“I’m fine,” I say. “Just about back to normal.” It’s a lie, but I don’t have time for this. I want to know who I am!
Her eyes narrow for a second as she studies me for evidence to the contrary, then she sighs and turns back to Khaosti. “Tell me what you heard from Khendril.”
“Three years ago, I received a message. He told me he needed my help. He was sending a girl into my keeping. I needed to keep her safe and bring her to you. He said she was to find the location of Lucifer’s Mirror.”
Her eyes flicker at that. “Lucifer’s Mirror. I haven’t heard those words in a long time. Do you know what it is?”
“No.”
“You wouldn’t. It’s one of the many things your father has erased from history.”
“What is it?” I ask, leaning forward.
“A mirror, of course.”
Yeah, ask a stupid question…
“Do you know what happened to Khendril?” Khaosti asks.
“He’s dead.”
He closes his eyes for a moment, then takes a deep breath. “By whose hand?”
“The shadowguard, I’m guessing.”
Khaosti jumps to his feet, his glass toppling over and wine spilling onto the smooth wood of the table. His eyes glow golden, and energy pulsates from his body, almost throbbing in the air. A shudder passes through me. So much controlled power. Is it about to get unleashed? I glance at the Crone—I really need to get her name; I can’t keep calling her the Crone. She sips her wine as she watches him, showing not the slightest sign of fear.
The others all seem equally unimpressed and just continue drinking their wine. Zayne hardly even looks up, though I know he’s paying attention.
“Is your tantrum done, prince?” the Crone murmurs.
Ouch.I like her.
Khaosti glares, but then he takes a deep breath and visibly relaxes. “My apologies. He was my brother. I loved him.”
“Maybe the only person you’ve ever loved, I’m thinking.”
Aw, that’s sad.
Khaosti shrugs and then returns to his seat. “At least tell me what he agreed to help you with.”
Her gaze flickers to me. “A baby was left in my care.”
She has to be talking about me. The timeline works. I want to ask, but instead, I clamp my lips closed and listen.
“She held important information and had certain… talents that will be needed to push back the encroaching darkness in the years to come. She was being hunted, and I had to keep her safe. But it became too dangerous to keep her with me. I needed your brother’s help to hide her.”
“We are holding the darkness at bay,” Khaosti says. “We need no help.”
She casts him a contemptuous glance. “If you believe that, you’re more ignorant than I thought. A war has been fought for thousands of years, and while the forces of darkness have been quiet for a while, they are building momentum again, and this last battle will decide the fate of all the worlds.”
I glance at Zayne, but he clearly isn’t following the conversation. Then again, it is in Valandrian, so how could he? He just gives a little lift of his shoulders, obviously even more lost than I am.
“And you thinksheis the thing that will save us?” Khaosti’s tone is unimpressed, and he looks at me with scorn.
“Us?” the Crone murmurs. “What makes you thinkyou’reon the side of the good? But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. I couldn’t keep the child with me.” She casts me an apologetic look. “I tried, but it was impossible. It was easier to hide us apart than together. I sent her to a different world with a guardian to watch over her.”
Khaosti frowns. “You have the power to create the mirrors? I thought that gift was lost from the world.”
