Smoke and Mirrors (22)
Twenty-Two
Mirror Image
“Flame,” Adrian exclaimed, “What is that?!”
We stood in front of the most majestic tree I’d ever seen. It’s branches draped like lace, much like a weeping willow did from the Outside. The limbs chimed softly against each other and the moon lit each branch as if it were crystal glass.
We woke early and decided to start on our journey before the sun rose, so the scene was very beautiful bathed in white moonlight and glistening with every breath the wind sighed.
If you listened closely, you could hear the tree talk in hushed whispers. But that was impossible, right? Still, I knew I heard something coming from it. The whispers were inaudible, overlapped by all the other voices from within the tree, but they were there.
Sterling stopped beside us and gazed up at the tree. “A Whisper tree,” he replied, as though it was nothing new to him. “There aren’t many of them left.” He cleared his throat. “My father had most of them cleared from these lands.”
“Why?” I asked. The tree seemed to glow with a pale blue light–something different than the moon’s glow. It seemed as if it was coming from within the trunk. “What made him want to get rid of them? They’re so pretty.”
Sterling’s eyes caught the light just like a mirror as he turned to me. He fit into the scene perfectly, as if the mirrored landscape was just as much a part of him as he was of it. “Listen closely and maybe you’ll hear why. These trees breathe with the whispered secrets of any who felt the need to share them.”
I angled my head up to watch the leaves, swirling almost as if they were alive. Adrian and I stayed as still as we could, straining to hear even the slightest of sounds. I found that the air seemed to be full of whispers–full of secrets. Occasionally, I thought I caught part of a sentence, but then all at once it would be gone again, drowned in a sea of overlapping voices.
“People have stopped for centuries to tell the Whisper trees their secrets. The trees have acted like a companion to people who didn’t have one, and in turn, they whisper what they know to anyone who will listen.” Sterling crossed his arms over the pale blue fabric and silver piping that made up his tunic. “Father didn’t like them for some reason. I never knew why. He uprooted any he could find and burned them.”
“How many are left?” I asked.
“Not many.”
Adrian added, “You know, I think I’ve heard of these before. Didn’t he start burning them after a fight with–”
“--Look, we’re wasting time,” Sterling interrupted, picking up his pace. “We need to get where we’re going quickly before people start waking up and wondering why we have a Fire Talent and–whatever Tessa is–wandering the countryside. If we hurry, we’ll make it to the Weeping Stones by tonight.” Sterling turned away from the tree and continued walking, his arms hanging stiffly by his sides.
He always seemed stiff. Like a corpse. I shook my head at my turn of thoughts and continued walking.
Sometime later, we arrived at a town. However, unlike normal towns, every surface of almost every building was made of mirrors–and not just regular mirrors. Some mirrored walls moved like water, rippling and swirling, then shifted to spell out words just like digital signs back home. Minus the electricity. Trade for Kinlik! Hungry? We’ve got food!
“What is Kinlik?” I asked.
Adrian glanced at me. “You poor Outsiders. You don’t have Kinlik?! We’ll have to remedy that as soon as possible!” He looked at the building. “It’s a type of drink. I’ll wait to describe it to you and let you try it.”
I sighed. “Fine.”
The walls of some of the businesses were like carnaval mirrors. I snickered at an image of Sterling, which made his legs look short and his torso tall.
Adrian paused in front of a mirror that somehow reflected the scene around him to hide his reflection. He moved and his reflection took up the entire wall.
I chuckled, causing them to stop and look at me.
“What?” Adrian asked.
I waved at our reflections. “The walls. I’ve never seen anything like them in a normal town before.”
Adrian laughed. “I’ve heard of them–even seen a fairy portrait or two. It’s better in person though.”
“Fairy portrait?” I questioned. “Yeah–you know. Like. . . holding a scene on paper? It’s like a drawing, but much warmer.”
“Warmer? How is paper hot?” I replied.
He shook his head. “No–that’s a Heat Talent saying. If something is. . . fascinating, you say it’s warm.”
I blinked. “Ah. Got you.” An image of a photograph came to mind. The fairies back at the castle told me they had inventions similar to some that we had on Earth. Maybe Fairy Portraits were one of those inventions.
He chuckled. “Come on, Sterling won’t slow down for us.”
I looked ahead to see Sterling already a short distance from us. We jogged to catch up with him.
It wasn’t long before people with pale, silvery skin began to emerge from the buildings. A child ran towards us curiously, but was caught by the thin leash of what looked like a parent and pulled back, the mirror rope wrapped around the child’s wrist.
Whispers began to circle us, which made me uncomfortable. Partly because I knew I looked entirely different from them, and partly because I needed to sneeze and didn’t want to scare anyone away. Or hurt them.
