Ch 2

It was darker still behind the mirror than in the caverns. There was no color, everything was black, and yet somehow Lili maintained a sense of the space around her. Behind the mirror, she was on a ledge, like the side of a cliff, overlooking an endless chasm. All the princess could see at first was the edge, but as she peered into the abyss, she saw that it was not empty, but a network of stairwells and walkways wove in every direction, leading down to somewhere. It was so quiet, Lili could hear herself breathe. She stepped farther in, cautiously lowering her foot onto the staircase, putting a small amount of weight on it, and gradually more, in case it should collapse under her weight.

She heard a distant echo from below. She closed her eyes and ran down the stairs, doing her best to remain quiet. She was able to sense the space around her with her eyes closed as well as when they were open. Down and down into the deep she descended, unsure of what she would find. There seemed to be no life there. There were indentations in the walls where coffins might be kept, and empty sconces for lamps that weren't there.

Farther down, she was able to hear the smooth pitches of Darkness's voice, though she could not discern what it said. She climbed slower now, in as much silence as she could manage. There was another voice. A soft hiss that lingered on the ear after it finished its sound. The set of stairs stopped at the end of a vast, wide bridge made from the skeleton of an enormous dragon. Lili thought she could hear the bones beneath her cracking with every step. She could hear the words Darkness spoke more clearly now, though not the words of the other voice.

"I will not! There is some way you are keeping from me!" he shouted at the other voice. "I cannot conceive that there is not some spell, an enchantment, something that will give her heart to me."

"Seduction, my foolish son, is the only spell that binds a heart. And you have failed because you could not control your brutish mind for even a momentary plot. There is no chance, no spell, or charm in all of my abyss that will remedy your stupidity. All that is left... is to destroy."

Darkness breathed out deeply, staring at the ashen corpse of the Ruined Master, the Scorched Angel, lying in his sarcophagus of emeralds. The Master's only light left danced green on the surface of his eyes, just enough to see the gory details of his shriveled face and crippled, blackened wings.

"Father," said Darkness, crossing his right arm over his chest and bowing to the thing in the sarcophagus, "I know what I must do."

Darkness turned to leave the chamber so quickly that Lili scarcely had time to think. She jumped into one of the coffin holes to hide herself as he passed out of the Master's burial room and across the spine of the long-dead wyrm... but the coffin-hole Lili chose was not empty, as the others had been.

A decrepit hand wrapped around her face, gripping her mouth shut as she tried to cry out. Something clinked and rattled behind her that held her in place. She struggled to free her nose from the top finger, and gasped for breath, pulling the dead hand down with both of hers, but the corpse's other hand gripped her tight. Darkness was out of sight now, and may not hear her even if she could get her mouth free to scream. The corpse turned her away from the opening and toward its casket with a firm yank. It was adorned with a crown of diamonds on its hairless head, strands of pearl around its neck, and gemstone rings on its withered fingers. Its dry, leathery mouth cracked as it opened, pulling the neck of the princess close, but she kicked against it to push away, pulling off its arm that clattered to the floor. She stumbled back, crawling on her hands away from the dead thing falling apart before her. It moved no more.

...

Darkness emerged from the mirror with his face set. It was time to kill the unicorn, there could be no more waiting. Waiting would only give her a chance to trap him, to trick him into setting it free.

"And then," the cold voice behind the looking glass had said, "Once she has what she wants, she will no more be beholden to you. Naive son! Did you think for a moment that she would truly consider a beast like you? She will abandon you to your miserable fate to be forever forsaken. Or, if she is merciful, she will lure you out into the sun and kill you!"

Darkness had never known sorrow before, but when he felt it now, for the first time, it was marbled with anger. Part of him wanted to despise her, to crush her innocence and let her die there in his domain, but another part would not let him do it. It was not love. He did not want to love, he wanted to win. The only thing he could do was to kill the unicorn, and let the princess decide then if she could forget. If she couldn't... he tried to put the thought out of his mind. His fangs burned with the thought of the unicorn's blood. He would keep her from forsaking him somehow.