The Girl That Time Forgot.
She wasn't tall. She wasn't threatening. And that made her infinitely more terrifying.
Her bare feet didn't touch the ground. She floated inches above the black sand, and where her toes should have cast a shadow, there was only emptiness, as if the light itself had bent so as not to illuminate her. Her dress—a white tunic that was too large—floated around her body as if she were submerged in invisible water.
But it was her shifting face that chilled Kael's blood. For the moment, she had no pupils. They had no irises; her eyes might as well have been two black mirrors reflecting... nothing. Or worse, they reflected things that weren't there. Movements at the edges of his vision, figures that faded when he tried to focus.
"How amusing," the Girl said, her voice the whisper of pages being torn from a book.
Lirya stepped in, her mercury tears forming a jagged barrier between them.
"All resistance is futile... Mother, you should know that," the girl whispered.
Lirya didn't deny it. She only clenched her fists, making the shield solidify further and sharper.
The Girl turned toward Kael, and suddenly, the world changed.
The air thickened like molasses. Kael tried to move, but his body wouldn't respond. No, it wasn't that... time itself had stopped around the Girl.
"Let's play, Kael Arcanis," the girl said, her voice echoing as if whispering in Kael's ear.
A mirror appeared in front of Kael—reflecting not what was there, but what could have been.
In it, he saw himself as a child, running through a field he'd never seen, toward a woman whose face was blurred.
"This is the memory you lost when you stole your first Path," the Girl whispered, running a finger along the glass. Where she touched, cracks bled mercury. "Do you want it back? Just touch the mirror."
Lirya seemed to scream a warning, but her voice was muffled, as if someone had turned down the volume on the world.
Kael instinctively reached for the mirror.
"Don't do it," Lirya's voice came distorted. "It's a lie. That's not the memory you lost, and that mirror isn't what it says."
The Girl smiled, showing teeth. Too sharp.
"Of course it's a lie. But isn't it more beautiful than your truth?"
"This is the Council's favorite game," the Girl explained, tenderly stroking the edge of the mirror. "You touch the glass... and I decide which part of you to erase."
Kael felt the quicksilver in his arm stir, as if trying to escape.
"Why would I do that?"
The Girl leaned forward, and for the first time, Kael saw something in her pupilless eyes: hunger.
"Because if you don't play... I'll erase Lirya from history. And you know what that means: if she never existed, neither did you."
Lirya tensed. The quicksilver around her throbbed, but didn't attack.
Kael looked at the black mirror.
He looked at Lirya.
And reached for the mirror.