The blood of a Worldweaver.”
I blocked another one of Ethan’s blows, and the effect left him open. I could easily stab him through the heart right there, and it would all be over.
Yet I hesitated, and Ethan belted out, “What are you waiting for! Kill me, and save yourself!”
I could not respond before he attacked again. A corner of his sword nicked my forehead, causing blood to stream into my eyes. Everything went red, and I trembled with the inevitability of it all.
Droga snorted, growing impatient with Ethan’s failed attempts to end me.This shall not pass! I will not allow it to happen!
Droga put his head down and charged at me, aiming his antlers at my torso. I kicked Ethan down and spun around at the last moment, facing Droga just before he impaled me. I dodged around his antlers and plunged my sword forward, crying out,
“God of agony and suffering,
Return now to your grave!”
My sword went upward. It penetrated the bottom of Droga’s mouth, slicing upward through his skull and entering his brain. With my other hand, I slammed the crown onto Droga’s head, as hard as I could muster.
We both froze, then. Droga gave a gurgled chuckle. Blood came bubbling up past his lips as he looked at me.Well, well.
I wasn’t sure what was so damn funny… until I realized I couldn’t breathe. I was literally unable to take a breath.
Then, out of the corner of my eye, I sawher.The spectral doe. She gazed back at me with her ghostly form, bowing her head to me in what seemed like reverence as she acknowledged the end.
I looked down… and saw that there was a sword sticking through my chest.
Blood poured from the middle of me, soaking my armor. I could feel it inside of me, now, the blade… it was sharp and stinging, cutting a hole through my organs, most profoundly, my heart. I wasn’t sure how it kept beating, struck through like that, and knew it wouldn’t for much longer.
The breaths from Ethan’s lungs were rattling and shallow as he stumbled before me. He had let go of the hilt of the blade that he’d used to stab me in the back. His expression was wide with shock, unable to believe that he’d truly done it.
I was still holding on to the silver crown on Droga’s head, though my shaking fingers were about to drop it from my grasp. With the last of my breath, I choked out the final words.
“I say to you, god of poor death,
This world be no longer your slave.”
I felt all of my magic leave me as I surrendered it to the power of the silver crown. It flooded outward through my torso as it rushed toward Droga in one powerful blue burst.
As the wave of sapphire magic hit him, Droga gave a dying moan. The silver crown burst into ash, spreading away like smoke on the wind… never to be used again.
The dark god withered away as a stone monument rose out of the cracks of the earth, forming from the jagged stone underneath the surface. The lid of the stone coffin opened up. Droga’s body collapsed, his hooves scrambling against the dirt as my magic wrapped around him, forming chains. Against his will, he was dragged toward the grave. With one last cry of rage, he disappeared into the bowels of the earth, and the lid of the tomb was placed over the stone coffin. A new seal appeared, containing Droga within his grave once again, until a time in the future that none of us knew. My sword lay covered in his black blood before the new grave.
I coughed. Blood spewed out of my mouth as my knees buckled. The amethyst glow had vanished from Ethan’s eyes, and he caught me before I hit the ground. The sound of his broken sobs were the most agonizing thing I’d ever heard as he cradled me in his arms. His warm tears dotted my face, and I felt cold as life began to leave me.
This day was just a wicked replay of every horrid moment Ethan and I had been forced to go through. Enduring the King’s Contest here at the Field… the struggle to save him from the leshane’s control… the bitter memory of the night when he’d stabbed me at the masquerade…
Yet this time, his blade had struck true. There would be no recovery from this. My prophecy had finally come to pass. It was done… I never had to worry about it ever again. Relief overcame me, and I welcomed dying. I was glad for it to be over.
The strangest thing happened. I heard the notes of my ice skating program flooding my ears, the crescendo ofA Time for Usbeing played on a far-off violin. My lip wobbled as I realized we truly were Romeo and Juliet. We’d never get our happy ending, though we’d tried.
It’d been worth it. I hadn’t gotten long with Ethan, but the time I did have with him had immensely mattered. It was okay. I could go in peace.
“Don’t leave me,” Ethan whimpered. His shaking fingers brushed my face in an act of supreme love.
“I’ll never leave,” I whispered back. “I love you.”
“My love is a poison,” Ethan spat, his grief wrenching out of him as he wept over me.
“Then I’ll drink it from your lips. Don’t deny me, my love.”
