This was the only way. When she killed him, E’nloc’s vessel would be no more, and she would be free of her villainous captor. Her heart would be unbroken, and she would be strongerwithout him. She would be the realm’s hero, in fact, and no one deserved it more.
Perhaps it was a little cruel to take away the true things she felt—the things they both felt—but Damien was no stranger to cruelty, both given and received. And at least he would die knowing he had finally learned to love and given it to the woman who deserved so much more than what little he had to offer.
Blood poured out over Damien’s chest as the pressure against his hold released. It was warm, just like when Amma embraced him, and at last a comfort to be drenched in his own gore. But his breath didn’t slow, no pain came, and the dagger, her dagger, fell, clattering across the floor.
Amma’s body slumped forward, and she collapsed against his chest, blood—her blood—pooling all over him.
“Oh, now that’s it—that’s the look.” Xander’s form, obscured by Damien’s falling tears, stepped backward from where he stood at the throne’s edge, a bloodied weapon in one hand, and a swath of fabric in the other. He lifted the material, but Damien didn’t need to see Bloodthorne’s Talisman of Enthrallment to know it was what he held protected inside, so much of Amma’s blood dripping from it. “I do have to say,”—he swallowed, a hitch to his voice—“not as satisfying as I imagined.” And then he took to the stairs and was gone.
“Amma?”
She is dead.
No. Damien gripped her under the chin to hold her head up, his arm still around her, but she was limp.
“Amma, please,” he breathed, heart slamming into his chest, noxscura flooding out of him and surrounding her limbs. “Sanguinisui, wake up!”
She didn’t move, not under his hands, his magic, his words.
Gone. As everything else should be.
No!Damien slid from the throne to the floor, laying her outand pressing hands to her chest. Her tunic was drenched in crimson, her skin slick as he floundered for the wound. Calling up the only healing spell he knew, Damien cast every ounce of magic he had into her body.
You will fail.
Frantic, he screamed for the priestess, still pulsing any bit of arcana he had into her chest, but she was leaden, her eyes not even finding his, not looking at all, hollow, empty. Blood pooled beneath her, thick, but he could no longer feel her inside it, could no longer touch that humanity they had shared, could no longer seek out the curiosity and the kindness that always flickered within. Why the fuck wasn’t his magic working?
Destruction, It said.It is all We are good for now.
Damien gathered her up into his arms, and she slid into them easily so covered in her own blood. Blood that should have been his. “You can’t,” he pleaded as her head lolled away from him. “You’ve got to stay here. To stay with me.” He took her by the jaw, turning her face to his, willing her eyes to find him. “You’remine, Ammalie!Sanguinisui, look at me! I didn’t…I didn’t mean to lose you like this. Please…please, come back.”
“She’s dead.”
He lifted his eyes, the priestess standing over them, infernal creatures surrounding her, following Damien’s will to be summoned. “Is Isldrah not your goddess?” he spat. “Does she not grant you the power to heal? Fix this. Now.”
A terrible darkness surrounded the priestess, forcing her to her knees across from him. The shadows bit into her arms and thrust her hands onto Amma’s chest.
“I cannotfixdeath.” Pippa’s fingers trembled as they were bathed in crimson. She sat there in her pointless robes, that useless symbol hanging from her neck, and she dared shed tears over the woman she refused to help.
Kill her.
Damien would. He would rip her to shreds, no point in her existence if she could not,wouldnot, help. There was no point inanything—
“But Xander can.”
The destruction pulsing under Damien’s skin was quelled, and a voice inside him swore, but it was deadened by his own, much louder thoughts. How could Xander…
“By all that is grim and fucking unholy. Thatbastard.” Damien stood, Amma’s body in his arms. She was so light, too light, and he pressed her to his chest as he raced down the steps to the platform beneath. Carefully, he lay her on the dais there. “You protect her,” he snapped at Pippa who had hurried behind him, propelled by noxscura, then shouted at the hundreds of shadowy, infernal creatures who had flooded into the throne room under his sorrow and rage, waiting for his commands, “All of you, protect her.”
He swept toward the vault and cast at the doors. They burst into splinters, the banner torn away, even the threshold ripped out of the wall leaving a massive hole to the disgusting room of trophies, and there was Xander Sephiran Shadowhart. Positively giddy, he sat in the chair that had once held Archibald, lounging in the mouth of a stuffed dragon’s head, giggling.
The King of Eiren was across from him, doing his best to stand on his head, and immediately tumbling into a pile, groaning.
“Oh, Bloodthorne, this talisman of yours is delightful!Sanguinisui, sing me a song.”
Archibald burst into an off-key baritone, words in Empyrean that likely praised some god or another. The gator-bears groaned in the corner, huge paws covering their ear flaps.
Damien’s rage was muddied with confusion. “How the fuck are you—”
