Chapter 26 #2
I haven’t allowed myself to fully feel it before. Not when Aren died. Not when my own magic turned against me. Not when I saw Serenya broken and covered in blisters. Not when I stood there, helpless, and let someone else carry her away.
But now? Now it’s boiling inside of me.
Rage that I didn’t protect her.
Rage that I lost control of my power.
Rage that I nearly killed her.
Most of all, rage that the thing responsible for all of it stands between me and the one person I need to see more than anything. If he didn’t kill Aren, if he didn’t come for me that first day, she wouldn’t have come. She would have stayed in the safety of her palace.
The mawless comes at me again. I dodge two strikes, parry a third, but the fourth catches my shoulder. Pain flares down my arm, and my vision swims.
I drive my blade upward, fast and brutal, and though the creature twists away, he isn’t fast enough. The sword slices across his ribs, leaving a smoking gash that doesn’t bleed. He roars, stumbling back.
“You don’t get to win,” I growl. “Not this time.”
He snarls, black eyes flashing. “You’re alone. She can't save you this time.”
My eyes blaze. “I don’t need anyone’s help to end you.”
We slam into trees, crack stone beneath our feet; our magic burns the ground as steel and shadow clash in a deadly rhythm. The mawless is strong, but I’m different now.
I’m not just a man with a sword. I am something more . This time, I won’t stop until he is ash at my feet.
My fist clenches, knuckles bloodied from the earlier wraith fights, but my grip on my blade is firm.
The mawless tilts his head, a too-human grin stretching his face. “I love your anger,” he says, voice thick with delight. “It makes this game so much more fun.”
I launch forward, blade slashing in a wide arc. He dodges with unnatural ease. His fingers slice through the air and claw at my side, tearing through leather and grazing skin. I suck in a breath, but don’t slow.
I pivot, spin, and slash again. This time, my blade grazes his shoulder, and a hiss of pain escapes his lips.
“Ah,” he croons, black ichor dripping down his arm. “There he is. There’s the fire.”
My magic flares, hot, raw, and uncontrolled. I feel it burn, lighting my skin, answering my fury. My sword drips with that magic. His grin falters for half a second.
“You’re not supposed to shine like—”
I don’t let him finish. I attack again, movements less refined now, driven by instinct. I’m not just fighting for my life anymore. I am fighting for hers. For Serenya, for the way her body collapsed after the burnout almost took me, for the haunted look in her eyes when she reached for me.
The mawless retaliates. Shadows burst around us and lash at my arms and legs.
I duck and roll, dodging the worst of it, but some wraps around my ankle, jerking me off my feet and slamming me into the ground.
My breath leaves my lungs in a gasp, pain exploding through my spine.
The world blurs—nausea hits like a wave.
He looms over me, stepping into the moonlight. His false face cracked with fractures running through the illusion, revealing black void beneath.
“You can’t win,” he whispers. “You’re broken, boy. You were always meant to break.”
My eyes flare with defiance. I grit my teeth and force my magic to surge. Light, fierce and sharp, erupts from me. It explodes outward, shattering the shadows wrapped around my ankle and forcing the mawless to stumble back with a snarl.
I force myself to stand. My legs shake, barely holding my weight. But I force them to move, biting back a groan as pain laces through every muscle.
He laughs. The kind of laugh that doesn’t belong to a living thing. It vibrates through the trees, echoes in the marrow of my bones. I tighten my grip on the hilt of my sword, chest heaving, blood hot and thick on my side.
“You fight well for a broken thing,” he purrs, his face still eerily calm.
I am too tired for banter. Too angry for fear. I move fast, aiming for the mawless’s side, but the creature vanishes in a blur of smoke and reappears behind me.
I barely duck in time, and a claw grazes my back. Burning agony flares through my shoulder, but I turn with a snarl and catch him with an upward slash that cuts deep into his arm. He shrieks, but it’s more of a laughing shriek, delighted by the pain.
He vanishes again.
This time, when he reappears, he grabs me by the throat and slams me into a tree with so much force the bark splinters behind my skull. Stars explode in my vision. For a moment, everything goes quiet. There’s just the ringing in my ears and the pain blooming at the base of my skull.
I choke, but don’t let go of my sword. I drive it upward, impaling the creature through the stomach. The thing hisses again, but doesn’t fall. It doesn’t even falter.
Black ichor oozes from the wound, but he only leans in, whispering cold against my cheek, “I remember the frightened look on your face when I wore your friend's face like a second skin.”
I roar and shove the blade deeper. My magic sparks, but it isn’t enough to end it. The mawless explodes into smoke again, and I drop to the ground, coughing, burned and bloody, blinking the ash from my eyes.
There’s a flicker of movement, but I turn too late, and a blast of shadow hits me full in the chest and sends me flying. I hit the ground hard, rolling through the dirt, and groan, my body begging me to stay down. But I see her face in my mind, and I rise again.
I stagger upright as blood drips from my arm…
or my head…my side? I can’t tell where the blood is coming from anymore.
