Chapter 5 #3
Theira threw a potion from her belt that swirled a poisonous miasma around her—sorceresses at her level dosed themselves against poison, so it wouldn't kill her or them, only slow them down while she figured out something more all-encompassing—
Lysithea's golden arrow speared through the cloud, hitting her in the side.
Theira gasped, the poison vanishing in an instant, and reflexively she threw bolts of magic like exploding a jar of marbles, forcing the sorceresses to dodge backward and giving her a moment to gather herself back together.
They'd realize quickly the drops of sorcery were nothing more than a feint to distract them.
Curse it. She couldn't use the ground, not now, but if she didn't—ten sorceresses were too many, even for her.
Varius' voice broke her focus. "Wait for me, Theira. I'm coming."
She had waited for him, and he had come. To her.
She wouldn't let him down now.
Theira was about to insist she had everything under control, when the sorceresses facing her stopped.
Stepped aside.
And the Sorcerer Ascendant himself walked through the chaos.
Tychon was power incarnate. Black robes billowed out behind him as he approached, each step reverberating through the earth from the mystical weight of Korossia's all-powerful Crown Jewel set atop a circlet on his head, radiating a malevolent magenta gleam.
"The Sorceress Transcendent," Tychon mocked her. "So accommodating of you not to run."
Lysithea's expression tightened. He'd known, as he always knew, what she would offer Theira, and Theira now understood why Lysithea had been shocked she hadn't taken the opportunity.
She'd known, and assumed Theira knew, that the Sorcerer Ascendant was out for her blood.
He'd only been waiting for a sign that Theira had spent whatever she'd prepared that had any teeth.
But Theira was done running.
"On second thought," Theira murmured to Varius, "I'm about to be very busy with one sorcerer in particular."
"I'm on my way," Varius said, and her heart warmed. The man was willing to put himself in the path of the most powerful sorcerer alive and go toe-to-toe with the best sorceresses Korossia could produce, for her. "Hold on."
"Oh," Theira said, and, knowing full well Tychon was listening, smiled wickedly, "I'm not waiting any longer."
And she moved, casting a dozen spells in an instant.
Tychon always waited for another sorceress to strike first, to demonstrate how little he had to fear from them, and today was no exception.
Today, that gave her a head-start, keeping him briefly occupied.
So she finally activated the spells she'd prepared on the ground.
Not today. There hadn't been time today.
But Theira had fought this war for a long time, and she'd laid spells everywhere. Places no one, even Varius, expected.
That was her greatest strength, after all. She prepared.
And she'd saved it all for just this moment.
She'd need every jot of that preparation now, her own internal resources depleted as she faced the full power of Korossia's Crown Jewel.
Theira scarcely noticed Varius arriving with the golems, repelling sorcerous attacks from two sorceresses at once. After all his practice with her, he could handle them.
The rest of the sorceresses had formed a wide circle around her and Tychon. Witnessing as they battled.
And oh, how they battled.
When she finally deployed the first spell she'd prepared, Tychon showed no surprise at her finally showing her hand.
He just smiled at her, a patronizing, condescending smile like he'd known all along what she had saved for him and had no concerns.
By Gaia, she'd change that.
Theira drew thunder and lightning from the earth beneath their feet to throw at him, her wild hair whipping around her, as Tychon batted them aside like flies and sent pure beams of magenta sorcery at her from the Crown Jewel.
She raised defenses and he blasted them apart, but she was already in the air above.
His beams of power followed her, searing the sky, exploding buildings in the distance. Varius would have to use the golems to protect his people from becoming collateral damage, because Theira couldn't spare the attention.
She activated spell after spell, but nothing fazed Tychon or even blunted his attacks.
And little by little, Theira edged backwards as she bore up under his assault, her own internal resources already strained.
Little by little, she was losing.
The magenta sorcery of the Crown Jewel pierced her amethyst shield faster than she could dodge.
Theira fell, already casting another shield even as she whipped a prepared potion off her utility belt to splash over the burn bubbling across her skin, the pain enough to register through her battle focus.
Now she wasn't a step ahead of him, but one behind.
The Sorcerer Ascendant gained ground. "You thought you could cheat me," Tychon said. "You thought you could leave. That you could be free." His voice mocked her. "Theira, Theira, Theira. My boldest little bee. You are mine to do with as I please, as you always have been."
