I grab a sword from a nearby suit of armour and head to the Hall of Mirrors. She is standing there in the shards, surrounding by robes of swirling back. As the smoke clears, I see her fully. The years in the mirror have twisted her appearance beyond all kinship with her sister, turning her frame bony, shrivelling and shredding her wings to ruin. Her skin is utterly devoid of colour, her eyes black and bottomless as pitch. Her face is just as awful as I remember, just as bitter, just as cruel.
She sees me standing behind her in the reflection.
“Ah!” she turns around. I am rooted to the spot. My weapon feels dull and useless in my hand. “My little beauty! My hero!”
“What... what do you mean?”
“My saviour! Honestly, I was worried there for a moment. You were so close to breaking the spell, but then dear old little Thorn had to be all noble and let you go. Used up any magic keeping me prisoner to open the gate. I must admit, your return was a surprise, for him as much as for me. He was so sure you weren't coming, and the minute he lost all hope was the minute I knew I would be free. So thank you, little beauty. Thank you for finally crushing him. I am free of my container and my miserable sister- well, I don't see her around anywhere, do you?” She laughs. “All she did to save that boy... all for naught, really. She just prolonged his pain. My end for him would have been much swifter.”
“Leave... leave him alone.”
“He will die soon enough,” she says. Then she snaps her fingers. Two nearby suits of armour spring to life, grab me and pin me against the wall. I struggle against them, but it's like struggling against stone.
Moya only laughs, but she massages her hand, as though the motion has damaged her. When she catches me looking, she drops her hand.
“What do you want?” I cry.
In the space of a clap, her face is pressed against mine. “Everything,” she hisses. “Everything my sister would have denied me. I want power and freedom and joy. I want to walk amongst the humans... and I will have them kneel at my feet.”
I cannot imagine Freedom kneeling to her. I cannot imagine the village won't fight back. Perhaps they can defeat her, after all-
But then, her own sister had to give her life just to trap her.
Freedom doesn't stand a chance. I have to stop her, or, failing that, just delay her-
“You said your sister did this to save Thorn,” I rush frantically. “What do you mean by that?”
At this, Moya throws back her head and laughs until she's almost hoarse. “You really have no idea, do you? You really are stupid, even for a human. The droplets of fey blood in you really haven't helped much at all.”
“I don't know... what you mean.”
“The curse. My curse. It's not on the castle. It's on the boy. And you were so close to breaking it... I was so pleased when he let you go. For a moment I was sure-”
“You... you stopped me from leaving before,” I argue. “When you conjured that lightning. You could have just let me go a few days later-”
Moya pulls a face. “I might have acted rashly, but watching the two of you that day down by the lake... I was certain you were about to break the curse. With his ridiculous plan for a ball and those stupid fairies' machinations... I was forced to act.”
“But I stayed because of what you did-”
“Because I didn't manage to kill him! Or you. Either would have doomed this place, broken the seal on my prison. I used up so much magic in my efforts, infecting his wound when my first attempt failed...” she pauses, lifting up a fist filled with purple lightning. There is another tiny flicker in her face, a faint ripple of pain. “No matter,” she continues. “Neither one of you can stop me now. And thank you for opening the gateway for me. That's going to make everything much easier for me.”
“But I didn't open the gateway,” I try to smile at her, rattle her. “And neither did Thorn.”
Her eyes narrow, but there is the slightest waver in her voice. “You lie.”
“Look at me,” I say. “Do I really look like I have that kind of power?”
There is only one person who does, aside from Thorn, and she knows it. Her face betrays her fears.
An enormous crash sounds not far off. Shouts rally against the corridors. Moya forgets me in an instant, and sweeps from the room. I see her reflection in the remaining mirrors. She glides down the corridors, clicking her fingers, bringing statues to life and pulling strange, grey, misshapen creatures out of the walls. The shadows are back again.
I have to get out. I scream for the fairies, but I know they are not coming back. Because of me, because of what Thorn did to save me, because I couldn't tell him that I loved him.
He will not die for this. He will not.
I still have movement in my legs. I press them against the back of the wall, try to push myself up. It does no good. The surface is too smooth. I am, I realise, pressed against a mirror.
There is crashing as the rest of Moya's army breaks free of the castle. How many can there possibly be? I hear shouting, hissing, the clash of steel. What are they fighting against?
The reflections show light coming my way. A stout grey creature bursts into the room. A troll, I think. It is short and knobbly, with a face as tough as bark. It gurgles when it sees me, raises its axe-
A bolt shoots it clean through the side of its neck. It drops to the floor in a second.
“Rose!” shouts Freedom, his hands immediately flying to my face.
I have never in my been happier to see my brother. “Freed! What are you doing here?”
Freedom immediately begins to dismantle my captors. Helmets and chest pieces clatter to the floor. They must need Moya to animate them; they are nothing more than metal now.
“This little creature brought me up here...” he gestures to the little glowing ball of light beside him.
“Ariel!” I do not know how I can tell who she is, but it is clearly her. She buzzes around my head affectionately as I struggle out of my bonds. “I thought you were gone-”
“Ariel, is it?” Freedom nods approvingly. “Thank you.”
