Chapter Thirty-Five: Last Resort

“Keep running, don’t look back!” Tiana shouted. There were tears in her eyes, but she fought them. She’d never been so scared. Never been so frustrated. Never been so confused. Not by what she’d seen and heard, but what she’d felt.

Zaren was gone. He’d banished his lantern and disappeared into the darkness. He was back there, somewhere, fighting to give them a chance to escape. He’d assured her he’d survive, but against two royals? And the queen? She hadn’t even been channeling and her skill had told her how powerful that thing was. Every instinct told her that he didn’t stand a chance. On the other hand, how could she possibly be of any help? She was strong, but against something like that?”

Her legs and lungs burned, but she pushed on. Elisa was limping, her breaths coming in ragged gasps already, but she made no move to slow down. The mine was collapsing around them—something else she had no clue how Zaren planned to survive—and they couldn’t afford to stop if they wanted to.

“Zaren!” Serena shouted. Tiana risked a glance to see Serena looking behind them. “Where’s Ren?”

“Keep running!” Tiana commanded.

Serena started to slow, but Tiana dragged Elisa even faster. “We can’t leave him!”

“He knows what he’s doing,” she panted. “If we go back, we die. If we get in his way, he dies too. You know it’s true.”

Serena choked back a sob, but she didn’t try to turn back again. They kept running, and Tiana saw something in the distance. Light. “There, look!”

Seeing what must have been the entrance spurred them on. But when they reached it, Tiana’s stomach plummeted. The faint light of early morning seeped in through boards that had been placed over them.

“Rhallani,” she said.

“Put us down,” Rhallani commanded. “Then break us out of here.”

The second the golem released them, Noelle hurled herself back into the dark. Tiana only just managed to lunge and grab her arm. “Let me go!” Noelle demanded, yanking so hard she nearly ripped Tiana’s arm from its socket. “I won’t leave him!”

“You aren’t leaving him,” Tiana told her desperately while the golem started hacking into the thick wood. Noelle was far too strong, there was no way she’d hold her back for longer than a few seconds. “Zaren’s fine. He’s holding them off long enough for us to get out, then he’ll join us. He has that scary sword, remember?”

Tears brimmed in her vibrant, crimson eyes. “They’ll kill him. They’re too strong.”

Tiana let her arm go and put a hand on either side of her face. “Zaren’s strong, too. And clever. He won’t let something like a couple measly spiders take him out, but we need to get out. Zaren can’t fight with everything he’s got as long as we’re in danger, and this golem can’t get through this barricade alone. Not quickly.”

Noelle took one final teary look into the dark, then set her jaw and hefted her axe. Tiana felt the surge of a skill activate and she hurled her axe into the boards. Tiana considered using magic to help, but there was every chance she’d need all the mana she had available to her.

“Zaren.” Tiana looked to see Rhallani staring at her with a guarded expression. “You called him Zaren.”

Shit. That’s right, they all called him Ren. Now she understood why. “Serena called him that,” she said defensively.

Rhallani shot her a look that said she wasn’t convinced but with the situation they were in she didn’t push the issue further. They’d have to address the fact that Tiana now knew Zaren was somehow the same one who’d apparently killed a Valax queen thirty years ago, but survival came first.

It felt like an eternity, but Noelle and the golem finally hacked through enough of the barricade that they could slip through. They squeezed through, leaving the golem for last, and sprinted up the incline and out of the mine. Tiana almost cried when she felt the open air hit her face. The wind. The fresh air. The stars above, just beginning to disappear as the sun began to lighten the sky.

But they couldn’t stop. The howls of the queen and the rumblings still carried out of the hole. She looked around desperately, but the mine was long abandoned. Aged buildings, rusted carts, and abandoned piles of stone were all she saw. Behind them a mountain stretched up into the sky, but cracks had formed in the side of it. Smoke was beginning to billow out of them, and she could see the remnants of an avalanche rolling down the side of the mountain from its snow-capped peak. It would fall down the side that the mine wasn’t on, but she wasn’t willing to risk that it was the only one.

“We need to keep moving,” Tiana said, trying and failing to keep her voice level. “We have to put distance between us and the foot of the mountain.”

“We need to go back for Ren!” Serena insisted.

