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The glasscrawler lunges, and helpless horror grips me as she turns to meet it, dagger raised.
My lungs freeze mid-breath, time slowing to a cruel crawl as crystal appendages wrap around her shoulders, razor tips sinking into her transformed flesh, spilling her precious blood.
I strain to break Thalindor’s iron grip, every Royal instinct screaming to protect what belongs to me, to us. To the Silver Sithe.
“Release me now,” I snarl, Silver fire crackling across my skin.
Thalindor remains unmoved, centuries of duty hardened into unyielding resolve. “Your brothers need you alive, Your Majesty.”
Amalia twists in the creature’s grasp, pain unable to steal the fluid precision of her movements. The rune-dagger in her hand glows as she drives it into a jointed limb. Glass breaks with a sharp, brittle crack, fragments scattering across the floor in glittering arcs.
The glasscrawler recoils, its body rippling with what might be pain, and it releases her.
Her wounds close, not as Kelaros’s had when Amalia wounded him, by stealing the life force of other beings, but with a cleansing wash of magic. When it passes, only eight new scars on her body remain.
More limbs extend from the glasscrawler’s core, each one reflecting distorted images of the chamber as they reach for her throat. She ducks beneath them, rolling across crystal dust that clings to her blood-slicked skin.
“Let her fight,” Thalindor says, his grip unrelenting. “She understands what she faces better than we do.”
“I refuse to abandon her here.”
The mirror behind us convulses, its surface trembling. Cracks creep inward from the edges, and through the distorted surface, I glimpse Elionn on the other side, his weakened form supported by Dark guards.
Amalia slashes upward with her dagger, severing another glassy limb. The creature shrieks, a sound beyond hearing that vibrates through crystal and bone alike.
The glasscrawler rears back, its body contorting into impossible angles. Light catches in its transparent form, refracting into blinding beams. They slice through the air toward Amalia.
She throws an arm up to shield herself, and in that moment of distraction, the creature lunges.
“Behind you!” My shout tears through the chamber.
Amalia drops flat, the glasscrawler sailing over her prone form.
As it passes, she thrusts upward, driving her dagger deep into its underbelly. The creature freezes mid-air, limbs extended in silent agony, before shattering into thousands of razor-sharp fragments.
Glass rains down, slicing new wounds across her exposed skin. She curls in on herself, arms covering her head until the deadly shower ceases.
When she rises, blood streaks from her hairline to her jaw, a crimson slash across her already otherworldly transformation.
“Amalia!” I reach for her, shoving at Thalindor.
My guard has no right to restrain his king, yet centuries of training give him power enough to hold me from certain death.
She staggers toward us, each step leaving bloody footprints across crystal dust. When she reaches me, some of the tension leaves her body.
“The mirror won’t hold much longer,” Thalindor warns as cracks continue to spread across its surface.
Amalia’s arm lifts toward me.
“That’s right, my Wolf,” I murmur, my hand stretching toward hers. “It’s over. Let us go home.”
A shadow moves behind her, solidifying into form with such speed that I have no time to call a warning. Kelaros steps through a tear in reality, crystal dust swirling around him. His transformed body gleams with inner light, Opal veins mapping new constellations across skin now more crystal than flesh.
“No!” I scream.
Amalia senses his presence too late. She begins to turn, dagger rising, but Kelaros moves with unnatural speed. His hand plunges forward, driving a shard of pure Opal into her side.
Her body arches backward, a silent scream wrenching through her as the shard sinks deep. Blood spreads across her tunic, darkening the fabric to black where it touches.