I grab my brother's arm and move out into the corridor. The place is awash with shadows, but also with men from the village. My brother has brought a small army of his own. “Freed,” I say, much more seriously. “Why are you here in the first place?”
“I came to save you! You're welcome, by the way-”
“It's not safe-”
“Yes, I can see that. I didn't come alone though, did I?” he taps his crossbow proudly.
“What made you think-”
“After I got to Honour's, it struck me as strange, the direction you were running in. Towards the woods. I thought, at first, you were coming to get me, but when I replayed it in my head... you looked so surprised to see me. You must have been coming back here. Wasn't sure what to expect, so I rounded up a few reinforcements and-”
A bolt of black smoke hits the wall next to us. A bust explodes into dust.
“All right, I admit it, your timing has been worse,” I tell him. “I need to get something from down the hall. Can you watch the staircase? Shoot anything... grey.”
“Roger,” he says, “You'll get somewhere safe?”
“Of course,” I say, with no intention of keeping this promise. “And don't hit Thorn!”
I return to the hall to collect my sword, whatever good I think it will do. I do not think I can defeat Moya with weapons, or surely the fairy queen would not have had so much trouble defeating her in the first place. Then again...
The look in her face when she enchanted the objects, as if she were in pain. She said she had used up a lot of magic, that night with the storm... how much magic had she used to free herself? She had been in there for years, and the magic of this castle, until recently, had been flourishing, and if Ariel was here... it wasn't all gone, or my return was bringing it back... If Moya wasn't at full strength-
Dodging whatever fray I can, and occasionally hitting what I cannot, I stream through the
corridors in search of her. I pass by the door to the roof terrace on my way. It is open. Thorn is gone.
“Oh no..”
I pray he is somewhere safe, keeping out of the fighting. He is not strong enough. If Ariel is back, perhaps the others are too. Perhaps they are with him.
I cannot look for him now. Moya is an easier target. I just keep following the signs of battle.
The ball room. The throne room. Of course that is where she is.
She stands in the centre of the floor Thorn and I danced on just a few weeks ago, her head thrown back, laughing manically. Servants twirl about her, jeering and cackling as they beat back the villagers. I know these men. They are my neighbours, my friends. James Saintclair is here. And, almost worse, Charles is too. He became a father just a few hours ago. If he dies here-
No, no, I cannot think like that.
Moya raises her hands to the chandelier. Purple lightning raises from her fists.
“Look out!” I smash into Charles and knock him to the floor. Moya glares at me, but her pause gives James time to shoot at her. The arrow skids passed her cheek. I hear her curse before sweeping onto the balcony.
Charles rushes to his feet, dusting off debris “Rose!” he says. “You're all right! Thank heavens.”
“What are you doing here, Charles?”
“Um... rescuing you?”
“You just had a baby! You should be with him and Honour-”
“Honour would never forgive me if I let-”
“Does she know you're here?”
“Well, no, I didn't want to upset her-”
I groan. Honour would never have let him come. She knew there was no danger here, well... she thought there wasn't. She was going to kill him.
James reaches our side. The rest of the creatures in the room are all dead. The fight is moving into the gardens. Good.
“Rose, are you-”
“I'm fine,” I snap. I hurry out onto the balcony. Tiny droplets of blood dot the stones. “She's bleeding.”
“Well, I did shoot at her-”
If she is bleeding, she can be killed by a mortal weapon. That is my hope.
Down by the lake, lightning crackles along the banks.
“Follow it,” I say. “Be careful. Try to get her to use her magic before attacking. She's weakest then.” I think. I hope.
“Her magic, yes,” says Charles numbly. I keep forgetting this must be strange to them.
The villagers stream into the garden. I turn back into the hall.
From the shadows, a monster stares at me. It is at least eight feet tall, broad as a bear, with arms so long they almost graze the floor. Despite the width of its shoulders, it is skeletal, each and every one of its bones pushing out against its ash-grey skin. There is a horrible smell of decaying flesh.
I raise my sword seconds before it begins to charge.
A black shape comes soaring out of nowhere, slamming into its side and knocking it clean against a pillar.
“Thorn!”
The monster is up again in no time. Thorn is on his feet, his hair standing upwards, shoulders hunched. He is still not at full strength. He should not be fighting.
The monster raises his arms and Thorn meets both of them with his. I can see him straining, struggling to hold his footing, losing inches of ground.
I skid towards them, sword held firmly overhead, and slice the monster's belly. Blood spurts across the marble. It howls, releasing Thorn and darting backwards to assess its injuries. It is merely a flesh wound.
Thorn is bent over, but he clambers upright before I can assist him, panting hard. He cannot take much more of this, but I know nothing I can say will convince him to leave.
The monster readies itself again, but Thorn is quicker. He leaps into the air, soaring over its head, and grabs it by the throat. It struggles in his grip, crawling at his face, but before it can do any real damage I sprint towards it and plunge my sword under it's exposed ribcage.
More blood pools out of it as I tug the weapon free. Thorn drops the creature. It lies there, jerking and bleeding, while Thorn and I stare at each other, trying to catch our breath.
