Amberly opened her eyes. She felt strong, she felt reenergized – reborn, even. Most of all, she felt a familiar warmth: a god’s touch upon her. Her powers as a paladin had returned, the golden light of Soel replaced by the vibrant flames of Rion’s passion. The wound in her stomach was now just a dull ache, healed by the flames within.
She climbed to her feet just as Syline dashed past her, eyes wide and face ashen. Syline stumbled to a halt as she saw her friend.
‘A-Amberly, you’re okay! What’s happened to you? What’s the – Look out!’ Syline yanked Amberly to the side right as Jane’s elongated, bloody claws cut the air where she’d been standing. Amberly faced the vampire and pushed Syline behind her. Jane glared, hunched over like an animal, arms wide and fingers clenching and unclenching, cutting furrows into her own palms that healed by the time her fingers pulled away.
‘So, you got yourself back to your feet. Impressive,’ Jane went to say, a smug arrogance smothering the bestial rage in her voice.
‘It’s okay, Syline.’ Amberly spoke over Jane as she picked up her sword. ‘It’s all going to be okay. You did so well to keep fighting, but now…’ Jane’s face contorted in confusion and anger as the flames of Rion’s passion spread across the blade, turning its metal a vibrant, cherry red. ‘We’re not alone now. I’m not alone now. We have a god at our back, unlike this godless whore,’ she cooed playfully, taunting Jane.
The vampire screamed, stepping in and clawing at Amberly. The reborn paladin barely parried the first and caught her other arm by the wrist, sliding backwards under the force of the blow, but keeping it from her chest. She locked her arm, elbow screaming with pain in protest, but she’d stopped the blows all the same. Jane snarled and grabbed for Amberly’s blade, ready to tear it from her hand. Her eyes went wide and she let out a gasp as she pulled her hand away.
Terrible burns crossed her wrist and palm, injured from grabbing the blade. They weren’t healing. Amberly grinned at her and levelled her sword again.
‘The light and flames of passion are with me! Fear darkness!’ She slipped back into the role of the Morning’s Fury, roaring her battle cry as she felt the power of her new god swell within her. ‘For the dawn…’ Jane stumbled away as the light emitted from every inch of Amberly. ‘…has come!’ The entire room was filled with a burst of light, blinding Jane and Syline both. The wizard stumbling back from her friend, blinking spots from her eyes. Jane shielded her own eyes to little avail, skin blistering. Amberly lowered her sword as Jane lowered her arm. The vampire seemed… lessened now: her skin was red, her arms blistered, and the wounds Amberly had inflicted weren’t healing.
‘That’s all I have, Amberly; this’ll be up to you now. I hope this has been enough, my love.’
Amberly felt the words of Rion more than she heard them, settling in her mind and memories like a kiss on her neck and a warm embrace.
This will be plenty, thank you, Amberly thought, hoping Rion could hear her. She looked over to Syline. ‘She’s weakened now, let’s finish this.’
Syline felt as if she would keel over then and there if she tried to cast another spell. Any more magic would likely kill her, but this is when she’d need it most. She struggled through the words to the flame dagger, body shaking as she did. Already, Amberly was running ahead of her, sword still flickering with dying flames nowhere near as vibrant as when Amberly had first woken up, the blade’s edge rapidly returning to bare steel as the goddess’ presence faded. With the last word, a weak, flickering flame appeared over Syline’s staff: this was all she could manage, but she hoped flame would be as useful against Jane as it was against the waxworks. Other than that, all she had to rely on was Amberly and a trembling axe arm. Syline glanced down at her hands, and past them, she saw her reflection in the tiles.
She barely recognised herself: her flesh grey and pallid, veins flush against the skin, eyes sunken in their sockets with dried blood rimming around them like old tears and her hair hanging slack like some terrible hag from a horror tale told around campfires. Her magic was killing her.
She came in just behind Amberly, charging the vampire on unsteady feet as Jane still struggled to see clearly, her arms waving blindly before her. Amberly had her blade raised, already coming down for the vampire’s throat. Syline was far too committed to her charge when she realised Jane’s ploy. All at once, the confusion went out of Jane’s movements. Amberly was caught by the wrist, and the sound of cracking bone echoed around the room right as Jane’s other hand caught the staff just behind its gemstone head, and yanked Syline in close.
‘You see, you two, your mistake was thinking that by stripping away a little of my power, you’d put me on your pathetic level.’ She grinned at Syline as she yanked Amberly by the arm and swung her like she weighed nothing. She was sent tumbling away, screaming with every bounce as she landed upon her arm, having just healed from an arrow wound, now crushed and crippled all over again. ‘I might not heal anymore, but I am still a vampire, Syline.’
Her grip tightened and the staff cracked. Syline’s grip went slack as the hope went out of her. Jane pulled the staff away and crushed its haft, the arcane ink splattering out over each of them and splattering Syline’s face and arms.
‘And you are still terribly, terribly human. Fear, little light, for the night has come.’
