“Don’t do this,” Lore cried.
Prager’s swollen, bleeding neck quivered, and she chanted in a singsong voice. “Not together. Not apart. You’re weak. You’ll break just like they all did before you. Poor little King Lorick. I’ll enjoy slicingyourworld apart.”
Her body convulsed again, her limbs twitching. With a sickening snap of her neck, blue-green light surged from her chest, shooting from her body in bolts of lightning. The magic flipped around and drove back inward.
Erisandra’s face wavered into view, and she gasped, her hands flying to her belly as the light hit inside her and spread like poison.
With another push, Prager consumed her once more.
“Hold strong, Mother. I’ll destroy it.” Lore moved faster than I could process, closing the gap between himself and Prager, the assassin and the noble king perfectly intertwined. His fists curled, and when he raised his hands, the air answered his call. The marble beneath our feet quaked, shards of it splintering up, joining the torrent of energy gathering around him.
“Lore.” I couldn't reach him through the crackling charge of his magic.
“Get out of her,” he snarled, his voice jagged with horror and rage. But layered beneath it, I could hear the anguish threatening to undo him.
This was the mother he’d adored when he was a child. Somewhere, buried beneath the parasitic force, Erisandra had remained. If I knew my Lore, he'd die to save her.
Prager laughed with Erisandra's mouth in a sound terrifying enough to curdle the air. “Tell me, High King of Evergorne, how does it feel to bepowerless?”
“Why?” I shrieked. “Tell us why you’re doing this.”
Lore bent low, punching his fist into the shattered floor. Fire erupted from the point of impact, veins of molten flame streaking outward in a searing web. The heat was immense, the flames too bright, but my shadows instinctively coiled around me, dulling the intensity. The fire whipped toward Prager, but it split in two, surging around her without touching.
At his command, vines writhed up from the cracks beneath Prager’s feet. They snapped out, coiling around her wrists, her legs, her waist. She shrieked, the sound less human and more feral as the vines dragged her forward, forcing her to her knees in front of Lore.
His eyes shimmered with agony.
“Mother—” his voice broke, and that single word wrenched through me.
Something flickered in Erisandra's eyes. Her lips trembled, tears spilling over her sunken cheeks.
“Lorick,” she whispered in such a loving way before her face wrenched into the wizard’s again. “Weak little boy, drowning in useless sentimentality. I will feast on it as I did with all the others. Now you know what it feels like to be an object owned. I split you all. Split everything.” Her cackle rang out. “Cursed the same as the rest. Cursed to endure what it feels like to be divided and incomplete and never fully loved for all facets of who you might be. Each of you has been soprecious. So tasty.”
Only one person in my past had sneered that I was “tasty,” and my friends and I had killed him. I would destroy this being with my bare hands if I had to.
Lore’s expression fractured, the rage tipping into something darker. His features sharpened, and the assassin surfaced fully.
“No,” he hissed. The fire and vines obeyed his command,bending and twisting, living extensions of this man I would willingly die for. “I am loved for all I was and all I am.”
“You won’t get any farther,” she barked out.
“I will! Weakness isn't sentimental. That would be letting a parasite like you think it still holds a leash on my soul.”
The room exploded with sound and force. Thunderous currents rippled outward as Lore drew not only the fire, the vines, and the air into his command, but the marble floor began to bend itself toward him as well. Even the foundation of the room couldn’t resist. Shards of stone lifted into the air, spiraling around him in a crackling sphere of elemental energy.
Erisandra's body contorted as the vines tightened around her throat.
Lore’s shoulders rolled. Even from where I stood, I couldfeelhis torment. He flung everything at Prager, but like before, it slithered around her, leaving her untouched except by the vines.
Then, even they snapped away.
She straightened, her eyes shining with feverish joy.
“She’s still in there,” he whispered, his voice breaking. “I can't get her out.”
“Oh yes, you can, my precious,” Prager said with a coy whine. “Try a little harder, why don’t you?”
“Three…” Erisandra croaked. “Find the three!”
