Restlessly, Kaileena paced along the edges of the altar floor. She was edgy and nervous; the Timeline was like the raging sea during a storm, and she could not see clearly through the wrath and tumult. The storm approaches, she thought to herself grimly, and I will not survive it.
She stopped near the edge of the altar floor, and looked down into the terrifying depths below. Not for the first time, she wondered if it wouldn't be better just to end all the torture now, and toss herself over the edge here and now. A futile act of defiance, to rob the Timeline of the fate it had preordained for her. Or would some "miracle" arrive to stop her from defying the Timeline, to preserve her for the role she was to play later?
But even as she thought this, she knew the Timeline needed no such miracle. The swelling dread in her stomach, the quickening of her heart, was sign enough that suicide was not an option for her; it had never been. She backed away cautiously from the precipitous edge, then turned as she heard footsteps approaching. Shahdee!
She burst into the room at a full run, then half-jogged up the steps to the Empress. The normally cool Shahdee looked flustered; her hair was in disarray, her normally razor sharp swords were dull in the bright lights of the room, and there were bruises and scuff marks all along her body and clothes.
"Well?" asked Kaileena. Why do I even bother asking? she asked herself pessimistically. I already know the news will always be bad!
Shahdee was hunched over, hands on her knees, catching her breath. "I tried my best, Empress," she gasped at last. "He was too strong a fighter."
"He reached the island?"
"Worse… he followed me through a portal. He is here, now. In our time."
Time seemed to stop. Kaileena's mind froze solid at the words. It's over! she screamed within in babbling despair. He's here!
The Empress crushed the panic bubbling inside her with an iron fist, then in a fury leveled Shahdee with a stinging crack of her hand, sending the woman flying through the air to sprawl onto the altar floor.
"How dare you stand before me and admit failure!" Kaileena screamed, shaking with fear and rage. "You should have died to protect me!"
Shahdee spat, deadly, murderous intent in her coal-black eyes. "I'll not give my life for this foolishness!" she hissed, easily leaping back to her feet, then launching herself at the Empress, her swords two arcs of light flashing in the dark.
Kaileena had gone too far. Her panic had spurred her into bringing this conflict to a boil at the worst possible moment. Barely, the Empress was able to block Shahdee's would-be fatal blow, gripping Shahdee's wrists to keep her blades away. "How… how dare you!" she sputtered in indignation, struggling for leverage.
"I dare…" Shahdee responded, grunting, "because your time is finally over!"
Kaileena cursed herself for her weakened state, drained by the magics she had performed earlier to open the portals, and ensorcel the Hourglass. She cursed herself for not being armed. Otherwise, she could have easily handled Shahdee.
But, she suddenly realized with shock, she was losing! Shahdee's eyes gleamed as the Empress was forced to give ground, trying to find more leverage.
"You don't know how long I've waited for this moment, my Empress," Shahdee hissed, her smile a thin, tight-lipped slash. "How many insults and dismissals I have swallowed, biding my time, waiting for the inevitable!"
"Treacherous creature!" Kaileena panted, her hands rigid with the strain of keeping Shahdee back. "I created you… made you what you are today… and this is how you pay me back?"
"Oh, this pay back is long overdue… trust me!"
"You… cannot kill me!" the Empress replied, trying to hide the strain from her voice. "The Timeline forbids it!"
"The same Timeline you yourself fight to change?" Shahdee snorted. "The Timeline has sentenced you to death; the manner of it does not matter!"
Kaileena didn't reply; better to save her strength to fend off those blades. But then what? What if Shahdee was right?
She sensed movement across the room… one of her creatures was nearby! Relief flooded her weary arms… the thing would at least give Kaileena a chance to recover by distracting the murderous Shahdee. "You!" she said through clenched teeth. "Help me!" She spared a glance from Shahdee's face to look at the newcomer… then started in shock.
That was no sand creature! That was the Prince!
