Sam placed his finger to his lips, and with very little sound, ripped two separate strips of fabric from his sleeve. He made folds out of them and handed one to me.
"Wear this band over your head, and be ready to pull it down if you sense the serpent's eyes upon you," he said in my ear. "I can sense that is nearby, and knows where we are."
The cave was now eerily silent.
Sam and I climbed down back to the ground level, retrieving the sword left behind. Somehow, it didn't feel like enough. The cave loomed around us uncertainly as we kept forward upon the passageway. From above, the strange flower petals rained down again.
It's an enchantment, I realized inwardly. But why was the past echoing around us this way? Did it mean our childish wishes had led us to this curse? Did it symbolize the end of this war?
Suddenly, Sam halted and listened. A dark, twisting passageway to the left of the path faded from our vision, but that's where he led us. We descended the passageway into what felt like the belly of a beast.
For a short time, there was only the muffled sound of our footsteps. The cave path had fallen into shadow and silence. We were both hyper-aware of the sound of our falling footsteps, however carefully we tread upon the stone. My hands twitched in anticipation; at even the slightest sound of our foe, I was prepared to cover my eyes with the blindfold Sam had made. But what we encountered then, I had not anticipated…
The path ahead of us brightened, and there appeared the outline of a human standing in the shadows. Sam and I halted abruptly. Before us he brandished the sword.
"Who are you?" My cousin demanded.
The figure stepped forth into the light. Tarana's face was wreathed in shadows but she grinned towards us. "Sister?" she said. "Is that you?"
"Tarana!" I gasped in disbelief.
Before I could step forward, Sam held onto my arm. With a meaningful look, he shook his head. My insides froze.
Slowly, I turned my gaze back toward the figure. Tarana's face began to contort itself, her features sliding grotesquely about. "Sireen," her voice was unnaturally deep, "help me."
"Go!" Sam yelled to me, just as the creature that was my sister broke into a run. She charged towards us, her elongated mouth hanging open in a demonic snarl. She lunged for me, her claw-like hands stretching my way. Sam intercepted her. The sword made no sound as it buried into her monstrous body. She, or whatever it was, slid to the ground and burst into dust. We watched as the remains settled in a terrified silence.
What the hell was that?
"It wasn't really Tarana," Sam said calmly. "Nothing here will be what it seems."
"Do you know where my sister is?" The question came out of me unexpectedly, but suddenly, I was desperate to know.
Sam shook his head and came over to me. "Sireen, you have to realize that I was gone. He—the Jinn—controlled me inside and out. I couldn't see or hear or even feel anything after I tried to kill him. He won."
"His time will soon be over," I said in a tone that sounded braver than I felt. "But I don't know what's happened to Tarana, or my father."
Laughter again erupted in the distance, echoing through the darkness of the cave.
A surge of adrenaline blossomed inside of me. Anger suppressed my fear. "I've had enough of this," I whispered.
"Ezra!"
I urged my horse to wind its way through the chaos that was the mixture of my army battling the Necromancer's as the sultan's army joined the mix. Lord Terrowin's reanimated men shuffled through the snow, unphased by the unnatural climate change and keen on pressing forward in their leader's wake. His army was clearly pushing towards the palace gates, cutting down all in their way. I was suddenly eager on removing myself from the fray—if anything—I had to get inside the palace, where undoubtedly the Jinn was now pulling the strings of war.
Ezra could not hear me over the pandemonium. I watched as Lord Terrowin disappeared into the ranks of the sultan's army. Three armies, all chaos.
"Ezra!" I called out; he was not far behind Lord Terrowin now, but I knew there could be no way he'd fight the sultan's men. He was one. Why is why I needed him.
As I pushed through the madness unscathed, I realized Ezra was in the throes of his own battle. One of the Necromancer's dead had injured his horse and they were locked together in a clash of steel and struggle.
"Genius—summon the carpet. I need it, now!"
