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.
