Raiten:

  It happens while Kiren and I are playing cards to pass the last hour of our time. I put down a King Crowned by Mountains when Umbrahorn suddenly perks up, nose twitching in the air, sniffing. His hammerhead reels as he shrinks back to the flame.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “Something—I smell something. Bad.”

  His voice is so quiet. So low.

  Kiren and I share a look.

  “It's probably just nerves, Umbrahorn. Get some more sleep if you can. We’ll let you know when it's time.”

  Rather than retort that ‘Great Spirits don’t get nervous,’ Umbrahron simply nods. Meek-like.

  Then, he disappears into the earth, into his domain of rubble and dirt—where nothing can presumably hurt him.

  Nothing but fear.

  Because I can smell that much at least.

  …

  Sorina:

  Blue fire rattles on Baroth’s breath.

  He steps forward, hooves prancing, six eyes set solely upon me.

  The wind coalesces around me as I call to it—call for it to ride with me, one last time, into battle.

  The fortress creaks as soulfire burns it to negative waste.

  The pungent smell of death hangs upon the air.

  I hold the blade out and close my eyes for a moment.

  I see myself as a child: running through the escalating streets of Catolica, witnessing the white-marked graves beyond the bridge that stretch out over the hills like thousands of needles. See the high-cheeked, hunter-eyed gaze of my father as he sends me away to Sorayvlad, features mute and unaffected.

  Touch the visage of my husband—an image that fades with time and the cruelty of memory.

  Replaced slowly and only, by the man I’ve come to know in his place.

  I sigh.

  Even in death, his presence plagues me.

  What a joke.

  I open my eyes. Raise the Queen’s Blade.

  And charge to my doom.

  …

  Raiten:

  “I have a gift for you,” Kiren says. He’s strapping up his boots. Meanwhile, I’m busy dealing with my tangle of hair; hair that is now a messy fringe of black—a coarse jungle that settles upon my shoulders and covers my eyes. I’ve been trying to cut it with a knife that Zyla lended to me.

  “Give me a moment Kiren, let me just finish doing this—”

  He holds out Meteorfang. I pause, looking at the kusarigama with befuddlement, Zyla’s blade dropping to my side.

  “Why? It's your weapon Kiren. I don’t want to take that from you right before the battle.”

  “Well, you're not taking it from me. Like I said: it’s a gift.”

  “But—”

  “Raiten my goal in this battle is different: I have to hide in the shadows and support Saegor from there. So I won’t even get the chance to use this. But you?” He shakes his head and smiles, brown eyes warm like hazelnut in the morning sun. “You’re already good enough with the whip. Besides, isn’t this what you’ve always wanted to use?”

  I hesitate. My hands linger over the chain, almost reverent. Then, I take it and feel its weight—run a thumb along the runic. Ironically enough, I’ve used the weapon twice, just never in reality: once against Crooked in the illusion-scape, the other against Thraevirula in the dream. It saved me twice. Maybe it can save me a third time.

  “Thank you, Kiren.”

  “Of course. No need to thank me. After all, we’re brothers now, right? This is just what brothers do.”

  He holds out a fist. Saegor and Zyla do their final stretches. Umbrahorn warms himself by the flame.

  I nod, allowing myself one last smile before the battle to come.

  Then, I give him a fist bump. “Well said, brother.”

  …

  Sorina:

  “I have a gift for you,” Baroth taunts. His voice comes muffled, before he spits out the upper left part of my ear.

  Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

  It lands, blackened and bloodied, upon my boots.

  I use the half-broken blade to stand once more, but it’s hard to adjust my grip—mostly because he burned two of my fingers and I had to cut them off at the tendons before the fire spread.

  Blood droops over one of my eyes, cakes down my head.

  I feel so tired.

  But I move nonetheless. Skidding right before cutting left, I aim low for his hooves. He jumps up, flying above my strike. I try rolling left in anticipation of a soulfire.

  However, from above, rather than summon soulfire…

  Baroth snaps down with his jaws.

  And crunches on my right hand.

  I scream.

  I scream and call to the wind to pull away as Baroth’s teeth saw through the bone and his Elk head pulls back, jerking on my arm. Pain writhes up my hand in horrifying waves and my body jitters with the suffering.

  Soulfire licks at the fingers, cold and warm at the same time, burning through me.

  I try hitting myself with wind magicks. Pushes back the fire for a moment, but it just resurges. Try pouring all the wind I can to blast Baroth away. He just bites harder. I try striking with the blade but he tugs his head out of its range and whips my hand at a horrible angle, allowing bone to jut out.

  I cry.