The lamp glowed faintly in response, and I hurriedly tucked it away again before charging toward Ezra, my sword trembling in hand. The dead soldier was impervious to the blows Ezra was serving him, and wrapped his hands around his legs, dragging him down to the snow. My horse maneuvered through the haze of war and with less difficulty than could have ever imagined, I slashed the dead man's arms and Ezra was released. In the next moment, he was up onto my horse and I was steering us away from the battle. The carpet was now a pinprick in the sky, and it was heading towards us.
"Can you show me a way into the palace?" I asked him over my shoulder.
"Of course," he said.
"Okay. Follow me." My horse sprang from the battle and met the carpet. I dismounted and climbed onto it. Ezra hesitated.
"What is this?" he asked.
"It's a carpet that flies," I hurriedly replied, "I don't know why it does that but it's safe. Come on!"
He followed suit. We rocketed into the air, over the sweeping battle of three armies. The palace loomed before us. There would be no turning back.
"Okay," Sam said quietly as we sprinted along the winding path, "I know the only way I can kill this beast is to behead it, so we have to try and create some sort of distraction. In the meantime, the Jinn is going to try and to trick us. He can create illusions that are powerful enough to hurt us—but we'll deal with those as they come. Our main goal is to draw out the Beast from its hiding place."
"And all we have is one sword," I added.
"Yes. And due to being possessed, I'm out of practice. I don't suppose you've been wielding a sword much, lately?"
I laughed in spite of myself.
"I don't suppose you really can kill a beast such as this with just a sword, can you?" I said meekly.
The silence between us suddenly seemed loud.
We emerged through a dark passageway into a chamber shrouded in shadows. The air smelled rotten here, as if it were a sign that evil was surely lurking within. Sam halted. A fleeting glimpse of fear passed over his face.
"What is it?" I whispered.
"Cousin." It was a voice we heard emerge from the shadows beyond us. It was Sam's voice, though he had said nothing.
I looked into the darkness and realized a figure was coming toward us.
No, no not again…
"Hell lives inside of me now," the voice croaked, becoming slightly deeper. Sam, or rather, his dark shadow, came into view. The deep, black eyes bore in to me.
Sam, the real Sam, stepped between us. "How many times must I send you back into the shadow?" His voice was steady and strong.
"We are here together," the shadow Sam replied. "We will always be together."
My cousin lunged forward with the sword, but the shadow vanished before the blade came down. In the next moment, something seized me from behind. In front of me was the apparition, its black eyes ever closer now. Its hands encircled my neck tightly.
"I have a message from the Jinn. He will kill you," it said darkly, "he has every intention of making sure your bones will be forgotten down here. You who hath damned him. You who deceived and betrayed the ones you love in order to defy him. You have no power here-" The fingers gripped harder and harder as the shadow spoke, strangling me…
The image of my cousin before me blurred as I stared back into his evil, hateful eyes. I could no longer breathe as his hands were ripped away from me. The shadow fell; Sam wielded a rock in his fist. My cousin intercepted his shadow counterpart with a deadly blow to the head. I stumbled back, gasping for air as the shadow met its defeat. Pain pulsed through my neck as my lungs filled with air.
I sank to the ground and put my head in my hands. Shame and fear and hopelessness crashed over me all at once, and for the first time since the day we had discovered the lamp, I realized that Sam wasn't the only victim of the Jinn's treachery.
The Jinn had taken away my soul mate.
The Jinn had destroyed my family, and killed my mother. Of that I was sure.
And it was because of the Jinn that I had to leave Aladdin, who was now undoubtedly fighting for his life.
I felt my cousin sit down beside me.
"It's almost over," he said softly. "He can't defeat us if we're a team."
I threw my arms around him and held on tightly. It was there that I found the strength to get up again.
The carpet soared high above the palace as Ezra scouted for an entry point undeterred by enemies. I leaned forward into the breeze, my heart pounding harder than I could bear. The terror of finding Sireen dead knotted inside of me. After all this time, I still wasn't sure if she loved me as I loved her. If we ever made it through all of this alive, I decided, there would be just one thing I would ask of her.
And then I would leave.