As badly as Tiana wanted to agree, that was a bad idea. She settled for compromise. “Help me get Rhallani and Elisa out of danger. They’re not combat classes and Ren would want them safe. Have faith that he’ll be alright at least that long.” And if he didn’t make it out, they needed to make his sacrifice worth it. She wasn’t foolish enough to say that aloud, though.

Serena grimaced, but she nodded. Rhallani looked like she wanted to protest, but when Tiana looked into her eyes she came to a startling realization. Rhallani knew exactly what was at stake. What had to be done. There were no good options, but she had enough trust in Zaren not to argue.

They made it halfway across the entry area of the mine when the mountain above them exploded.Tiana looked up to see one of the royal Valax halfway out of a hole, lunging at a red and black projectile that hurled itself from the breach. What could only have been Zaren twisted in midair, jerked to the side like he’d been hit by something she couldn’t see, then hurtled towards the ground.

Crimson tinged tendrils lashed out at the ground just before impact and he hit once, bounced, then managed to land on his feet. He’d barely recovered his balance when the air behind him shimmered. He hurled himself to the side just before the queen emerged from the tear and lunged at him, shrieking with rage. He rolled away, just barely getting his blade up in time to parry her furious barrage. Her front legs carved grooves in the ground around him and the markings on her body lit up before her abdomen throbbed.

She lurched and a wave of smoking bile erupted from her mouth. His shadows knocked most away, but she saw some of it land. He didn’t so much as flinch even as patches of his flesh burned and boiled. “Keep going!” she called behind her, turning back. Close quarters were one thing, out here in the open Tiana could be of help without getting trampled underfoot.

She shot a barrage of [Force Bolts]. She’d spent the first six months with her class mastering her skills until she could hardly feel her arms from mana burn, so at this point it was second nature to send the four projectiles twisting through the air. She picked out their paths, spacing them out just enough that they would slam into the same spot one after another and activate [Create Weakpoint]. The queen’s armor was something else, though, because she knew from experience that even her barrage had barely weakened the carapace.

She was just preparing for a second cast—one to try and weaken a leg and slow the bitch down, when the ground under Zaren erupted. The other royal’s forelegs lashed out of the newly made breach, sending him sprawling. With a curse, Tiana directed her next barrage at the royal. It did more visible damage than her last attack, but all she wanted was to catch its attention.

She succeeded.

It whirled, looked at her, then screeched. Waves of black and yellow poured out of the hole in the ground it had created. Hundreds of Valax swarming towards them. Another screech and she looked to the mountain to see the other royal hurtling down at a speed that left no illusion that escaping it would be at all plausible. More Valax swarmed down behind it, struggling to keep pace.

The royals both swerved towards Zaren while the brood headed towards the five of them. “Keep running!” she shouted at Rhallani and Elisa. Elisa lobbed as many spitter spheres as she could at the oncoming horde. They erupted in various flames, smokes, and webs, decimating scores of the smaller Valax but barely hindering the larger ones.

Tiana threw out two [Ripper Disks] and felt the tug from the mana strings on her middle fingers. She twisted and pulled, sending them crashing through even more spiders. Her disks were powerful mainly in that they were the capable of the most damage-per-mana of her skills, but even they could only delay the inevitable.

Then Noelle, Serena, and the golem went crashing past her. “We need to get to Zaren, take one of the royals off him!” Serena called. Her spear was a blur, carving into Valax with a speed that kept them at bay. Spectral ravens flitted around them, hindering and blocking the Valax enough for them to hold their ground. Noelle charged headfirst into a group of them, her axe a green whirlwind that painted the area with the blood of any spider caught in its path.

Tiana kept working her disks, trying to think. “We need to survive, first!” She glanced behind her, but Rhallani and Elisa were out of sight. She’d have to hope they were either hidden somewhere safe or hauling ass out of the mine. “Options?”

“A rush skill,” Serena called, “but it needs distance!”

“I might be able to get one’s attention, but you’ll have to keep them back.”

“Do it!”

