Mirror, Mirror

2.17 Aftermath

I couldn't do it.

I stood there on the edge for a long time, watching the white water crash. I thought about how it would feel for my body to break on those rocks.

But then I thought about you.

I thought about you saying your first words. I thought about you having your first love. Who knows, maybe you'll be a writer like me. You have a life ahead of you, unlike me.

❖

Starla stared at herself in the mirror on her ceiling, the one she couldn't reach. Or rather, the one that was inconvenient enough to reach that she'd run out of steam by the time she'd finished breaking the rest of her mirrors.

She looked like hell, eyes puffy and red, hair a dull and tangled mess. She felt like hell, too. Her head was pounding with that morning-after-crying headache, and she had a few cuts from stray shards of glass.

She felt so ugly.

It was nearly lunch, and she still hadn't gotten out of bed. She'd already missed morning training. She knew she was going to get in trouble for it. But she dreaded having to deal with the wreckage of her room, the broken glass everywhere.

Not to mention the huge mirror she'd pushed out of the window, which she remembered with a twinge of embarrassment. She hoped no one happened to be walking underneath her window at that moment... She doubted it. She would've heard someone scream; her room wasn't that many floors up.

Still. People would've seen the mess of glass and wood by now. They'd be whispering about her, like they always did. They'd shake their heads and say she'd gone mad, just like—

Just like Queen Frostine.

No. She decided she didn't care what other people thought. She was way beyond caring at this point. Her reputation had plummeted the day Rayvin arrived, and it had only gone down since. Rayvin ruined EVERYTHING. She hated him.

Starla got card after card slid under her door sent on behalf of her teachers. They piled up politely. She ignored them.

Hunger finally won out though, so she got out of bed. It was a chore, navigating the broken glass, and she didn't have the energy to deal with it, so she laid her bedsheets on the floor to form a path to her wardrobe and bathroom. She took her time making herself look nice. It was hard without being able to look at herself with a full-length mirror, but the motions were rote by this point.

❖

"Nice of you to join us for lunch," Hollybeth, one of the classmates, said when Starla finally arrived at the dining hall. People were finishing up. Normally, she would sit with Rayvin, who wasn't there (to her relief; she didn't think she could handle seeing him right now), and she was mad at her cousins too. So, she stepped past them to sit with Hollybeth and her gang. Well, not WITH them, but near them because those were the only seats left.

"No one cares, Hollybeth," Starla said. She wasn't in the mood for quips today.

"I heard about the cat fight between you and Little Miss Rayna," Hollybeth said coyly. "We all knew it was bound to happen. You know, with her taking your place and all that."

"It's more complicated than that," Starla said.

"I heard you had a fight over a boy," Mistelle said.

"I heard you tried to murder Rayna by throwing a mirror on top of her," another girl quipped. Starla slammed her chair back.

"You know what. I'm losing my appetite listening to you," Starla said. "I think I'll go find somewhere else to eat." They laughed as she walked off.

She ate lunch alone in a room that she knew no one else, Rayvin included, would go to.

❖

A few days of skipping training passed before Starla got the dreaded summoning card for the King.

She went to his office.

"Sit down," the King said, and Starla obeyed, having no energy to fight with him today. He looked mad. Starla prepared herself.

"I heard you have not gone to a single training session all week," the King said, getting straight to the point.

"I was sick," Starla said.

"Rayna hasn't gone to a single training session either," the King said.

"Must be sick too," Starla said. "I don't know. We're not friends."

The King sighed.

"Starla, we had an agreement," he said. He looked unwell himself.

"I am aware," Starla said.

"Starla, think how this is for me. I am nothing but a foreigner king. I look different. I speak different. Winter has never been worse. This is a disaster, and it falls on my shoulders. I was supposed to be a bridge of peace, and nothing has gone right."

"I don't know what you want me to say," Starla said coldly.

"I say this because I understand you," the King said. "You do not belong here. Neither do I. And the world is watching us, waiting for us to fall. They want to see us fall. But we will not, Starla. You may not be my daughter by blood, but we..." He swallowed. "We have a lot in common. We are on the same team here. Your success is my success. Rayna's success is my success. We all need each other to cooperate for this to all work."

They talked for a while longer, and, in the end, the King won the argument. Starla would continue training Rayvin, and that was that.