Time to use the only weapon left at my disposal... my wits.
“Poor little forgotten daughter, feeling so sorry for yourself that you have to hurt others to make yourself feel good,” I say. “So needy that you still crave dear daddy’s approval, even if you were never the one he chose.” I know goading her while I don’t have any magic probably isn’t in my best interests, but have nothing to lose—especially if she completes her spell before my magic returns. “And now, you’ve become the thing you detest the most... weak and subservient.”
She hisses as that taunt disrupts her from her chant, but only stares at me. “Your insults won’t work on me, Sura. I have magic and you don’t, and soon, I’ll strip you of every last drop. And once I have no more need of you, I’ll kill you. Only now, I promise to make it hurt.”
A hideous screech from above has us both looking up. I think I see Darrius and Indira flying around the azhi, but I can’t be sure. Pieces of something—half a feathered griffin’s body—are falling from the sky, while the other half is ripped apart and gobbled between two of the azhi’s mouths.
“My azhi is a hungry beast,” Anahima says, watching my grief-stricken expression with glee. “He loves fresh meat.Especiallyazdaha. I wonder how yours will taste? He should have died from the rot, but I’ll get him sooner or later.”
I sneer back. “You’re a monster, just like your demon.”
Swallowing, I stare up, hoping beyond hope that the azhi will be weakening from all the attacks, but it only shows signs of getting stronger. How is that possible?
The gentlest touch of my simurgh strokes across my senses. It’s not much, but for a moment, I can see through her eyes. Thousands of filaments like a huge magical web creep from the revenants to the azhi, and the more of them there are, the stronger it gets.
I breathe out. “They’re all connected.”
“Not so stupid after all,” Anahima says. “Though I sense the nullifying effects lessening, and we can’t have that.”
Darrius, if you can hear me now, target the revenants. They’restrengthening the azhi. If you eliminate them, we might have a chance.
No response comes back, and my heart sinks.
Needing to do something, I lurch forward, hobbling with my injured foot. Anahima snarls and raises her hand, lightning gathering. Unable to leap out of the way with an aching ankle that isn’t healing, I brace for impact, but a blur crashes into her, taking her unawares and sending them both tumbling to the ground.
Zahre!
The fierce raissa throws a huge blast of frost toward Anahima, encasing her in a tower of ice. She burns free easily, but that doesn’t stop Zahre. Ice spears race toward Anahima, only to crash into a hasty shield she throws up. The raissa spins, her saber coming down close to Anahima’s torso and then reversing direction to catch a thick section of her hair.
Anahima growls with rage, lightning sparking on the tips of her fingers as she fires several sizzling bolts in Zahre’s direction, but the raissa jumps and spins, her body moving like liquid as she deftly avoids Anahima’s attacks. Not losing an inch of ground, she lunges again with her saber, this time getting a strike at the back of her opponent’s thigh. Anahima roars, her eyes turning violet, a mass of dark purple rot pouring out of her toward us like a pulsating wave.
I can feel its malice... its hatred and hunger.
“Zahre!” I yell. “Run!”
Her eyes widen, but she listens and vanishes into the woods. The rot retreats back into Anahima’s body, and I can only stare at her in mute shock. “I hate interruptions,” she says.
“What have you done to yourself, Ani?” I whisper. “That... thing, whatever that void magic is, it’s not natural.”
“Power comes at a cost,” she says.
“Whatever trade you made with Fero is not worth it, I promise you that.”
She laughs. “Fero is gone. I absorbed his remnant and ate his power. The rot is mine, and Darrius’s shadows will be mine. I will bring the abyss to Endara.”
Dread fills me. “Ani, this isn’t you.”
Her smile is soft. “What do you know? You fell for my strongest illusion, sweet Sura. I was so angry, so alone, so lost. Do you know the rot eats all emotion? It takes away all the pain and the sadness and everything that makes you weak. You’ll understand. Maybe that will be my gift to you, instead of death. I can make you like me.” She waves an arm to her army. “Like us.”
“I would rather face the azhi,” I say, the idea of my free will being eaten away one I could never embrace.
Another bellow makes us both look to the sky. This time it’s from the demon. The princess lets out a wild howl of fury when the beast takes a brutal hit to its wing and starts to spin in circles and plummet. I have no idea if Darrius heard me and if he directed some of the azdaha to the ground forces, but when I focus my magical sight, there is hardly any of the web left.
It’s working!
I stifle my hope and call to my simurgh again. I can feel her more strongly! Magic, only the barest sliver before, feels like a steadier stream. Working unobtrusively, I use my psionic abilities to craft my own illusion—a weak and broken Suraya—even though my ankle is healing and the wound on my head is no longer bleeding. Anahima is a master illusionist, so I pour more magic into the version of me I want her to see.
An invisible leash wraps around my neck, and she drags me with her toward the middle of the field. “You hurt mine, I hurt yours,” she screams to her brother, her voice magically amplified.
