City of Towers_ The Dreaming Dark - Keith Baker [114]
“What do you already know? And what are you really looking for?”
The world revealed behind the stone teeth was not the sewer hallway that they had seen before. Instead, they were in the midst of a masked ball. Dozens of dancers whirled about, elaborate costumes concealing face and form. Daine recognized this place. It was Alina’s mirrored hall in the city of Metrol. The arched ceiling of the ballroom rose far above him, and chandeliers of pale blue light floated in the air like constellations. Every surface was reflective and every dancer was broken into a hundred different images. But something was wrong. He cast no reflection in any of the mirrors. And Jode … the images of Jode were those of the bloody corpse. As for the dancers … their reflections were of the soldiers who’d fought for him in the war. Saerath, Lynna, Cadrian, even Jholeg the goblin, all watching him from the walls as they moved in the endless dance.
“You’re trapped by the past,” Jode said. “You tried to destroy your shame by becoming a hero, but your righteous cause brought only blood and death.”
Daine tried to answer but found that he could not speak. Then across the hall he saw a pale young woman with coppery hair bound above her head, dancing alone with her reflections. Her backless green gown revealed the dragonmark of Making, set just beneath the base of her neck. There was no doubt in his mind that it was Lei. He pushed through the crowd, trying to reach her, but it was like wading through a muddy swamp. He could barely move his feet, and dancers were constantly darting in front of him. When he tried to push them aside, they turned to stone, becoming even greater obstacles to his path.
The woman in green slipped further and further ahead of him. She reached the hallway that led to Alina’s private workshop. She paused and looked back at him, and it was Lei, but something was wrong—her eyes. The irises were large and violet and stood out like stars amidst the tones of blue and gray. She smiled and disappeared around the corner.
Finally, Daine reached the hallway, but Lei was nowhere to be seen. Instead, another Daine was standing there: He was younger, more arrogant, impatient for action. The watchful eye emblem of House Deneith glittered on the pommel of his sword. “Looking for someone, old man?”
“Lei …?”
“You’re a threat to those you care about, old man. You sacrificed your family for your country. You failed to save your country, and then you failed to save your friend. You even lost your grandfather’s sword.”
“Jode pawned it, and now I don’t even know who he pawned it to!”
“Do you always make excuses to yourself?”
“You’re not me.”
“And who are you?”
Daine drew his sword—Grazen’s sword. His mirror-image laughed. “It is a poor man who relies on another man’s blade.” Then he took up a guard position, and said in a bored tone, “Lady Lyrris has declared this section of the manor to be off limits to her guests. If you’d like to survive the evening, I suggest you go back the way you came.”
Daine leaped forward with a lightning thrust that should have speared his double through the knee. But his enemy swept the blow aside with a sweeping parry. He barely blocked the lazy riposte that followed, and his blade hummed from the impact.
“You’re fighting yourself, Daine,” his double said. He countered an attempted double-thrust, nearly sweeping the sword from Daine’s grip with a circular parry. “But you’ve thrown away your past, and you have yet to embrace the future.”
The younger Daine moved with lightning speed, and an arc of steel caught the flat of Daine’s blade, which shivered and shattered into a dozen pieces. A second later, the point was at Daine’s throat.
“Ask yourself,” the double said. “Who are you really? What do you want in this world? Find out quickly. You may not have much time left.”
His features shifted until he wasn’t Daine at all: He was Monan. With a wild laugh, he drove his blade home. There was a sharp, terrible pain, and Daine couldn’t breathe. He was falling,