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She watched in anguished expectation as her vision-self pressed for leniency and got only stoic faces in reply In the vision, she began to weep, her face dropping into her pal with the force of her sobs

The pain of that ie skewered Mira’s heart in real time, made her lips tremble in echoed reaction She wanted to look away now, before she saw any allery turned to look behind the

Kellan

Oh, God It was just as he’d said

He strode forward, broad shoulders squared, head lifted, but she could see resignation in his handsome face as he looked at her Mira could nearly feel his stoic acceptance as she watched the scene unfold in her reflected gaze

Her vision-self whirled back around to face the ones who held Kellan’s fate in their hands She pleaded with them Tried to draw some of the blame to her instead To no avail They announced their edict just as Kellan had told her they would For the capital crimes Kellan stood accused ofdeath

As the vision continued, Mira knew her anguish could not possibly be worse

But she rong

Because then the terrible vision Kellan had prepared her for began to fade into a an to take shape in her reflected gaze So far, far worse than the prospect of Kellan’s execution

His lifeless body, pale and un, laid out before her

No

No! Her uish Or maybe she’d actually screamed her horror out loud All she kneas the incredulity, the bone-deep grief, that overcaan to wail

It couldn’t be true

It could not possibly end like that for them

She could never bear that level of pain

She would rather die along with -

The mirror flew out of her hands and crashed into the nearby wall, raining shards of broken glass

She jumped at the shock of what just happened, the abrupt startle her out of the vision’s unbreakable hold

Kellan loo so fiercely he shook with the depth of his feelings Heat rolled off his body in palpable waves His eyes were throwing sparks, his lips peeled back fro?" His voice was pure thunder, oddamn it Tell me you didn’t try to - ah, Jesus"

He looked away fro his head away frorief fros she’d just witnessed, Mira scrambled to put her lenses in By the time she had, Kellan had sunk down to his knees on the floor in front of her

"Mouse, for fuck’s sake Why would youWhat in God’s narasp, tre "Look at me, baby I need to see you I need to know you’re okay"

She lifted her face to h the tears filling her eyes "I’rip went a bit slack then "You used your vision on yourself Mirawhy?"

"I had to know I didn’t want to believe it I couldn’t ht, scraping in her throat "I saw everything, just like you described it And there was so more Oh, God Kellan, they sentenced you to death and then I saw you You were - " She couldn’t speak the word On a sob, she fell against hi "I can’t bear to lose you Not again Not like that"

He gathered her close, wrapping his muscled arms around her "I don’t want to face that reality either If I could keep you with ainst his war She needed to feel his ar, his body’s strength and heat She needed to feel for herself that he ith her, whole and hale He was alive

As she clung to hilittering splinters on the floor nearby A new grief tore at her "Your grandmother’s mirrorKellan, I’ive a daainst the top of her head "All I care about is you You can’t even be sure of the daht, Mouse Do you realize that?"

"I had to know," she said, her outstretched hand drifting over one of the shiny pieces of glass She plucked it fro that this one surviving memento from Kellan’s past had been destroyed in his desire to protect her "I wanted so badly to prove that you rong about what you saw I just wanted soether But it orse than I i I want to believe"

She didn’t realize she was curling the razor-edged shard into her fist, until she felt its jagged edges biting into her palone still, his muscles immediately tense, his body taut like a cable He dreay froh that she could see his nostrils flare with his intake of breath The eo had now turned into red-hot coals bisected with the thinning vertical slits of his pupils He growled, a ru into her bones "Mira"