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

54. Bash

Chapter 54

Bash

A viel’s remaining soldiers lay dead across the ancient stone before the Seeing Mirror, the few who had surrendered unconscious and bound in a corner. The stench of battle, of fear and sweat and blood, permeated the cavern.

Pari had sent a stained piece of parchment letting us know they had returned after the avalanche, killing or capturing the soldiers that remained now that their numbers had been so greatly reduced. They had been working to burrow their way to the buried doorway, attempting to blow, move, and melt away the snow that had covered the entrance to the mountain far below.

I was having a hard time caring about the rest of the realm. Not when all I could focus on was her.

Trust that if I have any choice in the matter, I’ll come back to you.

My heart crawled further up my throat with each passing second. Beating its way out of my chest, as it had been ever since Eva had followed Aviel through that mirror. As she fought him—the monster who had stalked her for her entire life—alone.

The purgatory was unbearable, my every muscle remaining on high alert. I couldn’t stop my mind from racing through every possible scenario my anima could be enduring, every single way Aviel might be torturing her while I couldn’t reach her, each more horrifying than the last.

I should have gotten there sooner. And even if I trusted her ability, her courage…she shouldn’t have to face him without me yet again. Not with the unspeakable cost of her backup plan, the one I knew she wouldn’t shy from should all else fail.

She didn’t need to be saved, but I couldn’t help but beg the gods to bring her back to me.

As I traced the dark, cold edges of the mirror, I silently pleaded for it to open. Trying in vain to feel her through our bond, the link between us far too unsubstantial. There was only damning silence, not a hint of what she was going through.

All that was left was the absence of her, the aching nothingness where Eva was supposed to be.

A frenetic energy was building under my skin. My shadows curled against the glass as they tried and failed to break through.

I can’t lose her. I can’t ? —

But there was nothing I could do but wait. Wait and breathe in the same four-count Eva had demonstrated so many times it now felt unconscious to slip into it.

If he hurt her, I would never forgive myself.

She had been unstoppable, a force of nature as she raced through the battle—soldiers falling in her wake without her even raising her sword. Inevitable as she had fallen through the mirror that was her destiny.

Had the Choosing known she was the rightful queen despite Aviel’s treachery? Or had she been too late?

Would I even know if she sacrificed herself?

I forced down my sudden nausea, the spiraling weight of my own helplessness. Even after all the ways I had pleaded with her to forget that option, she had still deemed herself expendable—as if the world would keep turning without her in its orbit.

My hand balled into a fist, and I slammed it into the stone wall next to the mirror. Welcoming the pain if only not to wallow in my own powerlessness for one more torturous moment.

There was a low groan. Immediately, I spun to where an unconscious Rivan lay with his head on Yael’s lap. Quinn’s magic flowed into him in a slow trickle, her remaining power all that was tying him to life. She had brought him here after finding him half-dead in the stairwell. From where she said she found him, he must have dragged himself halfway up the mountain, following our path through the dark before his inevitable collapse.

Blood leaked sluggishly from a particularly deep cut on Tobias’s chest as he paced in front of me, a bruise purpling half his face. His eyes were bleak as he stared unblinkingly at the mirror.

I knew I didn’t look much better. An Elemental had burned through the leathers covering my back and shoulder, fusing the leather to my skin before I killed him. The smell of burnt flesh only added to the stench of this purgatory. But it would heal, eventually.

At my attention, Tobias glanced at me, one eyebrow raised. “Can you sense anything?”

“Still nothing,” I grunted. Our bond was as silent as when Eva had been collared, a thought that made my stomach plummet.

“I think at least one of us would be able to tell if she were…If she—” His voice broke, and I was selfishly glad he hadn’t been able to finish his thought.

Because what if she was already dead? If she had given her own life to stop him, and neither of them would ever return.

No . I would feel it. She couldn’t be, and I wouldn’t even allow myself to entertain the possibility. Because if she was…

“She’s stronger than that,” Yael said firmly, her voice still hoarse from the battle. “She’s stronger than him.”

I nodded. “She is. She?—”

But I lost my words completely, my heart lodging in my throat, as three words appeared on the palm I had barely stopped staring at. Three words that felt frighteningly like goodbye.

Fear like I had never felt flooded down my spine until I was drowning in it, dragging me under as my world narrowed to the I love you hastily penned in Eva’s looping scrawl.

Yael and Tobias were saying my name, concern and panic coloring their voices. Wordlessly, I held out my shaking hand before the iridescent letters faded away—and watched as their faces went as bloodless as I knew mine must be.

I couldn’t lose her. Not now—not like this. Not helplessly sitting by as I had done with my mother, waiting to feel my heart break along with our bond. Not when we were so close to this war finally being over, so achingly close to being able to have the life we dreamed of together.

She had to survive this. I had plans for us—a future that seemed to dim, perilously close to disappearing.

Please, hellion. Don’t let this be the end.

