind a wound in space that bled darkness and possibility in equal measure. Through the jagged aperture stepped the Crimson One, but not as we'd seen him moments ago.
This was his true form unleashed.
He was massive, magnificent, and absolutely monstrous.
His body seemed to be made of crystallized hunger, every surface reflecting not light but absence, showing what wasn't rather than what was. Where he stepped, the stone cracked and reformed into patterns that hurt to perceive directly. The assembled nobles scrambled backward, their earlier composure shattered by the presence of something that existed beyond their comprehension of power and politics.
"Did you think you could complete such a working without me?" His voice came from everywhere at once, from every reflective surface in the opera pit, the nobles' jewels, theremnants of their masks, even the tears beginning to form in terrified eyes. "I am the cautionary tale, remember? The necessary darkness that defines your light?"
The temperature in the pit plummeted as his presence asserted itself, frost forming on breath and fabric alike. This wasn't the weakened fragment we'd faced before, but the Crimson One in all his terrible glory. A being of pure reflection and regret, powerful enough to reshape reality through sheer force of will.
I moved instinctively to place myself between him and Aurea. My human form began to slip, serpent scales emerging along my arms as ancient instincts overrode conscious control.
But she caught my arm, holding me back with strength that surprised us both. Her fingers were still warm from the working, but there was something else now, a new kind of power that felt like starlight given form.
"He's right," she said, her voice carrying new harmonics that resonated through our bond and sent shivers through the crowd. "We need him here. Every tempering requires precise pressure at the crucial moment, something to test the strength of what we're creating."
The Crimson One laughed, the sound like breaking bells echoing through dimensions we couldn't see. He was angry that we had disappeared when we’d invited him to join us, that much was obvious, but I didn’t understand why he thought this was our choice. His form shifted and flowed, sometimes almost human, sometimes purely abstract geometry made of crystallized malice. "You would use me as your whetstone? Your testing ground?"
"I would give you the chance to choose differently." Aurea stepped forward, still holding my hand but no longer holding me back. Each step she took caused the threshold we'd created to pulse with responsive light, as if it recognized its creator. "Youcan be the pressure that breaks us, or the pressure that makes us stronger. Your choice."
For a moment that stretched like centuries, everything balanced on the edge of that decision. I could feel it through every surface in the pit, mirrors, windows, even the tears on watching faces. The Crimson One stood at his own crossroads, and his choice would tip the balance of everything we'd built.
The very air seemed to hold its breath, reality itself pausing to witness this moment of absolute decision. Magic itself seemed to pause, waiting. Even Drell's ancient tome had fallen silent, its whispered incantations ceasing as if the book itself recognized the magnitude of what was about to unfold.
Then Aurea looked at me, those silver eyes bright with trust that could reshape worlds. In them I saw not just love, but absolute certainty. Not just in me, but in us, in the choice we'd made to stand together against everything that would tear us apart. "With you."
"Always," I replied without hesitation, meaning it with every fragmented piece of my existence, with every lifetime I'd spent searching for her across the spaces between worlds.
The Crimson One's form shifted, and for just an instant, I glimpsed what he might have been, beautiful, terrible, and absolutely committed to his choice. There was something almost grateful in his expression, as if being offered a true choice was a gift he'd long since stopped expecting. "Then let us see if your unity can withstand true pressure."
The battle was about to begin, but not the battle anyone expected. This would be transformation under pressure, tempering through trial, the moment where we discovered if our impossible love could survive being made possible.
Through our joined hands, I felt Aurea's pulse quicken, but I knew it was with anticipation rather than fear. Her power sangthrough our bond, no longer wild and uncontrolled but focused with laser precision on the task ahead.
She was ready.
We were ready.
