“And me?” Kartik asks.
Stay with me.
“Someone shall have to look out for Amar. He is very powerful,” I say sadly.
“Gemma, we’re to be fighting, side by side,” he says, and I know he’s thinking of his dream.
“It was only a dream,” I say, swallowing hard, waiting for him to say his bit like a joke we’ll carry on long after this has finished, but he only nods, and that adds to my fright.
“What if they should find you after all?” Philon asks.
I shall die here. My soul will be forever lost to the Winterlands. The realms and our world will be ruled by the Winterlands creatures. “You mustn’t try to save me. Get to the tree. Take it down. I can’t say whether this is a good plan or not. But we must do something. And we can only accomplish it together.”
I put out my hand. It is the longest moment of my life, the waiting. Kartik places his hand on mine. Felicity and Ann follow quickly. Philon’s long fingers come down next. Bessie and Fowlson. The Hajin. The Centaurs. The forest folk. Hand over hand, we join together, every last one of us. I must concentrate hard to keep away all thoughts but my own. It would be easy for the thoughts of the Winterlands creatures to intrude, for the tree to slip inside my mind. I feel the magic flow from me into the others, one by one. And when I open my eyes, it is like standing in a carnival’s hall of mirrors. Everywhere I look, we are the same. Everyone wears my face. How will they find the chosen one if we are all chosen?
“We’ve no time to rethink it now,” I say. “We will be discovered any moment. Let’s not be taken unawares.”
The drums start again. My blood quickens in my ears. We fan out along the tops of the cliffs. Down below, the horrible trackers point and screech. They run to arms but so do we. We run toward the field. Swords are drawn. The clash of steel against steel sends a shiver up my spine. A hail of arrows flies from the centaurs on the cliffs. An arrow sings past me and finds its target in a wraith dangerously close.
“Aahhhhhhh!” A fierce war cry splits the air. I see one of us brandishing a sword as if born to wield it, and I know beneath that illusion beats the heart of my friend Felicity.
I can scarcely believe my eyes. Coming toward us at a furious pace is the gorgon, a sword in each of her four hands. She staggers as she moves, unaccustomed to the feel of her legs after so long without the use of them. But it is no matter. She cuts a magnificent, terrible figure, a green giantess striking blows left and right. The snakes atop her head writhe and hiss.
She shrieks above the din. “If you wish a battle, I shall give it. I am the last of my kind. I shall not lie down without a fight.”
In all her glory, she is a sight to behold. The snakes move in a frenzy about her head. I am both in awe of her majesty and frightened of her terrible power. Some creatures turn to stone at the look of her; others she cuts down with the strength of her sword. It is as if she no longer hears or sees us. She is lost to the battle, so much so that she raises her sword against one of us by mistake.
“Gorgon!” I shout.
She turns on me at once. And, oh, the hideous intent of those yellow eyes now that she is free. It is a horror from which I cannot look away. I am falling under the gorgon’s frightful spell. My feet have hardened to stone. I cannot move. The world spins away. The sounds of battle are gone. I hear only the gorgon’s seductive hiss. “Look at me, look at me, at me, at me, look and be amazed….”
The stone creeps through my blood. “Gorgon,” I say, my voice strangled, but I don’t know if she has heard or not.
Look at me, look at me….
Can’t breathe.
The snakes hiss wildly. Gorgon’s eyes lose their bloodlust. They widen in horror. “Do not look, Most High!” Gorgon screeches. “Close your eyes!”
With what strength I have left, I do. Immediately, the trance is broken. My limbs go limp with relief and I drop to the ground, gasping.
Gorgon helps me to my feet. “You must not look upon me now, for I am not the one you know. I am my warrior self. Guard yourself. Do you understand?”
I nod fiercely.
“I could have killed you,” she says, shaken.
“But you didn’t,” I gasp.
I hear a moan. One of us has fallen. By accident, a wraith has drawn blood. The false Gemma falls to the ground.
“Fool!” Amar shouts. “If you shed her blood here, her soul cannot be ours!”
But the body on the ground is no longer an illusion of me. The magic falters and fades. My face is replaced by the face of a Hajin woman. Her brown eyes stare up at them.