Chapter 92 THE CLONE IN THE MIRROR
Chapter 92 THE CLONE IN THE MIRROR
The green spike clattered against the iron deck, the sharp sound ringing through the bone cavern.
I couldn't breathe. I stared at the girl standing by the broken steam wagon. She had my nose, my hair, and my mouth. Her white uniform was spotless, completely free of the grease and blood that soaked my own skin. She held that little wooden tray with the warm apple tart, looking like I used to look on a quiet morning in the palace kitchens.
But her eyes weren't mine. They were bright, solid silver, glowing with that dead, cold light that belonged to the master loom.
"What... what are you?" I whispered, my voice shaking.
"I am Aria," the other me said. Her voice was sweet, light, and perfectly smooth. It didn't have the metallic rasp that now scratched my own throat. "The real Aria. The one who stayed in the kitchen. The one who didn't let the World-Eater turn her into a freak."
A sharp, stabbing pain twisted deep in my stomach. A clone, my mind hammered. The Emperor didn't just build snake-monsters and needle-men. He made a copy of me. A perfect version to take my place after they finish cutting me apart.
A hot, greasy wave of rage instantly burned away my shock. The sadness turned into an absolute, blinding desire for revenge. They didn't just want my family's blood. They wanted to erase my entire life. They wanted to replace me with a toy that smiles while the world bleeds.
"You are a fake," I hissed, my teeth grinding together until my gums bled. "You are just a piece of meat they stuffed into a suit."
The other me smiled, a small, cruel twitch of her lips. She tossed the wooden tray aside. The apple tart hit the iron deck, scattering crumbs into the yellow grease.
"Does it matter?" she asked, her silver eyes narrowing. "Look at yourself, sister. You have a bone claw. You have a black wing. Your little sister is dead on the floor because you couldn't save her. Our mother is frozen in glass because you were too slow. You aren't a savior. You are just a broken tool that keeps making everything worse."
"Shut up!" I screamed.
I lunged forward, my single black-stained wing snapping behind me to push my body through the air. I raised my right arm, the sharp, purple bone claw, aiming to drive my fingers straight through her perfect, clean face.
But before my claw could touch her skin, a heavy gold boot slammed into the back of my knee.
CRACK.
I let out a sharp cry as my good leg buckled. I hit the iron deck hard, my side screaming in agony where the captain's cutlass had pierced me. I turned my head, spitting a mouthful of hot blood.
The Emperor was standing over me, his face twisted in a wild, desperate grin. He had picked up his giant white needle while I was staring at the clone. His blue eyes were wide, bloodshot, and full of a manic, crazy energy.
"I told you the crown always wins, Aria!" the Emperor shouted, his voice echoing off the white bone walls. "Meet the new Queen of the Southern Network. She doesn't fight. She doesn't talk back. And once we stitch your black core into her chest, she will hold the sea back forever!"
"Vance is dead!" I gasped, clutching my bleeding side as I tried to crawl away from his boot. "The rebels are gone! You have no army left, king!"
"I don't need an army when I have the source!" the Emperor shrieked. He turned toward the other me, his gloved hand reaching out. "Do it now! Open the chest before she can use the fire!"
The other me didn't hesitate. She stepped over Seraphina’s still, cold body without even looking down. She walked toward me with quick, robotic steps, her human-looking hands growing long, thin silver needles right out of her fingertips.
No. I will not let them win, I told myself, the cold rock of hatred in my belly exploding into a living flame. I will break her face, and then I will take the king's head.
I forced my body up, tapping into the absolute bottom of my strength. I let the World-Eater’s purple smoke burst out of my ribs, turning into a thick, dark wall between me and the clone.
But the other me didn't stop. She drove her silver needle-fingers straight into the black smoke. ZAP. The dark fire didn't melt her hand. The silver wires inside her skin began to drink the purple smoke, pulling the magic right out of my body like water down a pipe.
"The network knows your flavor, sister," the clone whispered, her face inches from mine through the fading smoke. "You cannot burn what built you."
She drove her hand forward, her sharp silver fingers sinking directly into the right side of my chest.
An agonizing, white-hot shock ripped through my lungs. I couldn't scream; the breath froze in my throat. I felt her metal fingers wrap around the edge of the purple core hiding behind my ribs, pulling it outward with a slow, brutal twist.
High above us, the massive black iron eye in the ceiling gave a violent spin. The red clock-light in its pupil flared so bright the entire cavern turned the color of fresh blood.
But before the clone could pull the core completely out, a heavy, wet THUD shook the ship.
A shadow fell over all of us. I looked past the clone’s shoulder, my vision swimming in dark spots.
The golden glass shell holding my mother had cracked open from the inside. But it wasn't my mother who stood up from the shards. Her skin was gone, replaced by a tangled mass of thick, red iron cables that wriggled like a nest of snakes. Her face was a flat, smooth sheet of rusted steel, and she was holding a massive black iron axe that was dripping with boiling yellow grease.
The rusted steel mouth opened, and my mother’s voice came out, but it wasn't a whisper. It was a deafening, metallic roar that shook the bones on the floor.
"Get away from my daughter," the iron thing roared, raising the massive axe over the Emperor's head.