Page 209 - DivineSparkRising II-TheMirrorofSilenceFinal

Nicholas Boothman
Carolina swallowed glass. “What line?”
The mirror answered with Serpa’s handwriting
— black chalk on black slate, letters visible because
dust insists on being seen. The same sentence
repeated until repetition became prayer:
CHOICE IS NOT SAFE.
Henry’s chest loosened with a pain that wasn’t
grief, not only. “Of course,” he breathed. “Of course
he’d say that.”
“I did not kill him,” Sofia said. “I made him
origin. I made him Zero Speaker. Through him, the
Mirror learned to listen back.”
Carolina’s voice was a blade kept sheathed until
the moment you decide to love a wound. “You
used him.”
“He used himself,” Sofia said, no triumph in it.
“He refused and offered at once. He proved it
could be done.”
Sera stepped onto the second step, then the
third. The water lapped at stone. She kept time
wrong on purpose.
“Why say this now?” Henry asked. “Why tell
the truth if it undoes you?”
“Because it might bind you,” Sofia said, and the
trap revealed its teeth gently. “You came for a
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