Dovenbyre Castle,
Grithain
AS A FULL moon swam high in a midnight sky above the castle, the king of Grithain lay dying. He had survived countless battles and wars, two attempted poisonings, and a stabbing. All had been endured with stalwart strength. But now his heart beat faintly, and his shrewd, deep-set eyes were closed. In a velvet chair near his bed of ermine pelts and silk linens, the old witch, Ariel, huddled in a forest-green cloak, nearly as weak as the king she had served most of her days.
“The boy, Ariel . . . what will become of . . . the boy?” he managed to gasp, though his eyes remained shut.
“He will be king—or not,” the witch answered in a hissing whisper.
“All this time . . . I kept him far from me all this time . . . so that he might live . . .”
“He might yet. But danger draws near. Too near,” Ariel muttered. She would not lie to the king, nor to herself.
At this moment the danger to Branden, Prince of Grithain, was greater than it had been at any other time since he had first been smuggled in secret away from the castle only two days following his birth. And her powers, needed now more than ever, had never been weaker.
She was old and drained, beaten by an unseen foe, a faraway demon-wizard who had somehow poisoned her with a slow-acting spell, one so rare it went beyond her power or knowledge to counter. Drop by drop he had stolen her powers, nearly all of them, attacking her from some distant, unknown place. He had found a way to tap them, draw them from her, and yet leave her alive to know what was happening, to feel the power ebbing, the weakness overtaking her. It had been a slow, cruel, torturous death. The only thing she retained was her mind, her thoughts. Those he could not breach. But now she feared that he and his master were closing in on the prince—and only one man could save him. One mortal man . . .
“No!” A shudder wracked the old witch in her chair, and King Mortimer’s eyes painfully opened upon the candlelit chamber. He ignored the servants hovering about his bed with medicinal draughts and golden goblets of wine and frightened faces, and directed his words to Ariel.
“What, witch? What makes you cry out? Is my boy dead?”
“No . . . not dead . . . but they are coming . . . lying in wait . . . Conor!” The witch screeched.
“Tell me what you see—is all lost?”
“Help . . . he needs help . . . Conor, no!” The witch hugged her spindly arms around herself, rocking her withered body in the chair as the visions, faint but certain, hammered in her head.
Suddenly her gaze flew to the window, and she stared at the full pearl of a moon.
“Midnight . . .’tis nearly midnight . . .”
“Ariel!” The king’s voice was weaker now, his breathing ragged. “Can you . . . save my boy . . .”
“Hynda, yes, I hear you,” Ariel whispered, as if she was no longer aware of the king. She rocked harder in her chair, her voice low, desperate. “I hear you, my sister, but . . . she is only a girl, a mortal girl . . . yes, the mirror. The Midnight Mirror. If I can only . . . summon the strength. . . . He has taken it, all of it . . . almost all . . .”
She rocked, back and forth, back and forth, muttering words under her breath, gathering the last frayed threads of what had once been a great blanketing power.
Ashwer quinkling sep moregose. Can argg hana swey.
The mirror. The girl. The moon. Midnight.
She felt a spark, one last spark—of light, of power, of magic. It splashed through her like the dizzying surge of a cool mountain spring as the king’s eyes closed again and her body twitched and shuddered.
The mirror, she thought on a gasp of final effort. Let your power awaken, mirror . . . mirror . . .
The seconds crept closer to the hour of midnight. All of her energy flowed across Grithain to a distant cottage on the border of an ancient forest—to a girl and a cat and a mirror . . .
Let what was hidden be seen.
Let what was dark glow with light.
Let the mirror speak, its silence end.
At the stroke of this midnight.
Ariel sank back, spent and gasping, as King Mortimer of Grithain drew one final breath.
“There is hope for your son, my king,” she whispered as the flames of the candles fluttered and the king’s heart at last set him free. “Hope for Branden, within the mirror. We shall see . . . Majesty, we shall see . . .”