Mirrors ✔️

Chapter 24: Choice

Valarie

After the voices comes the clanking of metal. Weapons, maybe, brushing against armor. Footsteps pounding on the stone have Lynn's already pale face going white as a sheet of paper. A sheen of sweat shines against her forehead, and she absently reaches up to push it away as she runs.

Lynn, a traitor, has no right to be afraid. My lips twist into a grimace.

Maybe I will find a way to punish her, if her own people do not.

We reach a small crevice in the wall, and Myra, the leader, comes to a stop. Peering into it from a little ways behind her, I find that it's narrow- far too narrow for her or Lynn to fit inside. Or even Kassidy.

"In." She tells me, grabbing my arm in a vice-like grip. "Royalty first."

I bare my teeth at her. "I am not royalty."

"Shhhhh. Quiet." She orders, even though it's her making the noise. "And willingly or not, you're still a Princess, Valarie."

I shake her free. "I go last." I say, my voice offering no room for argument. If going first is what a Princess would do, then I refuse to so much as think about it. "Someone else go."

"Kassidy." Myra seems to realize their is no point protesting, if she wants to get me inside at all. Which she won't, if I have any say in it. "You're up."

Without protest, Kassidy moves to the front, contorting herself into odd positions in order to fit inside. It looks uncomfortable, but Kassidy manages to force herself in farther, leaving room for the rebel boy to step up.

After a brief hesitation on his part, he does so, sliding in with far more ease then Eva's sister.

They are close now. The soldiers. I can hear them searching for us, their low voices permeating the small tunnel.

"Lynn!" Myra seems unwilling to leave her traitor comrade behind. I frown. If I was in her position, I would. I'd leave her for a long and painful death at the hands of the soldiers. I'd leave her, hoping they'd torture her for days on end, with no food or drink, and then I'd hide somewhere so I could hear her scream.

But I'm not Myra, so Lynn goes next, just managing to get her plump body inside.

So she can fit, after all. What a surprise.

Closer now. Closer and closer and closer and there they are, their eyes locking on Myra, Renee, and I. Three rows of them, five deep, as if they think we're dangerous enough to warrant the extra security. Their mouths are all hard lines and pulled down edges.

"Now." The order is barely a breath, and it doesn't come from Myra. It's from their leader, a commander I saw multiple times when I was younger.

And then they come.

Panicked, Renee, the closest, lunges for the crevice, getting caught in the entrance in her fear. She wriggles to get free, desperate. A part of me delights in it, thrilled that she is getting punished after aiding in my imprisonment.

Yeeeeesssss, Eva hisses, equally pleased. Let her suffer.

But she makes it in, if barely. Myra and I are not so lucky.

Someone- no, something, for I refuse to think of them as human beings with families and children- grabs both my arms, roughy. "You'll regret this." I sing, instead of screaming, as I did for so long. "You'll reeegret this!"

Their grip does not loosen.

Blood begins to pool on the floor around my feet, and instead of avoiding it, I embrace it. It's Eva's blood, and Eva is an ally.

I hope the guards choke on it.

It's not real, Princess.

The words come unbidden to my mind, the tone calm and soothing, and with them a face. Blurry and indistinct, but still recognizable, wreathed in light. Not Eva.

Renee.

It's all in your head.

Remembered, from a time when I was too lost to care. Too lost to think, to feel, to plot my revenge.

But I am not that girl any longer. And Renee isn't here.

So as the guards drag me back to where I started, I don't fight it. Instead, I laugh and laugh and laugh.