Chapter 36

The room was large and round, and mostly empty. There was a large four-poster bed taking up some space on the left side, a few other small pieces of furniture, and on the far side, a mirror with jagged edges. It had strange designs etched into the reflective side, and it was darker than most mirrors, making it pretty difficult to see out of. I wondered briefly why the yetis kept it in the first place.

The yeti woman walked across the room to the mirror. She smiled into it. "Here mirror…" she mumbled, not really paying attention. "So pretty...Lovely..mirror.." She admired it for a few seconds, then started twitching.

"Uh-oh. I think I see where this is going…" Rune whispered to me. I grabbed the handle of my sword; glancing over, I saw the others do the same with their weapons. The room darkened. Suddenly, the yeti spun around and screeched, "NOT TAKE MIRROR!" Her face had changed; the skin was grey, her eyes were solid, glowing red, and she had two long fangs protruding from her mouth. We all simultaneously drew our weapons. The windows at the top of the room shattered and snowy air rushed in. The yeti turned monster flew up to the top of the room. Within seconds, the floor was covered in ice, and snow coated the surface of everything in the room. Wind swirled around the now obvious boss of the ice dungeon, and soon a large ice mass fell to the floor.

"Okay, this should be easy!" Rune grinned. We all scattered as the ice came hurtling toward us. From opposite sides of the room, we all attacked. Rune shot fire at it, Link swung his wrecking ball and smashed at the sides, Kris helped the water melt faster, and I flew above it, drilling wind into the top. Cracks formed all over the ice, and within seconds it shattered under the combined force of all our attacks. We regrouped as the yeti flew back up to the top of the room.

"Not over, I guess?" Link said as ice started reforming around the yeti.

"Definitely not. I knew this was going to be harder than it looked," I replied as the form of the ice became clear. This time, there was a pavilion-like structure around the yeti, intricately designed for some reason. In a circle around her were several chunks of ice in the shape of drills. They started circling rapidly around her protective ice building. "Look out!" I shouted just before they came crashing down, one by one. We scattered again, but the ice kept seeming us out individually. Slipping and sliding all over the ice, we barely managed to avoid getting crushed. The last thing to crash down was the yeti, her ice casing no longer surrounded by the big chunks of ice. Our attacks managed to shatter the top of the structure, but all the ice flew back up before we could finish. Once again, the ice drills crashed down towards us. I wasn't fast enough to get out of the way of one of them, so I used the wind to redirect its path into the wall. We all shielded ourselves with our respective elements, Link with his shield, as shards of ice flew all over the room. I heard Rune grunt as she threw up her fire shield, but I didn't really take notice as she joined our combined forces for one last attack. The yeti fell to the ground, and darkness left her body. Dark tendrils filled the room before condensing into the shard of mirror.

"Two more to go." I walked over to the mirror and used wind to blow it into Link's pouch. After what it did to the yeti, I wasn't taking any chances with us touching it. "That thing is more powerful than I thought. Look at what it did to that poor girl." I gestured to the yeti laying on the floor. "At least she's still alive." I could sense her breath still moving, realizing suddenly that I could. Cool.

A shout came from the doorway. The larger yeti came barreling through to his wife on the floor, knocking Link, unfortunately in his path, to the side. I couldn't help laughing as he got to his feet, hand on his sore ribs.

"Yeta…" The yeti gently lifted her off the floor.

"Yeto.." she murmured as she woke up. "Where mirror…"

"Yeta not need mirror. Look into eyes of Yeto," He smiled down at her. "There true beauty!"

"My love.." She smiled back up at him, and he hugged her to him.

"Awww!" Kris and I said simultaneously, and laughed. Behind us, Rune let out a small groan. Realizing she hadn't said anything since the battle ended, we turned back to her. Link breathed in sharply, and dread filled me. A long shard of ice was embedded in Rune's stomach.

"Oh no." Link ran over and caught her just as Rune collapsed. He moved to pull the shard of ice out of her.

"No!" I stopped him. "Leave it! She'll start bleeding more if you take it out!" I remembered from some action movie or another.

"Well, what do we do?" His voice sounded panicked. Link dug through his pack, pulling out bottles. They were all empty. "No, no. Ugh, why didn't I think to bring Sierra's pack too! How did this happen?"

"During the fight, when Lily broke that chunk of ice, a piece got through the fire. Guess I didn't make it hot enough or something." She coughed. Her voice already sounded weak. Link tried to speak but he couldn't seem to get any words out. I saw him start to tear up.

"I-I'm sorry." I couldn't think of what else to say, but I felt I had to since I had caused this. "I didn't think…" My voice cracked.

"There's gotta be something we can do." Link looked up at me, desperation all over his face. I couldn't think of a way to heal her quickly enough, she was losing too much blood.

"The soup! Didn't someone say it had healing properties?" Kris said hopefully.

"Not enough for this." I suddenly had an idea. "But it could keep her alive for longer." I unstrapped my sword.

"What are you doing?" Kris asked.

"This will slow me down. I'm going to fly back to castle town and get a potion. If I hurry, and you keep feeding her soup, I might be able to make it in time." I managed to keep my voice calm, but I could feel my heart beating faster than it had during any battle. "Link, do everything you can to slow the bleeding. Kris, don't let the ice melt. Yeto…" I looked up at him, hesitant. The yeti couple had silently watched the scene unfold. "Could...you help us? Maybe bring up some soup?"

"Yeto help warriors who saved wife!" He set Yeta down gently and barreled out the door again. Yeta slowly waddled over to where Link was holding Rune.

"I help watch them," she said softly.

"Good. Th-thank you." I was starting to lose control of my voice.

"Go!" Link nearly shouted.

"Right…" I ran out the door and flew straight up into the air. I could see most of Snowpeak spread out below me like a sheet. I found the wall separating the icy world from Zora's domain and sped off in that direction.