His eyes burned with magenta fire.
"And today," he purred, "what I please is to crush you."
Finally, Theira stopped moving back.
It had to be here.
Tychon was almost to her—just a little farther—
He stopped his advance, smiling cruelly.
Theira's heart stopped, all her plans crumbling around her in an instant. Did he know? Of course he knew, Gaia take it, he always knew --
All her preparations, and she'd still failed. She wasn't going to make it after all.
Theira stood before the man she hated more than anything in the world, unmoving but unwilling to bow even now, as the Sorcerer Ascendant raised his hand for one final blow.
Then a golem crashed into him from behind.
Varius pushed Tychon forward that one final, crucial step.
Exactly where Theira wanted him.
Because as much as they'd fought together, even without Theira telling him the plan, Varius recognized her luring prey into a trap for what it was and had rendered the final assist.
Lines of power flared along the earth as the Sorcerer Ascendant stepped into the center of her most powerful spell and activated it.
Sorcerous vines wrapped around him, holding him in place, even as Tychon's magenta shields flared around him. The golem tried to hit him again and bounced right off, exactly as Theira's attacks had.
Tychon was furious. "You think you can win if you can just hit me? Go ahead, you fool. Nothing will reach me, and in a moment you'll regret your audacity."
It was Theira's turn to smile as she stepped closer. "No, I don't think I will."
Because the vines were already inside his shields, and now they sprouted thorns, piercing Tychon's skin.
Draining the power right out of him.
And into her.
As fast as the Sorcerer Ascendant could spend power, Theira's vines absorbed it, pumping the power straight into her depleted reserves.
She'd needed the space, after all.
This spell was the product of years of work and experimentation. Years of careful sneaking to the border to lay her spells in the ground in advance, which no one thought anything of, because it was war, and they knew how she fought.
They didn't realize she'd truly been fighting her war against Tychon.
Theira had a version of this spell in half a dozen places, unsure where exactly she would one day face Tychon.
But this one, the closest to where she'd decided to make her home, this was the one she'd ultimately poured her power into in the period Varius had noticed her attacks growing more careful.
She was planning for her big moment to trick Tychon, true. But she'd laid those spells for longer.
This was what she'd been focusing on.
Now, she watched as Tychon realized with every moment he was only empowering her more.
"Kill Theira!" he yelled furiously at the other sorceresses, the ones Varius hadn't taken down, the ones who witnessed.
The sorceresses didn't move, and Theira's smile widened, a mad baring of teeth.
Of all people, first-tier adepts could recognize the way the wind blew.
Tychon snarled and began gathering his power for a single burst of sorcery that would explode off her vines.
Too late. He was out of practice fighting his own battles, relying on brute force, and it cost him.
Theira wasn't a sorceress who waited on others to make her move.
She took.
Before he could finish, Theira concentrated all the power thrumming through her into one narrow beam.
With a flick of her wrist, she sliced off the Sorcerer Ascendant's head.
Tychon's shocked face in the moment before his skull hit the ground was a beautiful sight she would cherish forever.
His severed head landed with an unremarkable thump. The circlet slipped off as Tychon's body disintegrated into dust.
Leaving Theira, flush with power, facing Varius in his golem and an army animated by her own sorcery behind him.
And eight now badly outclassed adept sorceresses around them.
As one, they sank to one knee and bowed before her.
The magenta jewel gleamed in the former Sorcerer Ascendant's ashes. Theira could feel it calling to her.
Hers to command, now. All the power in the world.
She'd won, and now she could end this war.
And she would.
Varius watched Theira consider the jewel before her, holding his breath as he fought to wait, to wait.
Theira always had a plan. He knew that in his bones, even if even he hadn't fully appreciated how far it had gone. But he'd known, if Theira was ever to be free, that the Sorcerer Ascendant would have to die, and she would have to kill him.
And he knew what killing the Sorcerer Ascendant meant for her.
Now she would become the Sorceress Ascendant herself. That was how she ended the war on the Korossian side.
"Sorceress Transcendent," Lysithea said, watching Theira closely, "will you return with us and take up your rightful place?"
Theira smiled widely. Delightedly, wickedly, and Varius practically felt his heart breaking.
Then she said: "No."
The very earth seemed to arrest in shock.