The Mirror in the Mountain (The Mirrored Trilogy #2)

48. Eva

Chapter 48

Eva

D read curdled in my stomach as we squeezed through the narrow tunnels, stone pressing in on all sides. The darkness felt unnatural, insidious, my own magic cowering away from it like it was an ancient monster about to swallow me alive. I could barely see a few feet in front of me despite the dim sconces that flared every few meters as we passed, each one extinguishing a moment before we reached the next. My heart seemed to stop each time we were plunged into total darkness, then raced as I prayed for the light to return.

I tried to take a breath, but my lungs wouldn’t function, an aching, weighted sensation pressing in on my chest. My throat felt like something was closing around it—a phantom collar that constricted ever tighter.

Trembling, I tried in vain not to picture the dark box I had been trapped in. Tried not to feel like this place, with the walls pressing in, wasn’t another coffin. That these dark tunnels weren’t leading me to my doom.

I sucked in a loud, gasping breath, then another, struggling to get the knot in my chest to loosen. But I couldn’t take a deep enough breath, couldn’t breathe ?—

“Hey.” Tobias wrapped his arm around me. “Big breath in. Count each second. Breath out. And count the same.”

Tears sprung to my eyes as he repeated the words our father had said so many times. I took an unsteady breath in before exhaling to the same slow beat even as I forced my feet to keep walking. We didn’t have time for this. Especially when the thought of being afraid of the dark when it was the source of my Celestial power felt both absurd and shameful.

Tobias’s arm stayed securely around me, holding me upright.

“Again,” he said firmly.

I followed his command, clinging onto the semblance of calm each breath brought. “I know it’s not the time to?—”

“You don’t have to excuse yourself to me,” Tobias said quietly.

“The box…” I whispered anyway, barely loud enough to be heard over the sound of our footsteps.

“The cell,” he whispered back. “And that godsdamned mask. I’m not exactly the biggest fan of dark, confined spaces either. Though I have to admit, after so long in that cell, being out in the open…” His swallow was audible. “The sky feels too large.”

My heart squeezed like it might break apart. We had been traveling for how long through the forests, making camp in open fields under the endless sky? I hadn’t even realized his daily discomfort. And I had been so focused on my own fears that I hadn’t thought to check in on my brother, whose trauma had obviously left a lasting mark, despite his stoicism.

I could commiserate when I whispered, “You must be so tired.”

Tobias’s reply was cold, his tone laced with a bitter malice I had never once heard from him. “We’ll rest when he pays for it.”

The light went out again, and I flinched. Tobias swore under his breath as if in realization, coming to a stop. Then his light flared from his fingertips, floating upwards like tiny stars.

Yael let out an appreciative sound. Quinn’s concerned look melted into a smile.

Tobias let out a rough laugh. “Sometimes, I still forget I can.”

I squeezed his hand, my heartbeat slowing slightly as we continued onward. Tobias’s magic hovered closely around us, lighting the way.

The crooked stone steps seemed never ending, our footsteps and panting the only sounds as we travelled upward. Quinn came up beside me as the tunnels widened slightly, her sword glinting in Tobias’s light. Our eyes met as we heard the clamor of metal and hushed voices in the same instant, raising our swords in unison.

The staircase led to an arched, open hallway. We turned the corner to find a horde of Aviel’s soldiers. The one in front opened his mouth to shout the alarm when one of Yael’s arrows appeared through his head as if by magic, more clutching at their throats as she stole the air from their lungs. Light leapt from my brother’s outstretched hand, and I flinched as I watched it wrap itself around his opponent’s neck, pulling him onto Tobias’s sword.

Banishing my nausea as I remembered the feeling of that same light reaching around my own throat, I raised a hand to summon my darkness. Before I could, Quinn dragged my arm back down.

“It won’t help if we win this battle only to lose the war.”

Letting my darkness dissipate, I nodded. Then I jumped into the fray, almost grateful for the opportunity to shove the thought of what we were heading for aside as I focused on the next right move—the deadly dance of steel against steel.

