Lyrielle steadied her healing arts, her hands trembling as she focused the fading green glow on the wound in her arm. The disintegration slowed—just barely—creeping instead of crawling, eating away at her flesh in millimeters instead of inches. It was enough. For now. She let her hands drop and settled into a battle stance, fists balled, knees bent, her body screaming in protest with every breath.
Silas watched her, his head tilted, his smile flickering with something that might have been genuine surprise. "You still want to fight?"
Her voice came out rough, but steady. "I'm still alive, aren't I?" She forced herself to straighten, to meet his gaze without flinching. "If I do recall, you said you'd kill me. But I'm still breathing. So of course, I'll fight."
Silas exhaled, a sound that might have been a laugh or might have been a sigh. "It's not going to be fun anymore." He gestured at her with Nithfang, the blade's green veins pulsing lazily. "You're weak now. So stop resisting, and I'll make it quick. Painless even."
Lyrielle spat blood onto the scorched earth between them. The taste of copper filled her mouth, sharp and familiar. "I appreciate the concern." She wiped her lips with the back of her hand, smearing red across her skin. "Trust me, I really do. But I still have to kill you." Her eyes found his, held them. "Since you're hell bent on harming those close to me."
The pain was immense. Her arm throbbed where Nithfang's poison worked its way through her flesh. Her head pounded with a splitting ache that made her vision swim at the edges. Her chest burned with every breath. Her legs felt like they belonged to someone else. She could feel the seal pressing down on her like a weight on her chest, limiting her, suffocating her. And beneath it all, the slow, creeping certainty that she was running out of time.
"Stubborn till the end." Silas's voice was quiet. Not mocking. Not amused. Almost... respectful.
Lyrielle allowed herself a small, tired smile. "It's my whole vibe."
She launched herself forward.
The distance between them vanished in a heartbeat—or it should have. Her body was slower now, heavier, her movements robbed of the fluid grace that had carried her through decades of combat. She aimed a punch at his face, poured everything she had left into it.
He swayed to the side. Easily. Almost lazily. Her fist cut through empty air.
She tried again. A hook. A jab. A combination that should have forced him back. He dodged each one without effort, his movements minimal, economical, almost bored. Her eyelids were heavy. Her arms felt like lead. Her breathing was ragged, uneven. She just wanted to land one punch. One. To feel her fist connect. To know she'd made him feel something.
Silas drew his chain. It slithered from his belt like a living thing, connecting to Nithfang's hilt with a soft click. He spun the weapon once, twice, then struck.
Lyrielle threw up a wooden stream—a barrier of thick, twisted branches that should have been strong enough to deflect a cannonball. It rose from the earth between them, groaning with effort. Nithfang hit it and sliced through without resistance, as if the wood were paper, as if she had thrown nothing at all.
"You can't even strengthen your wood magic anymore." Silas's voice floated through the gap in her defenses. Not gloating. Just stating a fact.
Lyrielle retreated a step, then another, her eyes never leaving him. "If I'm so weak, then why haven't you killed me yet?" She let the words hang in the air, watching his face for any flicker of hesitation. Hold on, she told herself. Just hold on. Guild members from the nearest town should be arriving any moment. Someone must have seen the smoke, heard the explosions. Someone must be coming.
Silas was quiet for a long moment. He looked at her—really looked—and something in his expression shifted. The amusement faded. The mockery drained away. What remained was something she hadn't expected to see in the face of an Eclipse Collective operative.
"It's unusual," he said slowly, "but I have a deep respect for you. Especially having fought you now." He gestured with Nithfang, the blade catching the light. "I had only heard the legends. But fighting you now..." He shook his head. "You really handled yourself well, despite being under the Seal of the Lesser Vessel." His eyes met hers. "You are an anomaly. And this world might be brimming with more."
He looked at her tired figure—the sagging shoulders, the trembling hands, the blood drying on her lips—and something almost like regret crossed his features.
"You've just earned my respect." He said it simply, without performance. "It seems such a waste to kill you."
The words hit her like a slap.
Such a waste to kill you.
Rage surged through her, hot and bright, burning away the fog of exhaustion. He was the one who had come to her home. He was the one who had attacked her, who had brought a mythical seal to crush her power, who had come to take children who had done nothing wrong. He was the villain. So why was he standing there, speaking to her like he was doing her a favor? Like her death was a tragedy he would mourn?
A burst of aura exploded from her—the last dregs, the final reserves, everything she had left. She dove at him, fist swinging, and this time she was fast enough, close enough, almost—
He caught her shoulders.
His hands were warm. Steady. He held her in place without effort, his grip firm but not painful, like a man restraining a child.
"Close combat isn't your thing." His voice was almost gentle. "Stick to what you do best."
