The Mirror in the Mountain (The Mirrored Trilogy #2)

by Dana Evyn

The stark reality of what might have been seemed to curdle with the bitter aftertaste of almost.

Princess, I woke up dreaming of the taste of your lips, those sweet little sounds you make echoing in my ears. While I’ve heard the tales of the dreamwalking this bond entails, I’m concerned I won’t be able to tell the difference as all my dreams now are of you.

An unattainable farce in a world not meant for happy endings.

“—you’ll need someone like him at your side to go through the Choosing one day.” I hid my grimace, not bothering to ask if ‘like him’ referred to Adrian’s pedigree, his magic, or simply the fact that he was born with a penis. Considering I had been born with everything but, I already knew the answer.

One day, I would be High Queen, and I would be free of the males who thought they knew better than me. It wouldn’t be long until I no longer had to play this game.

But the False King’s might had only grown, his supporters stirring dissent in our ancient hierarchies, promising change with poisoned words, even as it was clear that the False King would only ever serve himself. This war was for his own gain, his own greed and lust for power.

I forced myself to relax, forced myself to nod even as I felt something inside me go cold and still. Trying my best to seem fine when I just felt fractured.

After all, death was only felt by the people left behind.

And it was too hard to pull myself together now that I had started to break.

“Don’t you dare pretend we aren’t forever. Whatever comes next, we’ll face it together—consequences be damned. And if the choice is between the world and you…I choose you, always.”

“I love you,” I whispered, needing to say it out loud in case it was the last time. “No matter what happens, I’m yours until we’re both just a whisper of darkness between the stars.” “Until even those stars have faded from the sky, Eva,” Bash breathed. “And forever after that.”

“Of course, I’m afraid it might come to that,” Eva whispered. The flecks of gold in her eyes seemed to come alive in the flickering firelight. “But what I have to do is more important than fear.”

looking into the night as though it might look back.

And I realized that I had found everything I hadn’t let myself want, for fear of it being taken away from me again—that home, that safety, the love I had never let myself dream of. That I finally believed in forever.

It finally felt like I could exhale. Like I could allow myself to revel in the relatively strange sensation of being…happy. At the sense of peace in knowing I was where I was supposed to be, with the people I loved there beside me.