The Glass Mountain was covered with golden trees. Oddly enough, they emitted the same eerie light as dragon bones. Ren glanced behind her, back over the edge, but snow-white clouds gathered and hid the fight below. The rest of the range surrounded the Glass Mountain like a purple sea, and beyond, the trees were green.
It was beautiful.
Almost hypnotized, she entered the copse of golden trees. She recognized them from her forest, all spruce and oak. Golden apples on their branches. Below the glass surface, golden roots intertwined, dancing and twisting under her feet. Fallen apples littered the ground.
Except for the click of her claws on the glass, the mountaintop was silent.
The trees yielded to a courtyard of sparkling, faceted glass. Two delicately wrought glass chairs faced each other, next to a floreted table with a glass chess set. Overhead, a weeping willow, with a thousand fronds of tinkling glass, swayed in a nonexistent breeze. And beyond the courtyard, glowing against the night sky, stood the most beautiful castle Ren had ever seen. And this, too, was glass.
It had tall ramparts and one turret that stood higher than the rest.
The mountain was unnervingly still. It struck her suddenly that the sky should have been lightening in preparation for dawn, but instead it was a strange dull gray. It looked like impending rain. There had not been a sunrise. She shuddered. It took a powerful enchantment to change the sky like that.
She crossed a glass drawbridge. Twin dragons, also wrought of glass, reared on either side of the castle’s entrance. Its glass doors were open.
It began to rain.
Carefully, Ren wound around the door and entered the silent hall.
A banistered staircase coiled into the upper floors. Overhead, a chandelier swayed gently. It was all made of glass. Although, here at least, there was a tint of color. A flicker of life. Almost like a reflection—of what, Ren did not know, for she was completely alone—but it diminished the overall stillness of the place. The soullessness.
Curiosity stirred in Ren’s bones. What use could the Dragon have for a castle? She glanced behind her. It couldn’t possibly fit through that front door.
Ren climbed the staircase, feeling, oddly, that she was on familiar ground. Then she was on the second floor. She padded past another silent doorway, pausing to look inside.
The room was multiple levels, filled with shelves. Here, the glass was particularly lifelike. Especially filled with movement. Always in the corners of her eyes. Ren found her head swiveling in every way, trying to catch a clear glimpse of the blurred images. And when she was finally able to ignore the flashes of movement, she felt her eyes widen.
A glass chandelier, in the shapes of different animals, hung from the ceiling.
It was a library. And not just any library.
My library.
Ren turned slowly. Behind her stood a glass suit of armor, in the exact same place that Ry? had knocked it over, two years ago. Ren sprinted down the hallway. The alcove—where Czarn liked to sit—was flanked with shimmering glass banners and filled not with a black wolf but with a picture frame made of glass.
Ren ran past. It was all the same. The doors were in all the same places. The stairs led to the same empty hallways. The towers in the same precise locations. It was her castle. A perfect replica, on the top of the Glass Mountain.
And if I am right . . .
Ren was at the bottom of a set of spiral stairs, leading up a narrow tower. A strange feeling washed over her.
Familiarity? Relief?
She didn’t know. She climbed the staircase, felt her legs growing more slender. Her spine easing out.
I am monster, she thought.
She felt like herself. She felt more like herself than she had since all this had started. She felt like the girl who had run wild through human streets and lain to sleep among lynxes. She felt like the girl who had feared nothing, had loved everyone, had defied all odds in an evil forest.
Ren kept climbing.
I am animal, she thought.
The fur rippled, disappeared. She entered a narrow hallway, rose to two legs. The glass sword must have looked ridiculous, hanging against her bare skin. Light, dull from the overcast sky, filtered through the windows.
This was the same passageway where she had kept a different room, in a different castle. Her hand closed on the doorknob.