I pinched my nose and hurried my pace.
“Who is that?”
“Why is there a Fire Talent here?”
“Who are they?”
“Is that the King?!”
I sped past Sterling and tried to duck into an alleyway. Before I could make it though, he caught me by the arm.
“Where are you going?” he asked sternly. “We don’t have time to waste.”
I held my nose tighter. “I gah to shneeze,” I replied, my voice nasally.
His eyes widened and he dropped my arm. “Hurry, in here.” He grabbed my wrist and pulled me into one of the mirror walls around us. The mirror was cold and hard against my skin at first, but then it broke as Sterling pulled us into it, as if it were a thick layer of silver gelatin.
I gasped as darkness concealed us.
Then there was silence.
“You can sneeze now,” Sterling grumbled. “I don’t want to stay here long.”
I blinked and released my nose. “Well now I don’t have to.”
“Are you serious?!” He pushed me forwards and shoved us out of the mirror.
The afternoon light seemed so much brighter after we exited whatever place we had just been in.
“What was that?!” I demanded. “Where were we?!”
Sterling sighed and scanned the area around us. “I call it the Between. Only powerful Mirror Talents can get a person there, so you just experienced the sensation of a lifetime.”
It was then that my eyes adjusted enough to see the scene before me.
We were in the middle of the mirror woods, standing at the edge of a mirror pond. There wasn’t a town in sight.
“Where are we?!” I demanded.
This was it. This was where he killed me. Adrian couldn’t stop him now that we were alone. This was his plan all along.
“Hush, let me figure this out.” He turned slowly, scanning the silver woods before us.
“Well, don’t you know where we are?!” I replied desperately, my voice cracking. I was getting scared now. My stomach felt as if it were filled with lead.
“No. And hysterics won’t get us anywhere, okay? I’ll end your life here and now if you start that on me. Now be quiet while I think.”
I swallowed back my protest.
The branches tinkled against each other in hollow clatters above our heads. The forest wasn’t dark at all in spite of the night. Rays of moonlight lit up each leaf and beamed into a thousand directions.
“Where are we?” I asked again, quieter this time. “Please tell me you didn’t bring me here to kill me.”
His voice was as smooth as silk, as if insulting me was perfectly fine. “It’s harder to find precise locations when I’m hauling a weaker Talent with me. You’re lucky I even got us out of town before you burned someone.”
“Weaker?! Dude, I am not weak! Why, just the other day I helped a maid open a jar. Me! And back on the Otherside, before I came here, I had to do stuff for myself all the time, without any maids or anyone to help. I’m strong!”
He sighed and poured out a puddle of mirrors into the ground. “Get in.” His tone was clipped.
I looked at the puddle cautiously and then back at him. “Are you sure it’s safe? Maybe there’s a better way to–”
He sighed and placed a hand between my shoulder blades. His palm was surprisingly warm, since he always looked so cold and icy. He shoved me forward.
I cried out as I tumbled through the puddle and into the Between. Sterling followed, and before long we were back in the town we’d just left.
I gasped a breath of air as if I’d been suffocating and collapsed with Sterling at the base of the giant mirror building.
Sterling pushed me off of him and quickly stood. My head swam and the world seemed to wobble beneath me. It took a moment to regain my composure.
“I don’t see him,” Sterling commented.
“See who?” I clutched my head and stood.
“Adrian, obviously. Who else are we supposed to be looking for?!”
I huffed. “Well I’m sorry! I’m not used to this!” I tentatively placed a hand against the mirror wall, afraid that it would give way and consume me like the mouth of a giant. When nothing happened, I leaned against it further. “I don’t know how you travel like this.”
He glanced at me and looked away. “Look, I forget you’re not a Mirror Talent. I was just trying to get us out before you sneezed and injured people. It’s not right for you to have two powers from birth–and they know it.”
The town around us had settled down now. People weren’t there to look at us curiously, but for that matter, Sterling was right; Adrian also wasn’t there.
“Where would he have gone?” I asked, more to myself than to him.
He began walking. “He probably thought I was trying to kill you and got worried. Just keep an eye out.” He paused for a moment and closed his eyes.
I stopped beside him. “What are you doing?”
“Searching for him. There are mirrors everywhere here–it’s one of the best attributes to my kingdom. Any time I need to look down the streets, all I have to do is look through my mirrors.”
I raised an eyebrow. “See anything?”
“Not yet. I–Oh.” He opened his eyes and grabbed my wrist. “Come on, this way.”
I yanked my hand out of his grip. “I’ll follow you myself, thank you very much.”
He sighed and picked up his pace.