Behind me, Lioran and Asbel are still on their knees, gasping, slowly shaking off remnants of the blood magic that bound them.
They aren’t ready to join the fight yet, but they are alive.
The mawless circles me slowly now, eyes narrowing. “Stubborn little vessel,” it purrs. “You shine so bright, don’t you? I wonder…if I peel back your skin, will your light pour out all at once?”
The forest is in ruins, trees smoldering. Earth lies scorched in great black veins where his magic tore through the roots. Mist and ash hang heavy in the air. Yet I barely notice it anymore.
Blood slicks my hands, my shirt, the dirt beneath my boots. Too many wounds to count. Still, my blade is in my grip, slick with black and red. My hand trembles, but not from fear. From exhaustion. From pushing my body too hard.
Still, when her face flashes in my mind again, I stand. I have to keep going. For her. I can’t let her sacrifice be for nothing.
Across from me, the mawless is pacing. Not unscathed. I have gotten in more than a few solid strikes. The creature’s arm is bleeding freely. A gash marks its cheek, another on its chest where my blade had pierced too close to whatever it has in place of a heart.
The damned thing smiles anyway.
“So desperate. So full of love,” he purrs, voice cracked and inhuman, face twitching, struggling to hold its form. His smile grows wider. “Do you think she dreams of you like you do her?” he whispers. “Your pretty little fae girl?”
Rage slams through me. I lunge again with a roar. Steel crashes against claw. Sparks spray in the dark. He ducks and spins, slashing across my ribs. Pain tears through me. I stumble, but twist mid-fall and kick him square in the chest. He flies back, but lands in a crouch, grinning.
Lioran is standing now, panting hard, a blade in hand. Asbel, too, though his shirt is soaked with blood. They don’t speak. They just move. Together.
We charge, forcing the mawless to split its attention, and for the first time in this whole fight, I see the mawless struggle. He snarls as Asbel’s blades tear a deep wound across his back. Screeches as Lioran drives him to his knees for a single breath.
I strike, but the mawless vanishes again, reappearing yards away, breathing hard now.
Black ichor leaks from his nose and mouth.
His form wavers, flickering like a candle in the wind, and the illusion disappears.
All pretense of humanity leaves his face.
The mask of flesh has peeled away, replaced by an impossible, deep black void.
The mawless lunges, and the three of us fight like men possessed.
Like brothers in war. Our earlier wounds are forgotten, lost to adrenaline and fury.
I duck a claw meant for my throat and slash upward, tearing through his ribs.
Asbel hurls a dagger into his spine, and Lioran knocks him back with a blast of magic. Still, the mawless doesn’t fall.
He laughs, even as ichor pours from his body.
My legs shake beneath me. My muscles are dead weight, barely responding. I can feel my body shutting down, screaming at me to stop. To quit. I should have collapsed long ago. I’ve gone past what any human body should endure.
He lunges straight for me, and I let him. I don’t dodge. I don’t block. I step into the charge, taking the full force of the blow, but grab his wrists before he can tear into me. Our bodies collide. He hisses in my face.
“You will not have me. You do not get to keep me from her,” I snarl.
I reach inside myself. Into the light. A blinding pulse of golden-white fire erupts from my chest. It doesn’t burn me, but the mawless screams. He tries to pull away, but I hold tighter.
My skin shines bright as the light races down my arms, searing into the creature.
He screams again, a sound that shatters the trees and makes the earth quake. His form writhes, cracks, and splits apart. Suddenly, in a single blinding burst, he’s gone.
I fall to my knees as the forest goes silent once more. No screams. No movement. No mawless.
Just me, Lioran, and Asbel.
We don’t linger. We don’t take time to recover. We are too close to getting out of this place. So, they help me stand very slowly, and we continue our walk to the portal.
Every muscle in my body aches, and every breath feels like fire in my chest. Blood soaks my torn leathers, causing them to stick to my skin. My vision blurs and steadies only when I clench my jaw and force focus.
We are close. So close.
“Keep moving,” Lioran urges, his voice tight with strain as he slings my right arm over his shoulders.
“I am,” I grind out, though my legs threaten to buckle with every step.
On my other side, Asbel’s grip is painfully firm. “Just a little farther now.”
The laughter of the mawless still rings in my ears, like a lingering ghost that refuses to fade. My body is in excruciating pain from every blow, every wound.
The shimmering outline of the portal comes into view ahead, glowing like salvation itself. It should have been an hour’s walk—it took us nearly three.
Every step drags, slowed by the weight of injury, exhaustion, and the growing stiffness in my limbs.
When we finally cross the threshold, magic pulls at us, twisting, dragging us through. Then we stumble hard onto the solid stone of the palace courtyard.
Cool air rushes around us, carrying the scent of rain. Relief sweeps over me in a wave so strong it almost hurts.
I try to straighten, to take in my surroundings, but my vision tunnels. My legs give out, and the world tilts sideways.
“Koen—!”
I don’t hear the rest. Darkness claims me before I even hit the ground.