Millennia, or Myriana, whoever she was, gripped the sides of her head, pulling at her black hair, her face contorted in both pain and fury.
“I’m not that pathetic weakling,” she hissed through clenched teeth. “I’m the part of her that she couldn’t live with.”
My gut twisted with revulsion, remembering the dagger plunge into Myriana’s chest, her begging the dwarves to remove it, then the young girl on the altar with the glowing purple eyes.
And I knew. I knew what she was.
“You’re her Heart.”
At my words, Millennia let out an inhuman shriek, and her shoulders and arms burned with purple fire as she threw herself at me. But I was prepared this time. I grasped a shard of the broken mirror she’d slammed me against, and when her fiery arms lunged for me, I stabbed the shard deep into her thigh. She gave another shriek, and the flames separating us from Zach and Brom weakened. Zach took a running jump over the inferno and was by my side, sword drawn, in seconds.
“What are you?” he snarled to Millennia as I fumbled to draw my sword.
She dug her fingers into her temples and drew heaving breaths while blood trickled from the piece of mirror lodged in her thigh. Through a curtain of black hair, she stared at me, this time her eyes a beautiful shade of cerulean.
“I…I can’t… Run. Run,” she moaned.
Millennia was still in there somewhere, fighting to keep the Evil Queen at bay. Like the young girl upon the stone altar in the world of the mirror, Millennia was nothing more than a victim—a host for the Queen’s Heart. She was possessed. But Zach had no idea, so when he darted forward with his blade, he believed he was attacking someone wicked—a witch maybe, but not an innocent girl possessed by the Evil Queen.
Without thinking, I lunged in front of him, parrying his blade with my own, our swords clashing in a resounding metallic echo.
“What’re you doing?” Zach yelled at me.
What was I doing? I should let Zach kill her while she was weak, while the possession didn’t have hold of her. But then…then we’d be killing an innocent. Someone we were sworn to protect. Someone who was willing to do anything for the sake of the person she loved.
Before I could answer, Millennia gave another howl of agony, and the violet flames in the cave flickered out, throwing us all into darkness.
“Brom!” I screamed.
“I’m here!” he yelled, his voice close.
“That blasted mirror.” A haunting voice echoed in the darkness as if the Heart of Myriana was in the very air, rather than the body of an innocent girl. “If my other self hadn’t been so weak, so scared her precious prince would find out what she’d done, she would’ve never removed all her memories of me and trapped them in one of the dwarves’ mirrors.” Her voice was raspy and labored, as if every word was an effort to speak—and maybe it was. I didn’t know how much power it took for a full possession of a soul. Underneath her words, there was shuffling. What was she doing?
“Too late now. It would’ve been so much easier if my last body had survived creating my son’s curse, then I wouldn’t have needed to go traipsing all over these mountains looking for him.”
Horror ripped through my gut, making me nauseated. Her last body. Sacred Sisters, she’s been moving from body to body. She’s possessing innocent girls. Poor Millennia.
“Alas, what’s done is done.” Her voice was farther away now. “I had hoped I’d be able to use your helpful little Sense to reach my son, then kill you both, but it looks like I’ll have to get this stubborn body there on its own.”
Another shot of crippling panic made my limbs lock. She’d been edging around the wall in the darkness so she could get out…
“No matter. You’ll die here anyway.” At her last word a great rumbling shook the cave. Her elemental mage magic. The Evil Queen had been using her control of Millennia’s magic all along, and now she was going to use it to bury us.
An arm pulled me to the cave wall and pushed me flat against the stone, and I knew without a doubt Zach was shielding me with his own body. Rocks rained down and their crash made the earth beneath my feet tremble. But Zach still held me under him, protecting me. I could hear his heart pounding in his chest and feel his breath on top of my head. Terrified that he could once again get hurt from protecting me made me want to throw him off, but I didn’t dare, in case I pushed him into falling rock. This time there was no gold magic to bring him back to me—this was no monster with sharp talons. No matter how much Zach loved me, his sacrifice against nature wouldn’t save him.
Miraculously, once the rocks settled and the mountain stopped shaking, Zach’s chest still rose and fell above me. Cautiously we lifted our heads and blinked through the dust. The rockslide that Millennia—or rather, Myriana—had caused had created an opening in the cave ceiling, allowing sunlight to pour into the cave. Zach moved aside as I scurried out from beneath him, heart racing.
“Brom!” I called. No, no, I can’t lose him again.
“I’m okay.” A pile of rocks shifted to our left, and Brom emerged from the rubble, shield in hand. The clever boy had used his shield against the cascade of rocks.
I stumbled toward him and hugged him tight. “Thank the Sisters,” I breathed into his dusty hair.
“This doesn’t look good.” Zach’s voice came from the direction of the cave entrance, and with a sinking feeling, I guessed what he was going to say.
“We’re trapped.” The entrance of the cave was completely sealed by massive boulders, probably too large and heavy for any of us to move. But that didn’t stop Zach from trying. Placing his shoulder against the wall of rubble, he pushed, his boots slipping and losing grip on the loose rocks under his feet. Brom and I joined him, but after what seemed like an hour of pushing, we backed away, breathing heavily. Zach rubbed a dirty hand across the back of his neck and let out a string of curse words I’d never heard him speak before.
“Well that’s not budging anytime soon,” he said when he’d finally exhausted all his swears.
I gripped my hands to keep them from trembling and took calming breaths, leaning my head against the wall of the cave and closing my eyes. I tried to keep my thoughts at bay, but they came crashing onto me like the rocks had, pummeling me and breaking me. I bit my lip as my eyes filled with tears.
It was all hopeless.
Everything I knew, everything I’d ever been taught had been a lie. Myriana hadn’t been blessed. She hadn’t been a new race of humankind with the ability to defeat the Forces of Darkness. She’d just been a girl. A scared girl with the weight of an entire growing kingdom on her shoulders, and when the person she loved most betrayed her, she’d broken. She’d given in to the darkness festering inside her, and rather than moving on and dealing with the pain in her heart, she had the dwarves…cut it out.
My breaths came in rapid succession as I slid down the wall to my knees. And even though I was breathing, I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs. I was drowning again, but this time without water. And that thought only made it worse. I’d seen this happen before to a few young Royals before their first battle—a panic attack, the older ones had called it.
My breaths came faster, a new kind of pain squeezing my chest. It was different than my Sense—crushing my whole torso like a troll standing on top of me, and I couldn’t breathe because my lungs were collapsing.
Just when I thought I’d suffocate, I felt hands on either side of my face, and Zach’s forehead pressed against mine, his nose touching mine, his cheeks touching mine, his lips…hovering above mine. My breath stopped—my heart skipped several beats, one right after the other. I didn’t move, didn’t try to breathe, just reveled in the warmth of Zach’s breath on my cheeks, on his rough fingertips burrowing into my hair. Losing my breath completely somehow reset everything. I took one solid gulp of air, then another, and blinked slowly, our lashes so close they almost touched.