Tiana activated [Overburn]. Triple the strength of her next spell in exchange for a hit to her regen over the next twelve hours. If they didn’t win this fight, then regen wouldn’t matter. Zaren was holding his own, but he was completely on the defensive. He didn’t move with the same feral violence as when he’d arrived in the tunnel, poisoned out of his mind, but he still moved like nobody Tiana had ever seen before.

His shadows moved around him like a storm. They struck out at his enemies with enough force to turn their attacks aside, but he couldn’t quite make enough space to attack back. He kept jerking and dodging, like he was avoiding some attack she couldn’t see, and she knew it had to be some kind of magic. Whatever attack his shadows had saved them from last night that had cut through rock and metal like it was paper.

The tendril still wrapped around her waist uncoiled and lashed out at a spider that had gotten too close. She started running parallel to the Zaren’s fight. The evolved form of [Force Bolts] meant she could cast multiple bolts at once, and they’d all benefit from [Overburn]. She shot another six overcharged bolts at the queen, still hammering the point she’d already started to weaken. She howled again and Tiana thought she could see the faintest cracks in her carapace.

One of the royals whirled and started thundering her way. She pushed down the visceral panic that made bile rise in her throat and kept moving. She threw more, this time at the royal to keep him occupied. She backed away, now moving parallel to the mountain.

She hit it again, weakening a spot on the back left of its abdomen, but it barely even slowed down. Then her tendril lashed out to her side. On instinct, she threw up a [Wall of Force]. It was just in time, as something invisible slammed into it hard enough to knock her into the dirt. Something bit into her leg and she cried out, but all she could see was a line in the crimson energy of Zaren’s skill that protected her flesh fighting to keep her limb from being severed.

She slammed two [Ripper Disks] down on either side of her leg. They hit something that resisted their cutting power, but Zaren keeping her on edge for the last few hours meant they could cut through just about anything given time. They crashed into the dirt and the pressure on her leg disappeared, but the royal was nearly on her. It reared up at her, both arms raised to deliver what would certainly be a finishing blow. She knew her [Wall of Force] wouldn’t do much but splatter her rather than slice her, but she threw one up anyways.

Then there was a burst of red and gold and Serena was slamming into it, her spear puncturing its carapace and erupting out the other side, crossguard and all. It tottered to the side from the impact of the blow and screeched. Then a flurry of spectral birds were twisting around her. They rose and pitched in intricate patterns, and Tiana realized they were diverting the threads that the royal had sent to slice up Serena. Not blocking them, but redirecting them enough to keep her from being sliced to ribbons.

Noelle was only a half step behind. She hurled herself at the royal and slammed her axe down with enough force to cleave through one of its front limbs, then she turned and sank her axe into the point where Tiana had weakened. Carapace crumbled under the empowered strike and knocked the spider hard enough to rip Serena’s spear free.

Tiana activated [All In]. It’d leave her horny and sensitive until she could orgasm enough to work the effects of the skill from her body, but it would double the damage of her next cast. She upcast [Force Bolts] until seven shots erupted from her hand, each bolt costing less mana than the last because of the evolved form of the skill she’d worked her ass off to get.

Using the years of experience casting her main class’s core skill and the added fine tuning from [Heightened Control], she curved each of the seven bolts with a slightly wider arc, each and every one of them slipping perfectly into the hole Serena had ripped into the carapace. As soon as they were past its armor, she let them run free inside the beast’s body. She could see the impacts jerking in its thorax before its face exploded outward, showering the area in green blood and organs, and the royal went limp.

The royal’s body was still sliding to the ground when the wave of spiders that Serena and Noelle had been keeping at bay caught up to them. Tiana threw out a [Hammering Blast] and sent the first wave hurtling back in a wall of paste. She followed with more [Ripper Disks], but her mana was starting to run dangerously low. The tendril at her waist lashed out and she yanked a disk back just in time to catch a large Valax who managed to sneak up on her.

It went down, but not before it lashed out and cut deep into her hip. Thanks to the protection of her armor, the blow only went deep enough to cause heavy bleeding instead of crippling her, but it still hurt like hell. She fell to one knee, then a second shadow tendril erupted from her shoulder to catch another Valax. A quick glance at Serena and she knew Zaren had cast another round for them.