Her message faded, only the ghostly shiver of her handwriting still on my palm.

“What is it?” Quinn demanded. “What’s wrong?”

Rivan’s head lolled to the side in her lap. He was unconscious, unmoving, but still clinging to life. Another person I loved that I couldn’t help, couldn’t save. Even from here, I could hear the labored cadence of his breathing, could see the panic in Quinn’s eyes as she fought to keep him here.

“She wrote ‘ I love you ’,” Tobias rasped.

Quinn’s lower lip trembled as she looked at him. “Then she’s still alive. Still fighting him.”

Tobias let out a hollow-sounding laugh, closing his eyes like he couldn’t bear to look at her. “That wasn’t the update of someone winning that fight.”

The silence that followed was deafening. Then Quinn let out a quiet, shuddering sob.

Tobias’s eyes flew open, his gaze immediately zeroing in on the tear tracking down her cheek before storming up to the dark mirror, his magic flashing from his fingertips like bolts of lightning. “This can’t be it. Waiting for her to win or to die. This can’t be?—”

His voice choked off as he leaned his forehead against the mirror, his shoulders shaking.

I exchanged a look with Yael. For decades, we had fought the war against the False King, had lost and grieved together. We had battled only to end up here—utterly useless. It wasn’t a feeling I was used to, nor one I could easily accept.

But just because I wouldn’t accept it didn’t mean I could change anything.

The minutes felt like hours as we waited in silence. My eyes never left the mirror, like I could will her back through.

A flash of parchment broke my focus. Yael plucked it from the air.

“Marin said they’re still trying,” she whispered, staring down at Rivan’s prone form.

“Tell her to hurry,” Quinn said tiredly. She wiped a hand across her forehead before placing it back on Rivan’s chest.

Her magic was nearly exhausted, I realized, either his injuries too great, or her power too depleted from the battle.

Fear engulfed me, even worse than before.

I was going to lose them both.

Yael caught my gaze. “They’re not dead yet. She’s still fighting, and so is he.”

I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “Eva…”

The mirror rippled back to life, dark and flat one second, then undulating silver the next. I shot to my feet, about to blindly leap?—

When, as if conjured by her name, my anima hurtled through it.

My cry of relief mixed with a garbled sob as I lunged forward, and she collapsed into my arms.

She was blood-smeared and wet, barely an inch of her unscathed. I took in the sight of the cuts covering her body, her shredded leathers, and the stab-wound in her stomach with a lethal calm before I even noticed the golden crown shining on her head.

Then those brilliant gold and hazel eyes rolled back, and she went limp in my arms.

“ Eva! ”

A sharp, all-consuming fear filled me, my shadows exploding around us. Laying her on the ground, her upper body in my lap, I checked that she was still breathing—my lungs only filling when hers did. Her warm breath against my fingertips was the one thing keeping me from losing it entirely.

Tobias was there before I could even ask, helping me as I carefully ripped her torn leathers back from the wound bleeding in her gut.

“Talk to me,” Quinn demanded from where neither she nor Yael had moved from Rivan. “Is she?—”

“Through and through,” Tobias said between clenched teeth. He lightly traced the burn marks on my anima’s wrists, and I flinched at the sight. I couldn’t feel a thing through our bond while she was wherever she had gone, but if she had a crown on her head, that must mean…

“She won.” Tobias’s voice was hoarse as he echoed the words in my head. “Whatever happened, she won. But if she’s alive, he must be too…”

His hand tightened around his sword, staring at the mirror as if expecting Aviel to jump through next. Had she somehow incapacitated him?

Eva stirred, her lashes fluttering. Alive, awake, and mine . I put my hand on her cheek, careful to avoid the tiny cuts covering her. She jolted, tensing as if readying for battle, but relaxed when she heard my voice.

“Open your eyes, Eva,” I murmured. “You’re safe now.”

Her eyelids slowly lifted, like she had to gather the strength to open them. The dual crowns around her pupils sparkled, bits of gold flecking off into her irises as if in an endless loop, an echo of the crown still firmly in place on her wild hair.

“He’s dead,” she croaked.

My eyes flew to Tobias, then Yael and Quinn, their expressions as confused as my own must be. Had the bloodbond been a lie? If so, we had nearly lost her for nothing. But with Eva alive and safe, and the False King finally dead, I could scarcely muster the worry about what might have been as I breathed a sigh of relief.

Tobias’s mouth opened and closed wordlessly before finally managing, “ How ?”

Eva’s eyes glistened. She shook her head tiredly, her tongue darting out to lick her lips.

Hastily, I brought my half-empty canteen to her mouth. “Don’t you ever do that again, do you hear me?”

“Save the realm, you mean?” Eva sounded exhausted, her chest rising and falling in shallow pants. She leaned heavily against me, her strength seemingly drained, wincing as Tobias prodded her stomach. But that fire, that indomitable, unyielding part of her was still there, as fierce as always.