Before long we stopped and began scanning the new section of street we’d wandered into.
A blur of motion struck Sterling from the side, knocking him to the ground. Just as soon as I realised it was Adrian, he threw a punch to Sterling’s face while twisting Sterling’s other hand behind his head so he couldn’t return the blow.
I quickly ran over. “Adrian!” I shouted, tugging on his shirt at the collar. “Adrian, no!”
He stopped and looked up at me. “Oh–you’re alive!” He stood up and looked apologetically down at Sterling. Offering him a hand, he added, “I, uh, thought you killed her.”
Sterling had a dark bruise that was beginning to form around his eye. He ignored Adrian’s hand and pushed himself up from the ground. “Obviously not.” He placed a hand over his eye.
I played with the hem of my cloak. “Eh–I had to sneeze. Thanks for worrying about me though.”
Adrian shoved his hands into his pockets. “Don’t worry about it.” He cleared his throat. “So. . . where to next?”
Sterling sighed. “We’ll take a transport to the Weeping Stones.”
“Transport?” Adrian asked. “Can’t we do that mirror trick you pulled with Tessa? I heard Mirror Talents can move from place to place through mirrors.”
Giving a look that could freeze if he were a Winter Talent, Sterling replied, “I don’t feel like granting you any favors at the moment. Besides, only a very strong Talent can do that well.”
I chuckled. “So does that mean you’re weak?”
His frosty glare turned to me. “Don’t be ridiculous. Most Talents can’t do it at all. I get lost easily. It can be hard to maneuver through the Between.”
I raised an eyebrow at him.
He sighed and his shoulders dropped. “Alright, fine. Come on.”
Throwing a hand towards the mirror walls, he motioned for us to go on.
I swallowed and Adrian and I stepped forward.
Once again, the mirror was cold against my skin. It stretched for a moment like taffy, then broke and we fell through to the dark room that made up the Between.
Sterling stepped in behind us and suddenly, we were walking out of the dark room and into an entirely different scene.
The landscape was magnificent. An ocean stretched out before us, alight with sparkling lights which glowed like stars in the water, even though it was day. Part of the sea was shadowed by magnificent rocky cliffs that hovered above the ground, suspended by the thinnest ropes of mirror.
“Wow,” I breathed. “Where did those come from?”
“My father,” replied Sterling. “He had an eye for the dramatic. If you like that, you should see some of the things my grandmother designed.” His eyes flicked to mine. “If things were different, I wouldn’t mind showing some of them to you.” He looked away. “Everyone deserves to see how great of an architect my ancestors were.”
I felt my breath catch as my mind carried me away with an image. The image was impossible of course, because it showed a scene where our lives were entirely different. There was no prophecy looming over our heads, and instead of the hatred and fear that burned between us, there was something sort of like love. Or at least a lack of disdain. What if he showed me the wonders of his world? The things created by his family who’d passed on, and maybe the things he created himself? What if we had the chance to become acquainted like a normal couple. Maybe even like each other. What if everything was different?
–But that could never happen. It never would. The fact that he had no heart, no kindness, no ounce of warmth, would never change, and those were all very important things to me. To any sensible girl. We may have been betrothed, but I could never love someone who had no qualms about taking a human life.
“Did you hear a word I said?” Sterling asked.
I blinked. “Huh?”
He sighed. “You’re really clueless, aren’t you?” Yeah, that right there was why I would never fall for him. “I said look out for the puddles. The mirror ponds are notorious for hardening up around people in these parts.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled, looking down to see that I was only a step away from one of those puddles.
We walked along the shoreline before stopping at three stone statues of women that jutted out of the ocean. The water sloshed around them, echoing against the cliffs.
They looked natural there–as if they’d been there forever. Barnacles grew on the sides of them, attached to stone fabric that draped from their shoulders in folds as if it were real. Each statue weeped with such emotion that I couldn’t help but feel sorry for them.
I noticed that even though their faces were well above the sea, somehow the waves crashing against their hips caused tears to pour from their eyes. It was as if they had been built to cry, which was a sad thought.
“Wow,” I exclaimed. “Do they have a story or something? What’s up with the tears?”
Sterling nodded. “Yes. Long ago, three mermaids were stolen away by pirates from my kingdom. They bottled their tears and sold the mermaids to a group of people who took them to the Outside. They were never seen again. My great great grandfather had these statues built as a memorial to the girls, and as a reminder to future generations of their tragedy.”
“That’s so sad,” I replied quietly, watching the ocean waves caress the statues as if they were hands trying to drag them under.
Trying to take them home.
Adrian stepped away from the water, but stopped at the shoreline and had to jump back when water splashed towards him. “That’s terrible,” he said. “But can we hurry so we can get home? I’m sorry, I’d love to stay, but I hate water.” He glanced at me. “No offense intended.”