Fighting for your life and still worried about us. Another [Hammering Blast] bought her room and she started sprinting back towards the mine. Towards where the royal had come from the ground. She limped with every step, but the magic cloth that wrapped her and the power that permeated it thrummed through her. Supporting her every step.

Zaren was faring better now that it was only two on one, but his time was running out. From the way he moved, he was relying on the enhanced senses afforded to him by the dark. The moment the rising sun crested the mountain range, that advantage vanished.

Whether by accident or design, the side of the queen she’d struck was facing her. If she was going to do something to turn the tide, it was now or never. She raised her hands, palms outward, their heels pressed together. She cast both [Overburn] and [All In], then started charging her most powerful skill. [Lancing Beam].

She thought of him. Not just of his hands and the way they so expertly squeezed every ounce of pleasure out of her they could. Not of what he had between his legs and the way it had tasted. Not even the surprised, yet satisfied sound that had slipped through his clenched teeth when he’d finished in her throat.

She thought of how his hands felt when they weren’t fondling her. When they caressed her for the sole purpose of just touching her, and not because of her skills or some perverse attraction. The taste of his lips on hers. The way he’d held her, even for that little bit, despite them having just met. She thought of how badly she wanted to be with him, and not just physically. The way he held Rhallani and Serena and even Noelle and what it must be like to be held like that.

The thought of him like that made a heat bloom inside her like nothing any hands could ever manage. She felt her magic pulse in her veins, and she knew her next attack would be the most powerful she’d ever managed. And that was before [Overburn] and [All In] stacked together to boost it sixfold. She took aim, and got ready to release the attack.

Then her tendrils lashed out to her side. A Valax as tall as she was erupted out of the hole the royal had left. She had enough time to turn her attack towards it, but that would mean leaving Zaren all on his own. Stuck in a fight that, despite his assurances, she wasn’t confident he’d walk out of.

It wasn’t even a choice.

The second she released her skill, she knew it was a perfect shot. Raw, arcane energy erupted from her with enough force that it shoved her back nearly a foot. A beam of blue so bright it burned itself into her eyes. It hit the queen exactly where she’d been aiming, right down to the inch. It punctured the side of her thorax and cut right through, breaking out the other side and blowing off a chunk of carapace along with it.

The queen shrieked in pain at the same time the Valax slammed into Tiana. A claw hit her in the side, sliding off her armor and cutting deep into her stomach rather than skewering her through the midriff like the Valax intended. Her tendrils lashed out, but they grew weaker and weaker with every strike. She tried to get her hand between her and the spider but its limbs curled around her, cutting into her back and pinning her body to its. It lunged and she felt fangs wrap around her throat, fighting against the magic of Zaren’s armor.

She didn’t feel the bite, but the pressure grew and grew until she couldn’t breathe any longer. Her tendrils withered and died, and the fangs closed in. She could feel the venom soaked tips fighting against the magic of Zaren’s armor, getting closer and closer to breaking through and ripping her throat out.

She hammered her hand against it, but it was no good. The spider must have weighed twice what she did, and there wasn’t a skill she had that would be able to get it off her without crushing her in the process. She was just about to give it a shot anyways when the weight of the Valax disappeared.

The golem and the Valax crashed to the ground in a tangle of limbs. Tiana rolled to her hands and knees, gasping for breath, and realized there was much more shouting than there was a moment ago. She looked up and saw that the area was filled with fighters on horseback. Men and women wearing the colors of the city guard. On the back of one of the horses, with Elisa clinging to her, was Rhallani, looking right at her with a wild expression on her face and hair tousled from wind.

Rhallani with the reinforcements. Holy shit, we might actually make it. The golem finished with its spider and moved on to the next. A good fifty feet away, Noelle and Serena were slowly making headway towards where Zaren fought for his life, now joined by more of the guards. The spiders just kept pouring out, though, and his strength was fading fast. The queen slashed, spat, and hurled waves of noxious magics at him while the remaining royal kept Zaren from reaching her with claws and threads.

Tiana checked her mana. Enough for two or three more attacks depending on how many bolts she was willing to use. She looked over the soldiers fighting the Valax. They were winning against the small ones, but she’d seen what those threads were capable of. They might be able to kill it, but not before it killed a lot of them. Likely not before it killed Zaren, too.