Quinn fought by my side. The way we moved together felt effortless after a lifetime of learning to cover each other’s backs. We made short work of the rest of them, running past their bodies to reach a narrow flight of ancient, worn stairs carved into the stone. Each sloped in the center, a testament to the number of feet that had treaded this path before us.

Blood trickled down the black steel of my sword. I didn’t bother wiping it away.

My thighs burned as we raced up the steps, the buzzing in my head growing louder. When we reached a crossroads, I didn’t question how I knew the passage to the right would bring us where we needed to go.

“This way,” I gasped, unable to spare the breath for an explanation I didn’t have after so many steps uphill.

Not down to the prison where the False King had never been held, but up to the very top of the mountain. To where I knew the Seeing Mirror waited, likely rippling in anticipation.

I could feel it drawing me ever closer. Like the power inside this mountain was calling to me, its melody just out of reach. Its pull was no longer painful, but a beckoning now that I was heeding its call—taking me toward my destiny. I couldn’t resist even if I wanted to, my urgency impeding my fear.

The rock around me now gleamed with a familiar, faint blue light. One that momentarily took me back to another night, running in the other direction in a stone stairwell. But at least I no longer felt trapped as we ran up the illuminated steps two at a time.

The tunnel was widening, and Quinn hooked her arm through mine as I stumbled on another age-worn, slanted step.

“We’re close,” I panted. “I can feel it.”

I nearly fell when the next step wasn’t there, the flat landing strange beneath my feet after so long running upward. My throat closed as we turned a corner to find two massive doors built into the stone on the opposite side of a cavernous hallway. They looked like they were made of the same silver quill embedded into my palm—its iridescence as beautiful as it was ominous.

“They’ll be ready for us,” Yael added grimly. “And if Aviel has already found a way into that mirror…” She cursed under her breath. “I should have stayed with Rivan, not Bash.”

I shook my head, even as I reached for the faint feeling that was Bash through our bond. Alive at least, but after the way the mountain had shaken when we left them…

But I couldn’t stop to think about that now.

“I’ll go with her through the gate,” Tobias assured her. “Eva won’t be alone, even if they don’t follow us here in time. I’ll hold Aviel off while Eva does what she needs to do.”

“And if he finished the Choosing, we’d know,” Quinn said stoutly, as if reading the apprehension on my face. “Which means we can still win.”

Yael’s chin dipped. “We’ll hold off whoever’s with him.” She looked to Quinn, who gave an answering nod—far too coolly with the odds currently stacked against us—before turning to Tobias and me. “You two focus on stopping Aviel from getting through that mirror or getting into it if he has already. Divide and conquer.”

Quinn smiled. “That easy, huh?”

Yael’s lips curved. “Let’s hope so.”

“Yael—” My voice cracked, and I saw her turquoise eyes soften in understanding. “If anything happens, tell Bash…Tell him that I—” I cleared my throat, shaking my head. “Never mind. I imagine he knows by now.”

“He’ll never forgive himself for this,” Yael said, her mouth quirking in a sad sort of smile, “if you go through that mirror without him. So do me a favor and don’t you dare die on my watch.”

A shudder ran down my spine, but I managed a shaky grin. “Only since you asked so nicely.”

As I turned to my brother, the gold of his eyes glinted in the dim light. But his focus wasn’t on me. He was staring longingly at the smile fading from my best friend’s lips.

I took his hand. “If I die…don’t let them burn me.”

To his credit, he didn’t try to argue. “Only if you promise me the same.”

I nodded once, holding his gaze. Then looked at my best friend, my sister in every way but biological. “Always forward.”

“Never back,” she breathed.

We raised our blades in unison, my trembling determination turning into pure steel.

A torrent of air rushed forward, the doorway violently slamming inwards.

The soldier-filled cavern stilled as the two sides took each other in, its vaulted ceiling soaring into darkness. Then the very mountain seemed to rumble as the silence broke.

There were too many of them, all moving toward us at once. But I could see it—the Seeing Mirror. It was smaller than I had expected. Ancient, yet untarnished, despite how long it must have lived in this cavern. The glass was embedded into the stone wall of the mountain itself, its gilded filigree frame cutting into the dark rock like golden vines. Each swirl and point glimmered in the light of the blue glints hovering around it like shards of sapphire dust. Its six points refracted with the familiar light as if they couldn’t contain the magic within. The glass’s rippling surface gleamed with the same silver iridescence as the doorway…the same silver as the words that found their way to my palm, like that simple heart Bash had once sent that somehow encompassed everything.

