Chapter Thirty-Three #2
As she casts her gaze around the ruins of the castle’s heart, she’s moved that the same fight propels her party forward. They are no longer a group of wary strangers struggling to determine who to trust as they navigate the cursed night, but a force synced in perfect harmony.
To her left, Mortimer stands atop a pile of rubble to direct his skeletons to assail the devil.
Sharpened finger bones claw at Nosferoth’s wings, distracting him enough to keep him grounded and within reach.
Mortimer points to Nosferoth’s chest with a shout, and brilliant white lightning flashes from his hands and spears the devil in a dozen different places.
As he howls, Vera fires three arrows in quick succession that punch through the creature’s jaw, shoulder, and wing.
From her vantage point on the ground with the devil towering over her, Sindra hears the wounds hiss as acidic poison drips from the ranger’s marks.
Lord Gullet follows each arrow like a guide, swooping in to tear at Nosferoth’s skin with his talons and beak.
Sindra sees Moss out of the corner of her eye as the druid darts close to check whether she’s hurt—but Sindra’s shocked to realize that she’s not.
In fact, though the devil has managed to score some of their party with his claws and teeth, they are, for the most part, surface wounds.
Moss bellows out a passionate roar—literally, as she casts her orcish form aside to leap into the fray as a bear, sinking her jaws into the devil’s thigh.
“Enough!” the monster bellows. “You are mine.”
The devil’s gaze latches on to Sindra, and as its crimson eyes narrow to slits, she swears the bite marks piercing her neck begin to burn, and her vision goes dark.
Her ears ring and her head feels near to bursting as the devil worms his way into her mind.
Horrifically, her body begins to answer his call, the very blood in her veins bending to his will.
She turns then and faces the rest of her party.
*End them,* Nosferoth’s voice booms inside her skull. *End them, and I shall grant you more power than you’ve ever dreamed.*
Sindra meets each of their gazes in turn: Vera’s horror, Mortimer’s resignation, Antoni’s resolve, Moss’s fear.
But it’s Brightmorn in Antoni’s fists that captures her attention.
Brightmorn, who shines like a beacon against the night, illuminating the faces of those who have grown to be her greatest allies—and fiercest friends.
“I already have everything I could ever want,” she says, seething. “You will never have me!”
“Sindra!” Antoni shouts, pulling her from her single-minded focus. “As we practiced, yes?”
She nods once, hard—and the devil’s control breaks.
Sindra spins, extending her blades at her sides as she approaches Nosferoth at a run. Ducking under a swipe of his massive arm and narrowly missing his teeth as he rears down at her, she plunges her blades into his stomach. It’s not enough to kill him—but that wasn’t her goal.
All she needed to do was give the captain an opening.
Antoni climbs the monster’s back, pulling himself up between Nosferoth’s torn leathery wings as he ascends.
The creature flails, attempting to wrap his claws around Antoni, but he cannot reach.
The pit the devil clawed out from spits fire upward, searing Antoni’s eyebrows and making his eyes water.
It’s bright, but it’s nothing compared to the weapon of sunlight he wields.
Sindra sees his intention before the others do—she knows how to recognize it. Her face drains of color. “No,” she whispers, but no one hears.
Nosferoth stumbles back, racing for the rift he crawled from. But Antoni won’t let him retreat.
He raises the sword above his head, poised over the creature’s neck.
“I do this for you, my darling,” he says to Vera. “For Moros.”
Vera’s bow clatters to the ground as horror dawns on her face. “Father, no!” she cries.
A sound like a bell tolling rings through the ballroom, shattering the windows, when Antoni sinks the blade into Nosferoth’s neck. The creature writhes as he dies, black blood spurting from his throat.
And when he falls back into the rift, he takes Antoni with him.
The effect of Nosferoth’s death is immediate.
A sudden white brilliance floods the room as sunlight bursts through the jagged remnants of the stained-glass windows lining the eastern wall.
The undead freeze, wobble, then crumble to clouds of dust that sparkle in the golden rays.
Moss peers outside and gasps as, past the walls of the castle, the withered black trees begin to heal, their twisted trunks stretching toward the sun, leaves unfurling from their branches in welcome.
But no one else is looking out the window at the robin’s-egg-blue sky that’s visible for the first time in years. Everyone peers down into the dark rift left behind by the devil, searching for a sign, for a wink of Brightmorn’s blade or Antoni’s armor. The sun warms Vera’s tear-streaked face.
Already, they can hear shouting outside, gasps and sobs of surprise.