Then a cold, musty wind washed over her. She looked to the side to see a crack in the hard earth just a short ways away. A window into the dark cavern that must be under her feet. The one that the spiders had been pouring out of. A plan started to form in her head. A foolish, risky one that would certainly end in her death, but also the only route out of this that didn’t involve dozens of other deaths. That didn’t involve Zaren’s death.

She’d made the choice to save him over herself once already, and it was somehow easier the second time. She cast [Force Bolts] one last time, sending a barrage careening towards the limping, bleeding queen. They slammed into her and she recoiled, shrieking, but she still didn’t go down. That hadn’t been the point, though.

The last remaining royal turned towards her. She raised her hands as if preparing for another spell, and it roared. Then it was hurtling towards her. She heard shouts as the guards backed away in fear. She backed away, too, but not because she was afraid. No, she felt no fear in that moment. The only thing she felt was a tinge of sadness. Her leg buckled underneath her, and she fell to her knees. She was too tired to get back to her feet. It would do her no good anyways.

The royal closed the gap in a terrifyingly short time. It was only seconds before it was barreling down on top of her on six legs, its front two raised both to strike and to keep her from throwing any more attacks at its queen. It had no way of knowing she didn’t have any more attacks in her. No more than one, final skill, at least.

There was a sense of irony in where she sat now. The second time she’d been on her knees staring down a giant spider, certain her life was done. She might have laughed. She didn’t look at it, though. Instead she looked at Zaren, running after the royal but hopelessly outpaced. It brought a smile to her face.

Then she activated [Overburn] and [All In] one last time and cast a [Hammering Blast] at her feet. The skill exploded from her palms and the ground shattered. Cracks split and the piece of earth pitched underneath her. Then, its weight carrying it forward too fast to stop, the royal hit the patch of ground she’d weakened.

There was a resounding crack and the ground gave way. She fell, keeping her eyes open just long enough to see the royal falling alongside her, screeching angrily while it flailed. Then she managed to find Zaren’s eyes one last time before the ground separated them. She wondered if the fall would kill the spider. If it would kill her. She’d been terrified of being buried alive her entire life, and a part of her wished it would do both.

# # #

I wasn’t fast enough. Tiana was looking right at me when she fell, yet I didn’t feel an ounce of fear from her. Not until after she was gone from view, and even then it was only a trickle. I’d only closed half the distance when something slammed into me from the side. I flew through the air and hit the ground hard.

I wasn’t sure what might have hit me that didn’t cut through me entirely, but feeling anything was getting a little difficult. I was, once again, filled to bursting with Valax venom. Add that to the constant tug of war between my soul and the sword’s magic, and it was getting hard to see straight.

I picked myself up while my shadows eviscerated a few spiders that had drawn too close. The queen had hit me with another burst of that raw magic she was slinging around. The good news was that she was still to young to shape it in any effective way. The bad news was that it was the magical equivalent of swinging around a giant club, and my bones were not appreciative.

I could still feel my magic wrapped around Tiana. She was alive, and I conjured more tendrils on her to keep her that way. I cast [Shadow Stitching] on her too, just for good measure. She was alive, and I’d dig her out after I killed this queen even if I had to do it with my bare fucking hands.

I brushed my fingers against my newest injury, ready to cast [Shadow Stitching] on myself too if need be, but I was confused by what I felt. When I looked down, peeking through the gaps in the crimson tinged shadows that were wrapped around me, was armor. Old, sturdy scale armor that felt like it weighed nothing. It was incomplete, like a drawing someone had burned holes into. It stretched up my chest and over the arm holding the sword.

Well that was fucking new, and something I had no idea what to do with right now. Especially when my train of thought was interrupted by the giant queen spider trying to hack me to pieces. Bits of her hung out from the holes Tiana had blasted in her carapace. That damage was the only reason I was still alive. She was having to use a sizable portion of her magic just to keep herself glued together.

“MURDERER! I WILL STRING YOU UP AND FORCE YOU TO WATCH AS MY CHILDREN DEVOUR YOUR ENTRAILS!” she screamed.

I blew out a tired breath. I’d only heard that one about six times now. I’d known she was a fledgling the moment I saw her and she wasn’t the size of a building, but she was even younger than I’d realized. To say she had a poor handle on her emotions would be an understatement, but that did nothing to temper the pure magical power she wielded.

