Chapter 50 The Shattered Mirror
The black chain dug into my skin like frozen teeth. I was being pulled away from the golden bird ship, away from the Kael who finally looked real. The wreckage of the station behind me was a twisted graveyard of metal and wire, and the Queen, or what was left of her, was dragging me into the center of the debris.
"Kael!" I screamed, my voice thin in the silence of the void.
Kael lunged, his hand outstretched, but the purple bubble protecting me was shrinking. The black smoke of the Queen wrapped around the bubble, squeezing it until the light began to crack.
"You are me!" the queen's voice hissed in my head. She was no longer a woman, just a cloud of sharp glass and hate. "You don't get to have a happy ending while I rot in the dark! If the Weaver dies, the bridge to the new world breaks!"
I looked at Kael one last time. His eyes were full of a desperate, ancient love. He wasn't trying to harvest me. He was trying to save me. But the chain was too strong. With a violent jerk, I was pulled deep into the ruins of the throne room.
The air returned with a sharp hiss as we entered a pressurized pocket of the wreck. I hit the jagged metal floor hard. The queen materialized before me, her black glass skin cracked and leaking purple smoke. She looked like a mirror that had been hit with a hammer.
"Look at you," she mocked, stepping over me. "Still hoping for a hero. Still waiting for a man to pull you out of the dirt."
I struggled to sit up, my hand finding a sharp piece of scrap metal. "I’m not waiting for anyone."
"Good," the queen said. She raised a hand, and the black chains rose from the floor, pinning my arms and legs to the debris. "Because the Great Loom is gone. My father destroyed our only way out. But I have enough power left for one last trick. I’m going to overwrite your soul with mine. I’ll take your young, healthy body and walk onto that golden ship myself."
The fear I felt was cold, but the anger was hotter. She wanted to steal my life. Again. She wanted to walk into the future wearing my face while I stayed behind in this heap of trash.
"You’re a parasite," I spat.
"I’m a survivor!" she roared.
She leaned down, her face inches from mine. The purple fire in her eyes began to flow toward my own. I felt my memories starting to slip. I felt the smell of my mother’s perfume and the sound of my father’s laugh being pushed out by her memories of war, cold metal, and loneliness.
I have to fight back, I thought. But I can't out-weave her. She’s had a thousand years of practice.
Then I realized the truth. She was me. Everything she knew, I knew. Every scar she had, I carried in my blood. But I had something she had forgotten. I had the ability to let go.
"You think you’re strong because you held on for so long," I whispered. My vision was starting to turn purple as her soul pushed into mine. "But you’re weak because you’re afraid to die."
"I will never die!" she screamed.
I didn't fight her. I opened the gates. I let her rush in. But I didn't let her take the throne. I pulled all the pain I had felt, the betrayal of Kael, the death of my parents, and the stoning in the forest, and I shoved it into the connection.
"Here!" I yelled. "Take all of it! Take the weight of being the Weaver!"
The Queen’s eyes went wide. She wasn't expecting a counter-attack. The sheer weight of my emotions, the raw, unrefined human pain, was too much for her cold, digital mind. Her glass skin began to glow white-hot.
"Stop! It's too much!" she shrieked.
"It's the truth!" I shouted. "And the truth hurts!"
The explosion didn't come from a bomb. It came from the soul. A blast of white light shattered the black chains. The queen's form disintegrated, her glass body turning into fine dust that floated away in the zero gravity.
I lay on the floor, gasping. I was empty. I felt like a hollow shell. But the purple smoke was gone. The Queen was gone.
"Eara!"
I looked up. Kael had broken through the hull. He was wearing a simple breathing mask, his rags fluttering in the escaping air. He ran to me, sliding across the metal floor, and pulled me into his arms.
"I’ve got you," he whispered. "The bridge is open. We have to go now."
He carried me toward the golden ship. I looked back at the ruins of the institution. For the first time in fifty chapters, I felt like the story was finally ending. We reached the airlock of the golden bird, and the warmth of the ship’s interior felt like a miracle.
Kael set me down on a soft bench. The ship began to move, pulling away from the wreckage and heading toward the green planet with the two moons.
"Is it over?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper.
Kael smiled, and this time, there was no shadow in his eyes. "It’s just beginning. We have a whole world to build. A real one."
He leaned in, and for the first time, I felt a kiss that didn't feel like a calculation. It tasted like hope.
But then, the ship’s alarm began to blare. A red light flashed on the console.
"Warning," a calm, female voice said. "Unauthorized stowaway detected in the cargo hold."
I looked at the monitor. My heart stopped.
The screen showed a small, silver bird sitting on a crate. But it wasn't a bird. It was a drone, and it was carrying a small, glowing purple vial.
A voice came through the ship’s speakers. It was my mother’s voice.
"Did you really think I'd let you leave me behind, Eara? The harvest has just reached the High World."
Suddenly, the floor of the ship began to turn into liquid glass.