Shahdee took advantage of Kaileena's distraction to suddenly shift backwards. Surprised, the Empress stumbled forward as the resistance unexpectedly disappeared. Shahdee's move backward flowed into a brutal spin, and before she knew it, Kaileena was sliding along on the smooth floor.
Tumbling, she saw the edge approaching rapidly, and desperately struggled for purchase on the floor. But she found none, and suddenly, dreadfully, was aware of nothingness beneath her. One last, desperate reach with her hand found a small imperfection in the lip of the edge, and her now-anchored arm screamed in pain as it absorbed the force of stopping her from plummeting into the darkness below.
As her wild eyes looked at the dark emptiness below her, one small part of her could not help but think about the irony, were she to plummet to her death now, after considering leaping off of her own accord mere moments earlier.
A shadow fell above her, and she looked up to see Shahdee standing above her. Kaileena swallowed, seeing Shahdee's sharp boot poised over her clenched hand. She wondered if she would feel it when she smashed into the distant ground, shrouded in darkness far, far below, and whether the light of the sun would ever touch her again.
"Leave her alone!" called out the Prince. "You and I have unfinished business!"
Pausing, Shahdee turned to look at him, then suddenly disappeared from Kaileena's sight. The Empress sighed silently to herself, as she heard metal crash on metal.
As the Prince and Shahdee struggled, Kaileena gingerly attempted to pull herself up. With her two deadliest foes struggling against each other, now was the ideal time to escape. But it was hopeless; the only thing she managed to do was get both her hands to grip the edge, which at least provided some measure of safety. But how long would that last, before her body failed her and her grip loosened?
The sounds of combat drifted down from above, and all she could do was hang there, suspended in time and air, as each second seemed to grind past the next. She started once, as she saw the Prince go flying by above her, to land painfully against one of the outflung claws which encircled the dais like fingers encircling a palm. But he quickly recovered and leapt back out of sight, steel determination gleaming from his eyes.
And then suddenly she heard the unmistakable sound of cold metal cleave through all-too-pliant flesh, and Shahdee's agonizing cry of death.
So now she was all alone. Truly alone, for Shahdee, despite her treachery at the end, had been the closest thing she had had to a friend.
A shadow fell over her, reminding her that she wasn't alone. She looked up to see the Prince looking down upon her, and she wondered how it could be that her heart did not fail her then and there, to see her death staring at her so closely.
But he did not recognize her… she could see that, now, in the concerned tone of his eyes. He thought her just a young woman, perhaps a servant of the Empress. And suddenly hope, fickle and fleeting, savior and betrayer, had returned to Kaileena.
He knelt down and grabbed her wrists. Using his strong arms for support, Kaileena climbed up over the ledge and onto the safety of the floor. From the corner of her eye, she spotted Shahdee, lying prone on the dais floor. Unbidden, the image of herself lying lifeless on the floor instead of Shahdee touched the Empress' mind, and she blinked at the chill darkness of her own mind. Or was that the Timeline, allowing her a clear view through the storm of her future?
Quickly, unsteadily getting to her feet, she turned to go, afraid that the newfound hope stirring in her might flee at the slightest chance, the lightest breath. She had to escape from the Prince… she wasn't ready to face him, to face her fate, now!
"Wait!" he called out from behind her. "Please, I must speak with you!"
Despite herself, she stopped and turned to look at him, slowly rising to his feet at the dais' edge. "What do you want from me?" she asked.
"I seek an audience with the Empress."
She managed to give voice to an amused chuckle, though inside she felt relief at the Prince's lack of knowledge. "The Empress meets with no one. Who do you think you are?"
"I am the Prince of Persia," he stated simply. No pride or arrogance about him, no flippant nonchalance. He was a determined man, who had journeyed across the sea of Time and battled through the Empress' denizens and traps single-handedly, and was not about to let a few words deter him.
"I see," she replied, trying to sound indifferent. "Today is a very important day… she cannot be disturbed," she said curtly, turning again to leave.