I snorted. “Wow, thanks.” I scanned the silvery waves splashing at my feet. “So. . . where do we go now? I mean, this is it. What are we supposed to look for that the guards haven’t seen already?”
Sterling lifted his hands and mirrors poured from them like thick, silver honey. It puddled and began to sift through the dirt with dozens of silver tentacle-like strands. “Whatever it is has to be buried here,” he said. “If the guards couldn’t find it. . . Well, they’re guards. They’re trained to be observant. This has to be something hard to find.”
I inhaled the air, which oddly didn’t smell like the beaches back home on the Otherside. It was scented with an earthy, green scent.
Adrian started shuffling his feet through the dirt.
The water called to me more than anything–likely because of my Talent, but I decided to look there anyway.
I walked closer to the statues of the mermaids, my eyes transfixed on the glowing lights in the water. “What are these lights?” I asked.
Adrian replied, “Small fish. Don’t you have glowing fish on the Outside?”
I shrugged and bent down to inspect the water. “Yes, but they’re not common. They’re usually in the deep waters.”
“Wait!” Sterling called.
I looked down and realised that I’d stepped into a mirror puddle. I groaned and tried to pull my foot out, but it was already hardening around my ankle. My foot managed to stretch the puddle a bit and then froze in place. “What is the deal with these mirrors?!” I asked. I pulled against my leg as hard as I could, but it didn’t budge.
Sterling sighed and waved a hand over the puddle. I didn’t realise he was softening the puddle until it was too late and I was already throwing my weight away from my trapped foot.
My foot slipped out, but I tumbled straight into the ocean with a giant splash.
Sterling and Adrian laughed.
My wet hair streamed down my face and I huffed. “Really funny, guys.”
Small, glowing orbs of light circled around me and sped away when I moved. I smiled at them and ran my fingers through the water slowly, mesmerized.
“Woah.” Adrian breathed.
“What?” I looked up and realised that tendrils of water were floating towards the sky, as if the water just around me was losing gravity. I gasped as the water lifted the glowing fish into the air and allowed me to see them. Each one was white and glowing, with transparent, fluttering fins. “Am I doing that?”
Sterling watched me carefully, but said nothing. His expression was unreadable.
“Well we’re not doing it, Tess.” Adrian laughed again. “Looks like you’re finally figuring out how to use your Talent!”
I grinned and looked back at the water. Suddenly, a thought hit me as I looked at the statues, only a few feet away from me. The water I was controlling crashed back into the sea.
“Hey guys,” I started, “what if it’s not buried? What if it’s underwater?”
With that, I held my breath and slipped under the waves.
I dug my fingers into the wet sand and pulled myself along, the water carrying most of my weight. I felt alive there, as if every cell in my body was able to exist more clearly somehow. As if this was my home.
My fingers found the base of one of the statues. It was sharp and hard with broken barnacles and embedded shells. I traced the edge of the statue with my fingers and explored the sand around it.
Winter soldiers had been the ones to search this area. I think father had sent out some Water soldiers as well, but most of them stayed behind to watch Seraphina.
Suddenly, my fingers found a cool, smooth surface in the shape of a square. Excited, I began to dig at it. One of the glow fish swam by briefly, allowing me to see my hands better. I noticed that the saltwater didn’t sting my eyes now like it used to when I was little, and the water wasn’t so cloudy. Maybe that was because this was a different ocean than the ones on the Outside, or maybe it was because I was different now that I had Water powers.
I finally lifted the box. The sand crumbled away in bits, revealing the metal cube, which was roughly the size of my palm.
Could a unicorn’s horn fit in the palm of my hand. . .?
I rose to my knees and stood above the waves. The water only came to my waist.
I inhaled, although I didn’t feel short of breath like I normally would have. That was interesting.
“I found something!” I cheered. I stood and waded back to the shore.
“I was getting worried,” Adrian confessed. “You were down there for a while.”
Sterling held out his hand. “Can I see that?”
I held the box closer to my chest. “No way. Now that we have the horn, there’s no reason for you to keep me alive. Sorry if I don’t completely trust you at the moment.”
He groaned. “Just let me see it.”
Adrian folded his arms across his chest. “Tess has a point, you know. There’s not exactly a whole lot of live-and-let-live going on between you two at the moment.”
Sterling lifted his hands in defense. “Alright, fine. Keep the blasted horn. But you won’t find it in there.”
My eyes widened. I looked down at the silvery, metal box and popped open the lid, which was hard to tell apart from the sides.
Inside, the entire thing was lined with mirrors.
It was empty.
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