Herst removed his hat, revealing his peppered white hair, and plopped it down on my head. Immediately, I felt a warmth flow through my scalp and the wind stopped nipping at my ears. He pulled it low, tightened my scarf and patted my shoulder.
“I hate leaving you like this. You remind me of my daughter.” He took a deep breath. “Don’t go outside during the storm. I’ve seen ones like this. It’s going to get worse before it gets better. During a white-out, you can get lost and freeze to death steps from your home. Also, this mountain is cursed, and the monsters that roam it at night are deadly. Stay inside.”
I nodded, pulling my bag closer to myself like a shield, his words making me want to turn back around and get right back in the transport.
“I’ll be fine,” I said bravely.
“Okay, be safe.” Reluctantly, he retreated down the steps, hopped onto the transport and called out to the reindeer. They took off, eager to continue.
As Herst left, a sudden bout of loneliness hit me at the thought of facing the next few days alone in a dusty manor filled with giant rats.
I summoned a mage light that floated over my shoulder, creating a glow. The mage light was bigger than any I had ever summoned at home. My magic really was stronger here. I swallowed my trepidation and entered the house where an Eville sorceress was born.
CHAPTER FOUR
“Well, this was anticlimactic,” I muttered after touring most of the first floor. The main hall was off a large dining room that could easily seat over twenty people. The kitchen had a built-in fireplace with three large wood worktables. Most of the porcelain dishes and silver were gone. With each room I explored, my heart broke a little more as I saw what had been taken and what was left behind. It wasn’t until I came to the sitting room that I felt my heart skip a beat. The once beautiful room with floor to ceiling bookshelves had been ransacked. All the books that were worth money had likely been sold off or stolen.
A great fireplace stood along the far wall with bookshelves on either side. A single intact mirror hung on the wall opposite the window. The wallpaper around the mirror faded, revealing shadows of the numerous paintings that once hung in the room. A lone high-back chair with a broken leg lay abandoned on its side in the middle of the floor. A chair that I recognized—for it had a mate. The other was in our tower back in Nihill.
My mother’s chair.
A coat of dust covered everything in the room and thankfully, this room still had its windows intact. I didn’t get to explore the second floor of the house because the sun was quickly setting, and I knew I needed to get a fire going. I trekked out into the cold, collecting wood I could find in an old shed. I would have to work on finding an axe and chopping down a tree to create a larger supply the next day.
It would hopefully be enough to get me through the night. I took the pieces back into the sitting room and laid them across the grate. I wasn’t worried about how wet they were. My magic could help dry them out. I found a book that was beyond repair, sun-damaged from years of lying open on the floor, the pages faded and unreadable. It hurt my heart to destroy it this way, but they were no longer useful. I tore a few pages out of the book and crumpled them between the dried-out wood.
“Fiergo.” I whispered the fire spell, and it enveloped the paper into a fiery blast.
The kindling burned, spreading to the wood with an intensity before settling into a soothing crackle. Holding out my frozen hands, I let the heat seep into my fingers, and I flexed them, letting the pins and needles feeling fade away.
Night had fallen, and the wind picked up, creating an eerie rattling sound against the panes. It was the perfect time to try scrying so I could find the source of disturbance that was blocking my mother’s magic. I focused on the mirror hanging on the wall.
The mirror had a slight crack in the ornamental frame, and I wondered if it would withstand the magic needed to power it. There was no better time than now to find out. Normally, we would need blood to activate a calling spell and it would be used to direct to a certain person. But I was going to scry.
I took a second to take in my appearance. My honey brown hair took on a golden hue in the firelight's reflection. Several unruly strands had slipped out of my braid, giving me a wild look. My hazel eyes shifted with my mood, changing between a grassy shade or muted brown. This evening they were a bright green. My suntanned skin was blessed with freckles across my nose, giving me an impish look. I pressed my lips together, wishing they were thicker. But wishes were self-serving. One shouldn’t wish for what they couldn’t have. Looks weren’t everything.
Running my fingers across the glass, I leaned close and breathed onto it, leaving steam on the reflective surface. Quickly, before it disappeared, I drew the few sigils needed to turn the mirror into a vessel for magic.
The sigils glowed and then disappeared into the glass. The hair on the back of my neck rose as I felt the magic gather, rushing toward the mirror like a river running downstream. There was so much magic in Kiln, the land was practically seeping with it because of all the ley lines that crossed through, deep underground. Magic that I could feel and hear. It sang to me. The power gathered, and then I felt it turn away as if avoiding the mirror.
I frowned. Mirrors were finicky, and when infused with magic, could sometimes take on multiple personalities. Memories of the previous owners would imprint themselves on the mirrors. Sometimes you’d get a helpful mirror. Other times, it might be selfish or deceiving. I would often see my mother speaking to the mirror in her home. I had a feeling—though I wasn’t sure—that the person she was speaking to was her father.
When the mirror had pulled enough magic from the land, my reflection disappeared, and it took on a frosted glow. It was ready for the test.
“Show me Honor,” I commanded.
The frame glowed once before turning dark. I thought it wasn’t working, but then I saw a shadow. The shadow morphed into a shape, and she appeared.
Honor. The sister closest in age to me. We were both turning nineteen this year. I was a fall baby, and she was a spring. We didn’t celebrate our exact birthdays because neither of us knew when we were born.
Honor’s dark hair was bound back out of her face. A black cowl covered her, making her blend into the background. She slipped through the woods, passing from shadow to shadow. No wonder I couldn’t see her.
Honor spoke, and I could tell by the subtle nuance of her lip movement that she was speaking to Lorn in Elven. She gestured with her bow, then pulled back the drawstring, aimed and released. She grinned and ran toward her catch.
I didn’t have the stomach to see what creature she shot down.
But Honor froze mid-stride. She ducked. Her shoulders stiffened and her eyes searched the sky, then the forest, before turning around and looking right into my eyes through the mirror.
Her brows furrowed, and her lips formed my name. “Rheanon?”
I inhaled, thinking she saw me. Then shadows moved within the glass as if a heavy cloud settled over the mirror. This wasn’t good. It was just as my mother feared. An anathema covered the land. Anytime the mirror had gone dark on a kingdom, it meant trouble wasn’t far behind. But what was the source of this darkness?
Mother said my magic would be increased when I arrived. And I’d seen the results already. Dare I tap into the ley lines to magnify the mirror?