Hook into it.
Samara's scream fractures the chamber.
The shadows wrap around her essence. But she's right about her strength. The energy she's absorbed from countless victims makes her far more powerful than Kafren ever was. She breaks free from my shadow-bonds and retaliates with a wave of corrupted magic. It sends me crashing into the pulsing wall.
"Is that all you have?" she hisses. "Let me show you what real power looks like."
The chamber fills with the screams of her victims. Every elf, dwarf, fae, and orc she's drained over the centuries. Their anguish becomes a force that crushes down on me, making it hard to breathe. I see flashes of their final moments.
Rage builds in my chest. These creatures have been feeding on innocents for centuries while hiding behind the facade of wisdom. I call upon the beasts that live within my cursed blood.
The Noble Wolf that hunts in moonlight and behind him, something darker. The thing that Lilith's curse awakened but could never fully control.
"Behold your ruin." The shadows swallow my form, pulling it into something the chamber wasn't built to contain. I grow larger and more terrible until I tower over Samara's corrupted form. The full might of the Strigon's true nature focused on a single goal—ending this creature so I can save my wife.
Samara tries to dissolve again. Coinneach follows her into whatever realm she retreats to. She tries to assault my mind with the screams of the dead. But I've heard worse in my own nightmares.
The Aeonian tries to drain my life force. All she finds is an endless well of darkness that burns her essence.
"What are you?" she gasps as my claws, now wreathed in shadow-fire, tear through her stolen power.
"Your end."
I drive my hand through her chest.
Samara has centuries of stolen life force to draw upon. She uses every drop in her desperation to survive. But eventually, inevitably, her stolen power runs out. I tear the last of her essence away. She crumbles like ancient parchment, leaving only ash and the fading echoes of her victims' screams.
The chamber of shadows dissolves around me. I'm back in the arena just as another vortex bursts open. Rainer, Shade, Red, Darstan, Eyepatch, and the wolf tumble out of their vortex. Barely alive.
Darstan's left arm is nearly torn from his body. Tendons and muscle exposed where something ripped through flesh. Shade's usually pristine assassin's garb is shredded and blood-soaked. Even the wolf limps heavily, one of its legs broken. Siofra rushes onto the arena floor. Her hands already glow with healing magic as she tends to Darstan's mangled arm.
But Rhianelle's vortex remains intact. It's still crackling with dark violet energy and the sounds of ongoing battle. I throw myself against the barrier.
Nothing. I pull everything I have left and hit it again. The surface ripples and settles with dark energy. Rainer arrives at my shoulder, driving his spear into the darkness. The vortex doesn't move.
"Our queen is just an elfling," someone calls out from the stands. "The poor girl. Sixty-nine years old against creatures that have lived for millennia!"
The crowd begins to murmur and shift restlessly.
"The elders we trusted are monsters," another voice echoes. "How can we survive what's coming?"
"We're doomed either way," Lord Ctibor declares with despair. "Our queen is an elfling."
I don't care. Their fear is noise. I slam my fists against the barrier again. The beast inside me roars for release, demanding I tear this entire arena apart stone by stone if that's what it takes to reach her. But as I raise my hands for another assault on the vortex, a voice cuts through the chaos.
"Is the elfling queen truly as pitiful as you believe?"
The voice slices cleanly through chaos. Blaire moves from the viewing stands and enters the arena. She stands in the center, utterly unafraid.
"Let me tell you a story," she says softly.
I strike the barrier again. Rainer and Red join me with their blessings from Kvatosh. The vortex does not bend.
"There was once a princess left behind in the village of Feywildra while her mother, her uncle, and her sister rode to war," Blaire begins, her tone shifting to something gentle. "They thought they were keeping her safe. Hidden away from the battles that raged across the frontiers."
The crowd's murmuring softens.
"But the villagers saw something else." Her gaze sweeps the colosseum. "They saw opportunity. A royal child with no protection. They betrayed her and tried to break her spirit for their own gain."
