He hissed in surprise, and he tightened his hold around her waist when his feet suddenly left the ground. She was growing larger—or at least her lower body was growing longer. The upper portion of her body stayed the same.
He stared into her beautiful eyes. They glowed with a golden hue. This close, he swore he could see the universe in her eyes. She blinked several times as if coming out of a trance and tilted her head back. He swallowed and looked up at the opening above.
She moved in an effortless glide up through the opening, rotating in a slow, mesmerizing circle as they passed through. Once they were clear of the hole, she leaned over the edge and released him on solid ground.
He took a stumbling step backward and watched as she rose farther through the opening. She coiled the lower half of her body around and around, pulling free of the pit.
The black scales that covered her from her waist to the tip of her tail shimmered in the late afternoon light until she twirled, her arms outstretched like that of a ballet dancer, and what had been the long tail of a snake disappeared in a cloud of golden sparkles.
“And… we are out of the tunnel,” she said with a smug grin.
“How—how did you—?” he asked, waving his hand up and down in her direction.
“Magic,” she cheekily replied.
“Magic,” he repeated with a shake of his head before he looked around.
“So, will your magic tell us if we made it here before the alien?” he asked, meeting her eyes.
She sighed. “I hope so.”
He walked around the hole, looking down inside it as he did, then stopped next to her. She had turned away from him, but not before he saw something appear in her hand. He frowned when he noticed that it looked like a mirror.
“What is that?” he asked.
She glanced at him before refocusing on the mirror. “A gift from the Goddess,” she quietly replied.
“It’s beautiful,” he responded, looking at it more closely. “On Earth, the Japanese believe that Amaterasu, the Sun Goddess, gave her grandson, Ninigi, a mirror when he descended to Earth. Ninigi gave the mirror to the first emperor. The mirror has been passed down to each emperor since,” Asahi said.
She looked at him, intrigued. “The Goddess gave this mirror to the Empress of the Monsters long ago to guide her through the challenges that she would face,” she said.
Asahi nodded. “’Within the reflecting surface of the Sun Goddess’s mirror is something beyond normal understanding,’” he quoted the ancient Japanese legend.
He stepped behind her and slid his hand over hers. She started a little at the closeness, then leaned into his warmth. Together, they looked at their reflection in the mirror. He smiled when he saw her looking at him with curiosity.
Deciding not to comment on their current position, she replied, “Yes, what we will see—if the mirror cooperates—is both real and unreal at the same time. The mirror creates an interface between the physical and the spiritual realms.”
As she spoke, the image in the mirror became ominous, as if someone had blown smoke in front of it. The smoke gradually cleared, but the image no longer showed their reflection—it showed the alien, and the creature immediately struck out at the glass. Asahi tightened his grip on Nali’s hand when she suddenly jerked backward.
“This is not possible,” Nali hissed in shock.
The creature struck again, only this time it did not stay within the mirror. The glass stretched outward as the black liquid hand tried to grab Nali.
“Watch out!” Asahi warned.
He yanked the mirror out of her hand and turned it toward the ground, quickly pulling his dagger from its sheath and swiping it across the protruding hand. The alien in the mirror howled in pain as its severed limb writhed on the ground.
“Asahi, step back,” Nali ordered.
The mirror disappeared from his hand as Nali came forward and wrapped a granite hand around the alien limb. It slithered around her arm, trying desperately to penetrate her stony flesh.
“I’d kill it now,” Mr. Gryphon suggested. “If anyone wants my opinion.”
“Not yet,” Nali hissed. “How were you able to come through the Goddess’s Mirror?”
The alien chuckled with malevolence. Asahi wasn’t sure which was more troubling—that the creature came through Nali’s magical device or that such a small part of the alien had the potential to become a separate living entity. He tightly gripped the magic dagger when he noticed that the struggling black extremity was turning to liquid. She grabbed the entity with her other hand to keep the creature from falling to the ground.
“Liqcora solidify,” Nali commanded.
Magic crackled in the air as the spell washed over the alien, causing it to harden—for a moment. A loud crack shattered the silence of the forest, and the alien mass broke free from Nali’s grip. In a split second, the creature had wound itself around her throat.
She stumbled backward, clawing at the alien band choking her. Tiny fissures appeared along Nali’s throat. Eyes wide with horror, Asahi pursed his lips in determination and moved with the skill of a surgeon, slicing through the alien appendage with the magical dagger. A brilliant light, so intense that it nearly blinded him, briefly flared as it consumed the severed section of the alien. The creature’s screech lasted less than a second before the limb turned to ash.
Nali took loud, hissing breaths of air. She violently trembled and sank down to her knees as she fought to pull oxygen into her lungs. Asahi knelt on one knee next to her and touched her throat, trailing his fingers along the cracks in her hardened skin.
“Are you alright?” he murmured with concern.
She lifted her hand to her throat. “Yes,” she hoarsely replied as she lifted her head and looked at him.
He saw the alien’s reflection in her eyes as they widened
