And there she was. In a castle made of glass. 

Her reflection was painted so perfectly across the mirrors. Azrael was overwhelmed with the sight of her raven hair, her dark onyx eyes, the skin he had likened to the enchanting hills of Terisgrad. 

"Aseneth?"

One after another the walls around him echoed her name and in the middle of her march to sunset, she stopped and looked back. Her gaze wandered in every direction as if she had heard a faint voice in the distance. 

"Aseneth, please..."

For a moment he believed that she would turn around and walk through the glass and somehow see him, find him there, waiting for her as if it was all he was made for. For a moment he believed in all the magic in the world. But he knew that she could not see him. She could not hear him.

"Come home."

Aseneth took two steps closer and looked deeply into his eyes, but the gesture was empty. She could not know he was watching her in Narazejt's cursed house of glass. Aseneth dismissed the path that led her home and continued her journey onward.

Then the glass castle changed again. Futures flashed before Azrael's eyes. Each wall depicted Aseneth in a different one. In one destiny she became a powerful magic wielder, her power grew as she whispered secrets and lies into the depth of abysses and the world obeyed her. Another wall brought her to life in a dark blue dress, ragged and dirty. She balanced a small dark-eyed boy on her hip, his face a boyish copy of hers. She opened the door for a man who came in to kiss her on the cheek and took the boy from her arms. Her smile was breathtaking. In one blink the girl he knew continued to be a harlot and please strange men only this time, in a foreign land. Another wall revealed her as a prisoner of war, living with nothing but black water and wet breadcrumbs in a cell with the company of rats. Shackles took the place of her Caidic ankle bracelets. In some ends she was raped to death, in others, stones were thrown at her until her skin broke and her blood covered her body like the shredded remnants of a dress. In one, someone plunged a dagger into her chest. But there were endings where she grew old and danced, and smiled as if she were not afraid of anything. 

He reached out to touch the glass but drew his hand back sharply as the images cleared and he Narazejt came up behind him.

"Do you wish to see the truth now?" Her sword was at her side, the blade of it tinged with blood.

"Is that possible? I thought you said we choose our paths and everything up until then is a possibility and that is why it..." He paused and turned around. "Is it really possible that all of that can happen to her?"

"She makes her own future, Azrael. All of us do."

"I was not in it. In any of them. Did she never mean to come back to me?"

"I saw her here once," Narazejt said. "In the glass. I did not know who she was then, but I saw her with you. You had found a way to marry her instead of me and you did not care about the war, your people, the alliance with my army. You forgot about everything. She was going to carry your son. But your people did not accept her. They called her the enemy and I felt terrible because I know what it is like to be a foreigner in your cruel motherland." 

"When did you see that?"

"The night you hurt me." Narazejt instinctively brought her hand to the fading bruises his fingers had left on her neck. "It was only a moment, but she did consider being with you once."

Azrael nodded weakly. He felt a weight falling off his chest, but its absence made him feel empty like there was an endless void inside of him. 

"And I have spent all my life on her."

"That future did not have a happy ending for you, Azrael." 

Narazejt dropped her sword and went to embrace him, but his hands remained limp, and his face was fallen. She felt herself start to care for him now, even after all the things he had done. The hatred she once had for him formed into some twisted friendship, but she did not know if that was enough to keep him from fighting her over the army. She was not going to take chances on him anymore. She had to get him now while he was lovesick and defenseless. 

"Narazejt," he whispered. "I tried, but I could not make myself love you as you deserve to be loved. Forgive me."

"But I have your friendship now and that matters more to me."

"They want me to kill you. They want us to have a child so that your army will be mine through inheritance and I will not have to fight you for it. I do not want to kill you, but I need your army. My people will die."

"They will not follow you. They are bound to me and my bloodline. Even if you kill me, they will not follow you. Even if we have a child, they will not move unless it is that child who leads them and by then everyone will be dead."

"So will I."

"You make your own future, Azrael."

"I do not care anymore. I could kill myself right now, but..." Azrael pushed her away gently and rested a hand on her shoulder. "You asked me if I wanted to see the truth."

"The past is not like the future. There is only one, but I am cursed, you must remember that. Everything is tangled up in the glass. But I saw something once and I am certain that is what happened. It is the only explanation as to why you would be so in love with her. Are you certain you want to know?"

"Yes."

Narazejt knew she needed to ensure his last request because, after this, she would have to be the cold-hearted warrior she had always been. It was the only way to save the army. She nodded and turned him around just as the glass started flashing images of her again. 

So this was the beautiful, the magical, the enchanting Aseneth—the poetry that plagued Azrael every night.

Azrael saw her as she was for the first time. The power of the royal bloodline in her veins, the ability that had nourished and protected her. He saw himself the day that they met when they were still children, how he had loved her from the second he saw her, and how she had known he would be the next king. 

Azrael knew she resorted to using her attachment to keep herself safe, but he had thought she was weak. That magic was more than rare in people outside of the Etheridian royal family and not everyone had the Sight to learn to use it. Even Azrael could not use it, his Sight was too weak, and he could not decipher the writing on the scrolls. But Aseneth had the Sight, and she had a scroll, but that was not enough for her. She wanted more power. She wanted revenge on the people who had slaughtered her family. 

When she recognized that Azrael was the prince, she knew she needed to get close to him and get him to give her the rest of the scrolls. How easily she had attached her will to his emotions, how easily she had made him love her.

It was a spell. Azrael's love for her had been a spell all along and even with her so far away now, she still had her hold on him. She still had power over him and he could not break away. 

"Azrael," Narazejt whispered. She tried to hold his hand, but he shook her from him and went to grab her sword. With one quick powerful swing, he broke the glass, destroying the image of them embracing beneath the stars. The glass put itself back together even as Azrael kept breaking it repeatedly and Aseneth's angelic face covered the walls each time.

"That will not change anything."

Azrael finally dropped the sword and sank to his knees. Narazejt sank with him, holding him tightly. "If you must weep..."

He was already doing it.

"And I have spent all my life on her."