  I weep and sob, much to my surprise, as the Elk drinks my blood and laughs through his teeth.

  The soulfire travels up to my wrist.

  If I let it continue, then it will conquer me. Leave me a hollow husk.

  So despite the pain, despite the horror of it all…

  I let the survival instinct take over.

  And through blurred, pained eyes—through all the tears and the mocking laughter of this djinn, I put the blade to my wrist.

  And I begin to saw.

  Baroth just laughs harder as I finish his job, having to hack the blade up through the wrist and bite back squeals.

  “Good! Very good! Keep going! Almost there! Almost there little fleshling!” Baroth encourages.

  My vision goes hazy. Almost black.

  But I finish the last of the cuts and scramble back, blood dripping from my stump, and Baroth now chewing on the wrist.

  I feel light. Hazy. I don’t look at the wrist as I sear the wound against a nearby torch on the barracks building—regular flame dashes against the blood.

  I want to die.

  To give up.

  And yet I stand.

  Baroth swallows my wrist and shows me his bloodied teeth.

  The wind doesn’t even answer my call anymore. It knows we’re done.

  It wasn’t much of a battle in the first place.

  Still, the Elk gives me my flowers: “I have to say, you surprised me with your tenacity. But this is the end. I will offer it to you one last time, out of respect. A quick death in exchange for his location? Or a slow flaying? Trust me, I can do far worse than eat your wrist.”

  I nearly fall over, another wave of blackness coming to mind. It goes just as quick, replaced by pain.

  I spit blood.

  Raise the half-broken Sword of State to my neck.

  The Elk pauses, the sneers. “Suicide is cowardice—”

  I throw the blade, compelled by one last gasp of mana within. It spins into Baroth’s head, piercing his eyes.

  The Elk roars and prances about, each and every mad-step shaking the earth.

  “YOU—YOU UNGRATEFUL LITTLE SACK OF MEAT. I WILL SEND YOU TO THE HELLS SCREAMING!”

  “Then get on with it!” I yell back. After all, I’m already dead.

  Baroth turns around and, with honey-like blood oozing from his eyes, he opens his mouth, compelling forth a blast of soul fire.

  As it hurtles to me, I sink to my knees, unable to do anything else.

  Well, I did my best.

  I’m sorry.

  I close my eyes.

  Only, instead of fire that hits me and scorches my soul to ash and dust, it is something hard and bony. Wiry. Wrinkled.

  I open my eyes to find Yasna on top of me, smiling, pain lancing through her eyes as blue soul fire erupts on her back.

  She tackled me out of the way?

  “You—why did you come back—” I begin asking, but Yasna’s mouth only froths response. I turn us over and try lying her on the grass. It's hard, with a missing hand.

  Baroth starts laughing.

  I ignore him and pat frantically at the soulfire on her back, but it doesn’t do much. The fire spreads across her body.

  The old woman smiles at me though.

  And right before the fire reaches her face, she whispers her last death rattle.

  I don’t hear the rasping words.

  Then, the old limping accountant lies still.

  “WHAT A FOOL WHAT A FOOL! THAT OLD PIECE OF MEAT COULDN’T WAIT FOR HER OWN TIME, SO SHE HAD TO INTERRUPT OURS? OH WHAT A FOOL INDEED.”

  I think now, I understand the kind of rage that compelled Raiten to do what he did at this fortress.

  Because that anger flows through me now.

  It has no reason.

  No logic.

  No consciousness.

  Just red hate.

  My fingers clench the grass, white knuckled, and even though I’m beaten up to all the hells, I stand and shout as the Elk charges at me, rearing with his antlers, laughing once more.

  Only for a blast of smokey darkness to take him by the flank.

  I stop yelling, turning now to face the new combatant.

  Or the old one, I should say.

  The warlock approaches Baroth, anger in his own eyes. “You will obey me beast!”

  “You're alive, oh how pleasant,” the Elk says, bored now as it stands up and turns to the man. “Can you tell me where—”

  The warlock disappears into shadow, flitting between the darkness. Then, he reappears in front of Baroth.

  The Elk stops speaking.

  And the two wage a battle of Eldritch means—horrors and darkness, fire and blood. They rage against each other, fighting all over the crumbling fortress, until finally, they take their quarrel elsewhere, into the sky, into clouds above the briars.

  All the while I watch.

  Watch as the Catolicans die around me.

  And watch as Yasna’s body is hollowed by cruel soul flame.

  Once they are out of sight, all I’m left with is the rising flames and their roaring chorus.

  “It’s over,” I whisper.

  Of course, there’s no one left to answer.