We had made it to the mirror we had come so far to find.

Only to be just barely too late.

Aviel stood right next to it, my stolen darkness flaring from his fingertips in a show of Celestial power.

“ NO. ”

Aviel turned at my cry just as his soldiers reached us. A funnel of flame barreled toward us that Yael countered with an airless void, extinguishing the flame as well as its creators. But my gaze was trapped in Aviel’s. Darkness streaked from his fingertips, the air between us stagnating as his mouth curled in the slightest of smirks.

He broke our gaze first. Twisting bands of night darted forward from each of my fingers like dark vines, my knuckles locking into place as they ensnared a swath of soldiers in my way. My darkness tore them apart without a second thought. It was far too easy to appease my anger, my magic aching to reach out and destroy the one who deserved it.

But I wouldn’t survive this by giving into it now.

My stolen darkness arched across the room. I raised Nightshade, its dark twin twisting around the blade. But Aviel’s magic wasn’t aimed at me. It speared directly at my brother, who was too focused on the fire wielder fighting Quinn to react.

I screamed. Then Yael was there faster than I could see, pushing him out of the way. The darkness slammed into her, throwing her into the air. Her arms crossed over her chest as her magic tried to keep its point from impaling her, a thin barrier of air the only thing saving her from annihilation.

She slammed into the iridescent door with a sharp crack. Then slumped to the floor, sprawled against the stone.

Tobias yelled something I could no longer understand as fury coursed through me, too vast to be contained. I ran forward, wrapping my darkness around me in an impenetrable shield. Dark spikes flew from me in bursts, running through any who tried to stop my progress. Refusing to slow down when Aviel was so close to everything he wanted.

“Eva, wait !”

Tobias was fighting off half a dozen soldiers, Duskbane shining with his pure, bright light. More took their place as his light flared, eviscerating those closest to him. Quinn stood beside him, her amber eyes flashing a deep, blood red?—

But I couldn’t wait for them.

Not with Aviel a step away from the mirror.

It rippled in invitation, sending a shiver down my spine despite everything. It was almost ironic that I was racing toward the very thing I had feared for so long, desperate this time for it to let me through.

Quinn’s yell mixed with Tobias’s from too far behind me. But for them—for my family both by blood and by choice—the idea of facing Aviel no longer seemed quite so frightening.

And it was time for me to face what lay before me.

Aviel’s pale eyes had turned black from the darkness streaming from him. Then his hand pressed against the mirror.

The glass shuddered, and for one elongated heartbeat, hope surged in my chest that all his planning had been for naught. It shattered as he fell through.

I blindly sent a wave of power behind me, even as I realized the soldiers following me were no longer fighting back—just herding me onwards as they blocked my retreat.

You’ll regret that, I thought, hoping it would prove to be true.

It occurred to me far too late that they were letting me through. They had likely been ordered to do so by their master, especially with my companions facing so much more resistance. That in following Aviel here, I was doing exactly what he wanted—providing him with the very magic he needed to steal should something go wrong.

My steps faltered. Then my heart leapt into my throat as I realized the edges of the Seeing Mirror were evening out, like a pond starting to freeze in winter. I watched them harden, darken, still?—

The gateway was closing.

Summoning my darkness, I leapt forward just as a wave of pure, gut-wrenching fear broke through our strangled bond.

I heard Bash’s roar of helpless rage.

But it was too late to stop, even if I wanted to.

I twisted to look over my shoulder as I tumbled forward in what felt like slow motion—the old terror of the last time I had fallen through a mirror into the unknown almost overwhelming. The last thing I saw was Bash, our eyes meeting across the room like mine knew exactly where to find him.

There was so much blood covering him.

He yanked his sword from what was now a corpse as he ran for me, his fear palpable in those ever-swirling eyes. I wondered if he could sense my regret, or if it had been eclipsed by pure determination.

“ EVA !”

With his anguished cry still ringing in my ears, I fell through.