“Save the realm without me,” I said darkly.

She smirked, that one-sided dimple gracing her cheek. “It worked, didn’t it?”

I growled low in my throat. “Yes, hellion. Though the words reckless and self-destructive come to mind…”

“Did you miss the part where it worked, ‘cause?—”

I leaned down, cutting off her words with a kiss. “And brave. And fearless. And utterly heroic.”

Eva smiled up at me, and I brushed my thumb against that dimple that reappeared, needing to feel it. She tried to sit up, then fell back against me with a pained groan, the intensity of her agony breaking through our muted bond reigniting my panic.

Tobias’s eyes met mine, his voice carefully controlled as he said, “We need to stop the bleeding.”

I looked down to see a fresh wave of Eva’s blood pooling beneath her. Tobias’s hand was covered in it where he had pressed it against her stomach.

Eva’s eyes slowly closed, her voice weak as she whispered, “It doesn’t hurt as much anymore.”

My fingers wrapped around her wrist, feeling the sluggishness of her pulse beneath my thumb, noting the increasing pallor of her skin even in the dim lighting. The shortness of her breath like she wasn’t getting enough air.

She’s losing too much blood.

I tried to ignore the sudden ringing in my ears, the way everything except her and the growing puddle of blood beneath her fell out of focus. Panicking wouldn’t help her.

“We need to get you a healer, but with the avalanche…” I trailed off, knowing that help would likely come too late. “And Quinn…Rivan’s?—”

“Dying.” Quinn’s voice broke on the word, and my head snapped in her direction. The world went blurry around the edges as I saw her face glistening with tears, her bloody hands trembling. “He’s dying. I used too much magic during the battle. To kill, the very antithesis of its purpose, and now…I can’t hold on to him. I’ve been doing all I can, but it’s not enough.”

My heart stopped as I looked at my brother’s ashen face, the slow, shuddering rise and fall of his chest.

They were both going to die. And there was nothing I could do to stop it.

“If you don’t help Eva, she’s dead too,” Tobias rasped.

“I don’t have enough left for both of them.” Quinn swallowed, staring at the iridescent door as if someone would burst through to help. “I don’t know if I have enough for even one of them.”

And there was no telling how long it would be for help to come.

Eva went rigid in my arms. “ No .”

She pushed herself away before I could stop her, crawling toward Rivan with strength she shouldn’t have possessed. I jolted forward, half carrying her as she determinedly brought herself next to him, leaving a dark trail in her wake.

My hand pressed against her side, warm blood slipping between my fingers.

It took a second to get my voice to work. “Eva, you need to stay still. Let your body heal until help comes.”

She ignored me.

Laying her head against Rivan’s heart, her hand snaked up, cupping his cheek. A terrifying rattling sound gurgled from his chest. Quinn closed her eyes, the glow of her magic faltering against the death that was so surely coming to claim him. Yael watched in mute horror, her hand stilling in Rivan’s hair like she had been frozen in place.

Tobias took a step forward. “There’s nothing you can do, Eva. It’s too la?—”

Her eyes opened. Bright blue gleamed behind those dual crowns of gold, her hair streaming around her head like a halo as she slowly sat up, her hands still on Rivan’s heart. Quinn reeled backwards in shock as that power sprang from Eva’s fingertips, flowing through her body until the shine of it filled the room. The crown on her head seemed to come alive—a thousand golden flecks flying upwards in a mirror of the crowns in her eyes.

Rivan’s chest glowed where Eva touched him. Her hand moved down to cover the wound on his side, that light now too bright for me to make out exactly what she was doing, azure rays spreading out from her every point of contact.

His eyes flew open, his startled gasp ringing through the silence.

All at once, the magic disappeared. Eva went boneless against Rivan, the light in her eyes turning back to hazel before they fluttered closed.

I pulled her into my arms. “ Eva .”

Her eyes begrudgingly opened.

As I took in my anima , I realized her injuries had entirely disappeared. Her torn leathers had slipped down her shoulder, revealing her blood-drenched yet unblemished skin. No trace of the myriad of gashes that had been there before, not even a mark left over from the stomach wound that should have killed her.

My eyes flew up to hers just as her face broke into an exhausted yet giddy grin.

I smiled back, unable to find words for how relieved, how grateful, how utterly in awe I was of her. Questions could wait for later. For now, I could only be happy she was alive.

There was a collective gasp from the doorway, and I dimly recognized the murmur of voices as our own forces rushed toward us, a battle-worn Marin in the lead. Our soldiers, my rangers among them, ran in, crowding into the room.

But I could only focus on her.

Rivan’s hand flew to his fully healed side, his mouth working soundlessly. Then he laboriously pulled himself up to one knee before bowing his head.

Eva’s mouth parted in surprise. “There’s no need for?—”

Then she stilled, looking around with wide eyes.

And that was when I realized the entire room was kneeling for their High Queen.