Power like the charge I could feel building in her abdomen. I threw myself to the side just in time to avoid the wave of magic that would have ripped me to shreds, but she’d seen that trick one too many times. More rips opened in the air and Valax leapt out of them at me. She’d mastered short range teleporting magic, it seemed.

I managed to take out the two Valax without much issue, but the markings on the queen were already beginning to shift and twist to a new set that would shape her magic in different ways. I’d spent six months studying every possible pattern on the old queen and I’d still nearly died to her. We all had. Having to learn the patterns and spells of a new queen Valax while also trying not to get eviscerated by her was proving…challenging.

She shrieked and webs of magic erupted from her abdomen. I dodged most, but one just hooked the end of my boot and lifted me from the ground before I could manage to sever it with the cursed blade. I hit the ground hard, but she’d chucked me into more Valax. Each of which were nearly as tall as I was.

I didn’t have time for this. Tiana was still alive, but there was no guarantee for how long. I needed to get to her, and that meant I needed to do something about the queen. But I didn’t even know if I could win, let alone quickly. My strength was flagging. Already I could barely feel anything past my wrists, and that numbness was spreading. The blade’s pull was getting harder and harder to resist with every swing, but without it I was toast.

Levels weren’t everything, but they were important. I’d made it this far on my journey using a mixture of luck, skill, and an incredibly cursed sword to bridge that gap, but there came a time when the gap was simply too large. A queen Valax—even a fledgling one—was one of those times.

I had another problem, too. The queen’s attacks were getting more tactical. Better timed. Every time I tried to circle back towards my friends, she managed to maneuver me back in the other direction. Her magic was getting more controlled. She was reigning in her rage, which meant she was thinking. That could only be bad for me. I needed her unhinged if I was going to stand a chance.

Noelle and Serena fought like demons trying to get to me, but the spiders just kept pouring out of the ground and the mine. If the queen was on the surface, I had no doubt she’d called every member of her brood to her aid. There were no more coordinated attacks and clever ambushes, just raw numbers. The city guard that Rhallani had manifested from thin air helped still the tide, but if I didn’t do something about this queen then we were all dead anyways.

The patterns shifted again. Magic cutting deep grooves in the ground was the only warning I had. I caught one blast on my sword, deflecting it, then sidestepped the second, but the third hit me hard enough to decimate what was left of my shadows. The sword still felt weakened from earlier, and that drop in power was making this fight impossible.

I fired another [Umbral Barrage] at her face and she flinched, but the attack didn’t do enough damage to do much other than buy me time. Not worth the mana it had cost. All I could do was conjure a tendril and raise my blade. I couldn’t keep this up, I had to come up with some way to turn the tide.

She hurled more threats while she blasted me with magic, and somehow I came out with no more injuries than I’d gone in with. Then there were more rips in the air and more spiders were hurling themselves at me. A single swipe with my blade turned Valax to husks, withering them from within by unraveling the magic in their veins, but the queen had learned.

The blade cut into the last of the spiders she threw at me and stuck. It jerked me off balance, and I realized it wasn’t a Valax. A Nakkian cave tarantula, the biggest I’d ever seen, covered in thick, hard hairs that twisted and stuck to my blade. There was no magic in this breed of spider, which meant there was nothing for the blade to unravel. The spider still died, but my blade getting caught was enough to damn me.

The last of my shadows tried valiantly to stop the wall of magic that slammed into me, but I was hurled into the air once more anyways. I was weightless for half a second, the air knocked out of me and pain exploding in my side, then another blast crashed into me from above. It slammed me face first into the earth and I felt my nose break on impact, spattering blood down my front and making the world spin. I was aware of an impact next to me and realized it was the scabbard spinning away, the strap connecting it to me severed by the magic. I tried to push myself up, to the side, anywhere that was away from the queen, but she’d rung my bell good with that attack.

Then something impacted my back and fiery hot pain erupted in my stomach. I looked down in confusion at the claw underneath me. At first I thought it had come from below, but then I realized it was drenched in crimson. The ground disappeared and I had just enough time to realize the queen had impaled me on her foreleg before she hurled me aside. More pain made the world dissolve into bleeding colors as the limb ripped free from my body, then I hit something that shattered under me. Bones gave and blood sprayed, then all was still.