And then he drove the blade through her stomach.
The sound was quiet. A soft, wet push of steel through flesh. It didn't hurt at first. There was just pressure, and then cold, and then a spreading numbness that seemed to fill her from the inside out. She looked down at the hilt protruding from her abdomen, at the green veins pulsing along its length, at the blood beginning to seep through her torn clothes.
Silas looked into her eyes, searching for something. Defeat, maybe. Fear. Despair.
He found none.
Her hand shot out and grabbed his arm. Her fingers closed around his wrist, tight as iron, and before he could react, before he could pull away, she drove her fist into his face with everything she had left.
The impact was devastating. His head snapped back, his jaw cracking audibly, and he flew backward through the air, bouncing across the scorched earth before crashing into a pile of rubble a dozen yards away.
Lyrielle stood there, swaying, her arm still extended, her knuckles split and bleeding. "That should shut your mouth for a while."
She looked down at her stomach.
The wound was widening. The edges were dark, flaking, disintegrating—the same slow death that was eating her arm, now spreading from her core. No. She couldn't let it end here. Not yet. She had to push. Had to hold on. Just a little longer.
She pressed her palm to the wound and called up the Healing Arts again. The green light flickered, guttered, flared—and held. Just barely. Just enough to slow the spreading.
But that was it. The seal. The aura she'd burned through. The healing she'd already poured into her arm. The reserves were empty. Her vision blurred, her knees buckled, and she dropped to the ground, one hand pressed to her stomach, the other braced against the dirt.
Move, she told herself. Get up. He's still alive. You have to—
She looked up. Silas was thrashing in the rubble, both hands pressed to his jaw, his face twisted in pain. Blood poured from his mouth, soaking his shirt, dripping onto the stones beneath him. He was hurt. Really hurt. She'd done that.
Just one more minute, she thought. Hold on for one more minute.
Her body refused to move. Her arms wouldn't lift. Her legs wouldn't push. She was kneeling in the dirt, her blood pooling beneath her, her vision fading at the edges. She tried to summon aura. Nothing. She tried to call the wood. Nothing. She tried to breathe, and the air tasted like copper.
Bet Rowan would laugh at me in this state.
The thought came unbidden, drifting through her fading consciousness like smoke. She almost smiled. He would, too. Would stand over her with that unreadable expression and say something dry, something cutting, something that would make her want to kick him even as she bled out.
A shadow fell across her.
She blinked hard, her heart beating slow, each pulse a labor. There was a figure standing in front of her—tall, solid, familiar. She tried to focus, but her eyes wouldn't cooperate, wouldn't see, wouldn't—
"Seems like I've started seeing things."
Silas pulled himself out of the rubble, his jaw hanging at an unnatural angle, his vision blurred with pain and rage. He grabbed his face with both hands and forced the bone back into place with a grinding crack that sent fresh agony screaming through his skull. He screamed—a raw, animal sound that tore from his throat—and then spat a mouthful of blood onto the ground.
If he hadn't used aura reinforcement, his jaw would be gone by now.
He blinked, trying to clear his vision, trying to find her.
She was still there. Kneeling in the dirt, one hand pressed to her stomach, her head bowed, her body finally, finally giving out.
And there was a man standing in front of her.
Silas's blood ran cold.
Rowan Dareth.
In the flesh.
There was no mistaking it. The broad shoulders, the weathered face, the sword at his hip still wet with yggthra blood. But it wasn't the appearance that froze Silas in place. It was the presence. Something immense, something ancient, something that made the air feel thick and the ground feel unsteady and his own heart stutter in his chest.
Rowan knelt beside Lyrielle, his back to Silas, completely exposed. Completely unconcerned.
Now, Silas told himself. Now. While he's distracted. While he's not looking.
He willed his body to move. Nothing happened. He willed again. His legs wouldn't obey. His hands wouldn't lift. The thought of attacking Rowan Dareth was like the thought of walking into a fire—every instinct screaming no.
You put precautions in place, he reminded himself. You planned for this. You knew he might come. You—
Rowan looked over his shoulder.
One glance. One look from those steady grey eyes. And Silas stopped thinking entirely.
Something in him shivered. Something primal, something old, something that had kept him alive through years of hunting and killing and surviving. It whispered one word, clear and cold:
Don't.
He stood still. The chain hung loose in his hand. Nithfang's glow dimmed, as if the blade itself had decided to wait. Silas watched Rowan examine Lyrielle's wounds, watched him press his palm to her forehead, watched him look up at the sky as if measuring the time they had left.
And he did not move.
He could not move.
This was death, standing between him and his mission. This was death, with its back turned, waiting to see what he would do.
Silas stayed very, very still.