The snap of a bolt comes whistling through the air. It hits Thorn squarely in the side, and my heart goes crushing to the floor with him.
“No!”
Thorn slumps into my arms. His weight takes us both to the ground. I hold him there. He is fine, he is fine, he's going to be fine. It's all right, it's all right.
I stare wildly over him at Freedom, who is standing in the doorway with a crossbow in his grip. “What have you done!”
“He was... he was attacking you!”
“He would never-”
“Rose...” Thorn says faintly.
“He... he can talk.”
“Of course he can talk!” I snap at him, before turning my attentions to Thorn. I take his hand.
“But, but he's a...”
“He's mine.”
If I could kill Freedom with a look in this moment, he would already be on the ground, beside Thorn, beside my heart. I do not care if he is my brother. I want to destroy him like he has destroyed me.
Freedom stands there numbly. “I didn't... I didn't know. How could I? I-”
“Leave us alone.”
“I'm... I'm sorry-”
“Go away!”
Thorn squeezes my hand. “I'm all right,” he says. “Just a flesh wound, I'm sure.”
Tears run freely down my face. “You always say you're fine when you're not.”
“So do you.”
“Well, I'm not all right now.”
Freedom crouches down, gingerly examines the wound in Thorn's side. Not touching him. Not daring. “I might... I might be able to fix that,” he offers.
Thorn looks at him, and they share some quiet understanding. There is no fury in his face. How can he forgive him so easily? Then he looks back to me.
“Moya?”
“She's bleeding,” I tell him, even though this is wildly unimportant right now. “I think that maybe-”
He nods. “Her time in the mirror... it has weakened her.”
“The others are fighting her-”
“It may not be enough,” he breathes. The action hurts him. “But perhaps.. the mirror.” He looks at me. I can read his thoughts like a book. “You know what to do?”
“I think so, but-”
“Go, Rose. You have to. It might be the only way.”
“But-”
“I'll wait for you.”
I kiss his forehead fervently, closing my eyes, shutting out the world for just a second.
“I'll take care of him,” Freedom insists. He does not try and convince me to stay, does not try to fight in my place. He knows what he has done, knows what he must do.
“You better,” I say stonily. “If he dies, I die.”
Then I have to run.
He will be all right. He has to be.
There is only one thing worse than turning away from him in this moment. That is the thought of watching him die. But I cannot think of that right now. I have to think of stopping her. I have to save the castle, save the town, save him, save us. I have to make sure that Honour isn't a widow by tomorrow, though what good that will do me if I am without him. My soul will sink into the abyss with his, and I will pull the world down with me.
I burst into the hall and pick up a shard from the mirror that was Moya's prison all this time. It digs into my flesh. Will it be enough? Will I be able to hold onto it with enough strength? I have never stabbed anyone with a shard of glass before...
I have never killed anything remotely human before.
If Thorn wasn't dying, perhaps I would worry more about what that would be like, to take another's life. But I do not care. Somehow, I feel like stopping her will save him, and I know I would do anything, commit any evil, to keep him here with me.
Blood trickles down my palm. I am holding the shard too tightly. I rip sections out of my petticoat and bind it around bot
h hands. It will have to do. No time to waste.
Before I leave, I have a sudden idea. I pray the extra seconds do not cost me deeply.
The garden is flooded with light. Several of the trees are on fire. Their leaves spasm frantically against the inky backdrop, their skeletal branches twitching. I can almost feel Ophelia crying. Lightning still rages against the sky. Statues and tombs explode around me. I dropped my sword after Thorn was shot. All I have now is my mirror-dagger. It is too small to fight with, and I cannot risk it breaking. It is far, far too precious.
Moya is raising hell on the bank. She is surrounded by her supporters, withered, stout, pale, grey shadowy creatures. Many are trolls and goblins, but a few look like fairies. Fairies whose skin has turned to charcoal, whose faces are as twisted as hers.
Statues fight at her behest as well, but they crumble more easily than the others. Helmets and breastplates litter the shoreline, slivers of silver in the shadows.
Her cheek is bleeding where the bolt cut her. She looks dishevelled, but her appearance only adds to her madness. It is hard to tell if she is mad with power or mad with exhaustion. Her hair is all over the place, her eyes white and wild. Purple sparks hiss from her fingers. She looks up when she sees me approaching.
“What a lovely little welcome party you've brought me, my beauty!” she cackles. Her voice is like ice. “I am sure they will make welcome additions to my army!”
She grabs a fistful of blue energy in her palm and tosses it at James. It hits him squarely in the chest and he falls into the shallows. I plunge after him, pulling him to the surface, he splutters and coughs and then pushes me away. His eyes are not his own.
“James-”
He raises his sword towards me, but it misses and he falls back into the water. I grab the back of his shirt, wrench him towards the bank. His hand dives for his weapon, but I hit him with the back of my hand. Hard.
He spits blood in the sand. “R-rose?” he looks at me dumbly.
I turn back to Moya. Her expression drops. “Magic not working as well as it used to?” I ask.
Moya glares. She claps her hand, and the entire garden is engulfed in a thick, tangible darkness.
The Rose and the Thorn Page 29