For a moment I was looking at the sky. Blood bubbled from my mouth, and my nose was still too broken to breathe through. I couldn’t manage to fill my lungs, and everything below my chest was nothing but a sea of burning pain. I didn’t look down. I knew that would be a mistake. Instead I lowered my gaze enough to see the queen stalking towards me.

At first I thought the battlefield had gone silent, but I still saw movement in my peripheral. My ears were ringing, I realized as I coughed up a glob of bile and blood. It was dark, nearly black. My thoughts weren’t exactly coherent, but I vaguely remembered that being a bad thing. The queen seemed to know that I was done for, because she was suddenly in no hurry to finish me off. That or the world was suddenly moving in slow motion. I felt like my brain was full of mud, so that was entirely possible.

I had to get up. I had to find a way to keep moving. I needed to make sure the important bits of my insides were in fact still inside and get to my feet. I could do what I did before; wrap myself in shadows and use them to marionette myself. Then maybe I could lead her away. Buy the others time to get to Tiana while the queen finished—

No.

No, I wouldn’t think like that. I couldn’t. This wasn’t the end. There was a way out, I just had to find it. I wouldn’t sacrifice myself here. That wouldn’t be fair to the others. To Rhallani and Serena and Noelle. Tiana, too. I was still connected to her via magic, and without me there was every chance they’d never be able to find her. She’d die down there, buried under tons of rubble. Alone in the dark.

I tried to push myself up and off the remains of the wooden shack I’d been thrown into and my body screamed in protest. I commanded my tendrils to wrap around me, but it didn’t work. It took me far too long to realize I had no tendrils. Even longer to understand that it was because I had nothing left in the tank. No mana. I was all out of tricks. Out of time. Out of luck.

That didn’t stop me from lifting the blade and pointing it at the queen. It felt like my hand was fused to the hilt. I could smell burning flesh, though whether that was from the sword or the queen’s attacks I had no idea. Her patterns started to glow, and I roared my challenge at her.

Then there was a flash of light. A wall of ice, followed by flaming projectiles. Guards running out with tower shields and spears. Men on horseback charging the queen while others hung back and peppered her with arrows and spells. She swept them aside with contempt, but there were at least enough to push her back.

More guards had streamed into the clearing. They must have sent word ahead. Brought everyone. If I made it out of this, I’d have to find someone to thank. Then faces appeared in my swimming vision. An armored woman with short brown hair. Her face was coated in grime and blood and she was shouting, her eyes wide and face pale, but she put her palms over me and started to glow gold. She was saying something, but it was like I was underwater.

Then Serena was there, too. Tears ran down her face and I could see her lips moving. Saying something. All I could do was look at her blankly and cough up some more blood. She looked from my stomach to my face and wrapped her arms around me. I felt her lips keep moving, but the sounds of the battlefield got further and further away. I felt her warmth seeping into my body, but it was entirely possible it would be too little too late.

“What do you look so scared for?” I asked, my voice impossibly loud in my ears. “We’ve got her right where we want her.”

I thought I could feel her body shaking, but it was hard to tell. I had a lot going on, after all. They’d bought me time, I just had to find a way to make things worth it. The pain was fading, but so was everything else. That could be good or bad. The only thing that wasn’t fading was the pull. The feeling that there was a tether linking a weight in my chest to the hilt of the sword in my hand. The tug of war between whatever magic lurked in the blade and my soul.

Well, if there was ever a time for last resorts, it was now. “Serena,” I said. I saw her face along the edges of my blurred vision. “I’m gonna try something, so don’t freak out. Just be ready to get out of the way if it works. And don’t worry, I’ve got this.”

She put her hands on my face, her tears falling onto me, and I closed my eyes. My next words weren’t for her, but the blade. “If you hurt my friends,” I said, sure that I was confusing the two women trying to put me back together, “then I swear to the gods I despise I will bury you so deep you’ll never see the light again. But if you help me save them, then I’ll do everything in my power to understand you.”

Then, for the second time in my life, I stopped resisting the pull of the sword.