"I don't think you understand how important this is!" he responded, hurrying to catch up with her as she approached the steps leading down off the dais.
Just as he reached her side, they both heard a ghastly creaking. Turning, the two saw torn and broken Shahdee rise onto her elbows to glare at them. The Prince instinctively backed up into Kaileena, shielding her, and the Empress instinctively grabbed his arm at the shock.
"Fool," hissed Shahdee, her voice fading but still strong enough to carry. "Don't you know… you cannot… change your fate."
And then she fell back to the floor, and her body was suddenly consumed by the magical sands that had been bound inside her body for centuries. There was a glowing explosion of sand and light, and then there was nothing.
"'You cannot change your fate,'" murmured the Prince. "Was she speaking to me? How could she know my mission?"
But Kaileena was only half-aware of the Prince, despite his nearness. Shahdee had been staring straight at her, her dark eyes glowing with the mystical certainty of the dying. It was all she could to keep herself under control, force her breathing to stay steady, keep her hands from shaking.
They were interrupted by a terrible, slow cracking sound coming from above. They looked up, to see a giant block of stone descend with terrible, crushing slowness from the shadowy heights of the ceiling to crash with an enormous collision into the dais. As the dust thrown up from the fall blew over them, more ominous creaking and cracking emanated from above. The magical energy released by Shahdee's death was shaking the castle like an earthquake.
Acting as one, not needing to speak with or glance at each other to know what had to be done, the two hurried for the steps leading down from the dais and out of the sacrificial altar.
"Watch out!" the Prince yelled out suddenly, grabbing hold of Kaileena's upper arm and stopping her from continuing on down the stairway.
Kaileena followed the Prince's gaze up, to see a giant chunk of the ceiling begin a slow fall onto the narrow stairway.
The pressure on her arm suddenly, painfully increased, and Kaileena gasped as she suddenly found herself flying through the air, flung down the stairway by the Prince.
As she landed with a painful crash on the carpeted floor of the stairway landing, the floor beneath her shook and her ears thundered, as the intervening stairway collapsed under the impact of the ceiling stone.
She just lay there, wondering if the shaking would ever stop, if this landing too would soon descend into the dark night below, never to return. But the shaking slowly faded away, and the floor felt more and more solid below her, and the echoes of the impacts began to recede as if they had never been.
She rose to her feet, and glanced across the yawning chasm where the stairs had once been, to see the Prince looking back at her, trapped on the other end.
Her inescapable doom, the one she had dreamed of for an eternity, the one who had come to murder her… had saved her life now. Twice.
The Prince did not see any of this reflection in Kaileena's green eyes. "Stay there!" he called out, studying the architectural changes which had so violently been introduced to the sacrificial altar. "I will find my way to you!"
"No, Prince!" Kaileena called back from her side of the yawning chasm. Her green eyes met the determined Prince's eyes. "Leave this place and never return," she said. Please! she added to herself. Please, let this fate that I have foreseen not come to pass. He saved my life; please, let this all have been some ghastly mistake! "The Empress has no love for the world of men. She will kill you if she learns of your presence here."
She left, and as soon as she had turned the corner and gotten out of sight of the Prince, she leaned against a wall and started trembling. I was so helpless; if he had only known, she thought, I would not be standing here right now. Likely, I would still be falling…
She waited for herself to calm down, then tiptoed back to spy on the Prince.
She peeked around the corner, and gasped as she saw him leap fearlessly across the depths she had nearly succumbed to, to land on the thinnest of ledges against a distant wall. What fate pursues you, my Prince? she wondered, remembering his reaction to Shahdee's last words, as he crawled up a column and out of sight above her. Is that what has driven you here? Do you have demons of your own, hounding you?
Will you leave, as I asked? she wondered. But even as she thought the question, she knew with a depressing certainty, deep in her heart, that he would not. Whatever is in the Timeline will come to pass, whether I will it or not.