He looms over me, stepping into the moonlight. His false face cracked with fractures running through the illusion, revealing black void beneath.
“You can’t win,” he whispers. “You’re broken, boy. You werealwaysmeant to break.”
My eyes flare with defiance. I grit my teeth and force my magic to surge. Light, fierce and sharp, erupts from me. It explodes outward, shattering the shadows wrapped around my ankle and forcing the mawless to stumble back with a snarl.
I force myself to stand. My legs shake, barely holding my weight. But I force them to move, biting back a groan as pain laces through every muscle.
He laughs. The kind of laugh that doesn’t belong to a living thing. It vibrates through the trees, echoes in the marrow of my bones. I tighten my grip on the hilt of my sword, chest heaving, blood hot and thick on my side.
“You fight well for a broken thing,” he purrs, his face still eerily calm.
I am too tired for banter. Too angry for fear. I move fast,aiming for the mawless’s side, but the creature vanishes in a blur of smoke and reappears behind me.
I barely duck in time, and a claw grazes my back. Burning agony flares through my shoulder, but I turn with a snarl and catch him with an upward slash that cuts deep into his arm. He shrieks, but it’s more of alaughingshriek, delighted by the pain.
He vanishes again.
This time, when he reappears, he grabs me by the throat and slams me into a tree with so much force the bark splinters behind my skull. Stars explode in my vision. For a moment, everything goes quiet. There’s just the ringing in my ears and the pain blooming at the base of my skull.
I choke, but don’t let go of my sword. I drive it upward, impaling the creature through the stomach. The thing hisses again, but doesn’t fall. It doesn’t even falter.
Black ichor oozes from the wound, but he only leans in, whispering cold against my cheek, “I remember the frightened look on your face when I wore your friend's face like a second skin.”
I roar and shove the blade deeper. My magic sparks, but it isn’t enough to end it. The mawless explodes into smoke again, and I drop to the ground, coughing, burned and bloody, blinking the ash from my eyes.
There’s a flicker of movement, but I turn too late, and a blast of shadow hits me full in the chest and sends me flying. I hit the ground hard, rolling through the dirt, and groan, my body begging me to stay down. But I see her face in my mind, and I rise again.
I stagger upright as blood drips from my arm…or my head…my side? I can’t tell where the blood is coming from anymore. Behind me, Lioran and Asbel are still on their knees, gasping, slowly shaking off remnants of the blood magic that bound them. They aren’t ready to join the fight yet, but they are alive.
The mawless circles me slowly now, eyes narrowing. “Stubborn little vessel,” it purrs. “You shine so bright, don’t you? I wonder…if I peel back your skin, will your light pour out all at once?”
The forest is in ruins, trees smoldering. Earth lies scorched in great black veins where his magic tore through the roots. Mist and ash hang heavy in the air. Yet I barely notice it anymore.
Blood slicks my hands, my shirt, the dirt beneath my boots. Too many wounds to count. Still, my blade is in my grip, slick with black and red. My hand trembles, but not from fear. From exhaustion. From pushing my body too hard.
Still, when her face flashes in my mind again, I stand. I have to keep going. For her. I can’t let her sacrifice be for nothing.
Across from me, the mawless is pacing. Not unscathed. I have gotten in more than a few solid strikes. The creature’s arm is bleeding freely. A gash marks its cheek, another on its chest where my blade had pierced too close to whatever it has in place of a heart.
The damned thing smiles anyway.
“So desperate. So full of love,” he purrs, voice cracked and inhuman, face twitching, struggling to hold its form. Hissmile grows wider. “Do you think she dreams of you like you do her?” he whispers. “Your pretty little fae girl?”
Rage slams through me. I lunge again with a roar. Steel crashes against claw. Sparks spray in the dark. He ducks and spins, slashing across my ribs. Pain tears through me. I stumble, but twist mid-fall and kick him square in the chest. He flies back, but lands in a crouch, grinning.
Lioran is standing now, panting hard, a blade in hand. Asbel, too, though his shirt is soaked with blood. They don’t speak. They just move. Together.
We charge, forcing the mawless to split its attention, and for the first time in this whole fight, I see the mawless struggle. He snarls as Asbel’s blades tear a deep wound across his back. Screeches as Lioran drives him to his knees for a single breath.
I strike, but the mawless vanishes again, reappearing yards away, breathing hard now. Black ichor leaks from his nose and mouth. His form wavers, flickering like a candle in the wind, and the illusion disappears. All pretense of humanity leaves his face. The mask of flesh has peeled away, replaced by an impossible, deep black void.
The mawless lunges, and the three of us fight like men possessed. Like brothers in war. Our earlier wounds are forgotten, lost to adrenaline and fury. I duck a claw meant for my throat and slash upward, tearing through his ribs. Asbel hurls a dagger into his spine, and Lioran knocks him back with a blast of magic. Still, the mawless doesn’t fall.
He laughs, even as ichor pours from his body.
My legs shake beneath me. My muscles are dead weight, barely responding. I can feel my body shutting down, screamingat me to stop. To quit. I should have collapsed long ago. I’ve gone past what any human body should endure.
He lunges straight for me, and I let him. I don’t dodge. I don’t block. I step into the charge, taking the full force of the blow, but grab his wrists before he can tear into me. Our bodies collide. He hisses in my face.