She tickled Syline’s chin almost tenderly as the young wizard stood before her like a deer in the hunter’s eye. Not even a god’s grace had saved them. She didn’t even try to dodge the blow as Jane slammed her flat palm into Syline’s breast, sending her flying and her ribs cracking.
Syline tumbled back across the ground, body impacting against the tiles time and again after Jane’s brutal shove. When she finally rolled to a stop, body bloodied, bruised and wracked with pain, she felt a hand close on her wrist. She screamed. Jane had her. This was all over, she was going to die, they were going to die –
Ioann pulled her face-to-face with him with his remaining arm. He was pale and shivering, his tanned skin turned ashen from blood loss.
‘Ioann, you –’
‘Don’t let go… You can still save us…’ Ioann whispered, struggling to lift his head to look her in the eye. ‘Whatever happens… don’t let go,’ he whispered before he began to scream. Syline held tight to him as the man convulsed and shook. Suddenly, she felt life returning to her, magic returning to her. Her reserves filled, then spilled over with a fiery power like nothing she had ever felt in the past. Flames and wind burst from Ioann, racing along his skin and sending her hair billowing behind her. Finally, he fell still, staring up at her as blood dribbled from his mouth.
‘I gave you my magic… All of it… Kill… Her…’ the sorcerer rasped, even as consciousness faded from him.
‘I hope you realise that whatever you’re doing is just prolonging the inevitable, Syline,’ cooed Jane, chuckling as Syline heard her coming closer, her footsteps clicking on the tiles.
Syline felt… reborn. Refreshed. Her skin had taken on a new, healthy hue, and she felt a terrible burning in her chest replacing the encroaching cold. Ioann’s magic roiled through her entire being, leaving her feeling as if she were about to explode. She could barely even imagine how the sorcerer contained it. She looked at Jane as the woman came closer. Syline began casting and she saw Jane falter as if breaking from a stupor. It only lasted a moment and she began running to finish Syline. Jane’s hand reached for her, coming in an arc that would tear Syline’s throat out.
It stopped dead only inches from Syline.
The blue shimmer of a shield hung in the air, cracking under the pressure. Syline locked eyes with Jane for a split second, long enough to say: ‘I disagree.’
Jane snarled and backed off, her eyes roving over Syline. They widened as she realised how she could cast at all: neither of them held a focus, but they were both showered with the ink from Syline’s broken staff.
In that moment of study, both went into new incantations. Knowing that offensively, the vampire would surely have her beat, Syline teleported once again. She arrived with a corona of lightning at the foot of the stairs, a rush of wind following suit – an effect of Ioann’s wild, sorcerous magic. Jane took a slow, deep breath and regained her gentile aura as she momentarily abandoned her spell.
‘So, the sorcerer gave you his power?’ she called after her as she strutted over the bloody tiles towards Syline. ‘Fantastic! All you’ve succeeded in doing is making this more interesting, little whelp.’
Jane began casting again. Syline cut off any reply she might have made to do the same. She was too slow. She heard a sizzling, popping sound as a thick green fog settled around her, melting at the tiles and very quickly through her shield. Panicking, she looked within herself for a solution. Ioann’s power gave it to her. Great winds blustered from behind her, blowing the acidic mist back towards Jane.
Syline barely had a moment to feel relief: she only just stopped the mists spreading to her friends. A sigh barely escaped her when Jane flew from the acidic fog, her skin singed and bubbling in places. Syline didn’t see Jane until her burning fingers were piercing through her shield. Syline’s stomach dropped as her shield crumbled and Jane snatched her wrist and arm both.
‘Get back in there,’ the wild and manic Jane snarled at her.
Her claws cut gashes into Syline’s bicep and waist. Syline found herself hefted into the air and sent flailing back towards the cloud of caustic fog as if she were nothing but a doll Jane was finished playing with. Her axe left her grip, clattering across the ground, as she flew. Syline began renewing her shield, finishing it just before slamming into the ground, but not before her exposed flesh was left blistered and red. By the time she rose, she’d tumbled almost the whole way out the other side of the fog. Her shield absorbed most of the impact, but she was still left rattled. That wasn’t her greatest problem. She couldn’t see Jane, that meant Syline wasn’t her target anymore, she was going for one of the others.
Panic swept through Syline and that panic summoned forth further strength from Ioann’s magic: a great geyser of wind to launch her skyward, like how the men had reached the window, which catapulted her back out of the mist. A spell was already on her lips but what she saw momentarily halted her tongue.
Never let it be said that Lauralee was a coward. Cautious, careful, patient. She was all these things because her mother had trained her to be all these things, but a coward, she was not. She saw the way Syline was fighting Jane, from her hiding place by a pillar. She saw that Syline may truly have a chance. The girl was pushing Jane harder than she could have imagined, however terrifying her mad mistress had become. If she gave her an opening, Syline may be able to finish this. Syline’s axe, smeared in the ink, had clattered down beside her. Syline had disappeared into the fog and Jane was going for one of her friends.
Lauralee picked up the axe, moving the scroll she’d retrieved from her belongings to her other hand, ready.
As Syline emerged from the green, acidic mists, Lauralee pulled back her arm and hurled the axe.
