The mirror arrived wrapped in the dark cloth from Sera’s desk and carried between two guards who looked as if they had decided bravery was largely a matter of not dropping cursed objects in front of important people.
The crown fragment came separately, wrapped in black silk inside a small iron box Delara had sent with them. Sera watched the box rather than the mirror when they entered. The fragment had followed her out of a dream. That still bothered her more than the relics buried by dead women. The tomb and its mirrors obeyed some ancient logic. The fragment had crossed from sleep into waking because Aurelian had offered a crown and she had broken it.
Dreams were not supposed to leave debris.
Then again, nothing in her life had respected supposed to.
Valerius took the mirror from the
