James West - Lady Of Regret

“Burn her!” Mother Safi hooted, dancing a few lively steps, her form changing.

“Just so, Mama,” Yiri intoned.

Wina raised her stump against the heat, terror twisting her face.

A bullish man shoved between Rathe and Nesaea, halted at the sight of the now shaggy creature Safi was becoming. Though he no longer wore his helm, Rathe knew him as the captain of the Wardens of Tanglewood, by his size and the knot of rank on his shoulder.

“Stand down, witch,” the stone-faced captain warned Yiri, his voice deep, uncompromising. He bore a sword in his hand longer than she was tall, and a hand span wide. Its edges rippled and ran with the verdant light of Yiri’s magic.

Wina’s eyes shifted, widened. “Gyleon, you are freed of the Stone!”

The captain glanced at her, disdain mixing with pity on his hard features. “Away with you, girl.”

“One is good as another,” Yiri said, throwing a stream of jade fire into his face. Gyleon dove out of the way, but half of the blast seared across the side of his head. He fell howling, blazing.

Yiri howled with him. And, too, she burned, as the fire in her hands broke its unseen bonds and expanded rapidly, making her into a blazing torch. Yiri did not relent, but followed the captain, bars of fire cutting molten tracks into the walls, splitting the floor. Something struggled out of her, a coiling thing of smoke and a head with four grotesque faces, each with three burning eyes that locked on Rathe, and flared with eagerness.

Rathe reached to drag Nesaea to safety, only to find she had already bolted in another direction. A jet of emerald fire vaporized the tiles at his feet. He leaped clear, hit the floor and rolled, but found there was no escape from the spreading bedlam, or the fiend of smoke. It slithered from Yiri’s burning husk, sank into Rathe with a triumphant cry. In a horrifying blink, he relieved the instant Yiri had taken that dark curse from him in the Gelded Dragon.

He fell to the floor, shuddering uncontrollably, wailing, clawing at his skin. Pain did not trouble him, but instead a feeling of corruption and remorse and undying guilt….

And then, of a sudden, it was gone, leaving in its wake a sense of inescapable desolation, a foreign spirit overriding his own. It was the Khenasith, the Black Breath. It was as familiar to him as his own face, though unrecognized until now. With its return, a well-acquainted rage fell over him, his only defense against crushing misery. His hand sought the hilt of his sword, and his sword sought blood.

Nesaea ran to Wina. The girl might not deserve deliverance for whatever it was she had done to fill Ravenhold with living corpses, but in her, at this moment, Nesaea saw only a terrified girl who had made a grievous error, tricked by magic she had not understood.

They crashed together. Nesaea tried to drive Wina in the opposite direction, but the girl’s urgency gave her uncommon strength. Nesaea caught Wina’s face between her hands. “Death waits that way!”

Wina jerked free, shoved past Nesaea. “The Wight Stone cannot fall into Safi’s hands!” She vanished into clouds of boiling smoke lit by sporadic flashes of green flame.

Nesaea stumbled under a sweeping streak of fire. It raced high and low in sizzling arcs, cracking stone, making ash of lesser materials. Fighting for balance, she fell against the heaving bulk of a shaggy beast. Mother Safi. Samba the yak. One in the same.

It grunted furiously, swung its head, nearly gored her with a horn. Nesaea danced aside, sword and dagger coming up. The beast charged. Nesaea feinted, drawing the yak, then reversed her feet, and buried her dagger deep into one of its eyes.

Roaring, the creature flung its great head, yanking the dagger out of Nesaea’s hand. It charged past, slamming her with a shoulder as it went.

Nesaea tried to land on her feet, but ended up on her belly, sliding across the floor. With an agonizing thud, she fetched up hard against a wall. Stunned, she barely missed a pair of slashing hooves sweeping down to crush her face.

She rolled over and over, came up in a crouch, sword beating the air. One spiteful red eye locked on her. A savage grunt sounded above the spreading racket of battle, and the yak charged again.

The point of Nesaea’s sword cleaved a furrow up the beast’s snout, gouged into the shelf of its brow. The animal bore down on her, lowered its great bloody head, rammed her full in the chest. The blow gusted the breath from Nesaea’s lungs, flung her rolling and skidding down the passage.

She landed in a sprawl, the back of her head slapping against marble tiles. Her sword flew away with a discordant clanging. She remained still and breathless, ribs bruised or shattered, spots of lurid color flaring in front of her eyes.

The yak gave a bloody snort and charged. Nesaea felt the rattle of hooves against the floor, tried to roll over, to reach for her sword, but her body refused to heed her commands.

Closer the pounding came, heralded by another bellowing snort. Nesaea managed to move her head, saw all with the sluggishness of a nightmare. The beast rushed forward, backlit by green-tinged smoke and sputtering columns of emerald flame. Rathe stood over Wina, who was on her knees catching up her own severed hand. An unnatural smudge of darkness reared up out of the smoke behind them both, but concentrated on Rathe alone as it swept nearer. Loro and Fira stood shoulder-to-shoulder amid a group of soldiers cloaked in snow-white tabards, all ready to leap clear of Yiri’s murderous fires. Yiri, who burned brighter than the fiery death she wielded with reckless, sporadic abandon.

Nesaea’s eyes, hot and gritty, rotated in their sockets. The beast loped nearer, her demise burning in its wounded sight. A small slender shape darted in front of the yak. It leaped high, lighting on the yak’s snout with a squealing cry that was at once animal and human. It savaged the hulking beast with stomach-churning ferocity, slithering over its head, tearing fur and hide with flashing claws, ripping meat with needle teeth. The bellowing yak veered, slammed against a wall, trying to crush its attacker. Marble paneling fell in broken shards.

As the two abominations made their war, Nesaea found her strength. She wriggled along, grabbed her sword, struggled to her knees, to her feet. Breath burned in her throat and chest. Pains stabbed her head to toe. She wobbled forward, sword climbing overhead, waiting for an opening. She would get only one. The yak, now half human, bucked and writhed under a creature part man, part something long, sable-haired, and slinky.

“Treacherous fool!” Mother Safi bawled, voice throaty and thick with blood.

The creature savaging her answered with a chittering squeal. Lurching and clawing at the thing swarming over her head and shoulders, Safi turned, showing a humped back layered in folds of pale suet, patchy with long dark fur.

Nesaea struck, steel delving deep to spike the witch’s heart. Nesaea threw her weight on the pommel of the sword, sinking it to the hilt. Mother Safi’s scream shook the smoke-roiled corridor. As the old woman collapsed, Nesaea’s defender leaped away, landed on all fours, turned to face her.

It was Horge, eyes bright red and filled with anguish.

Beyond him, a human-shaped mass of fire ceased the assault on Loro, Fira, and the others. It was Yiri. She sprinted toward her fallen mother. A piercing wail ripped from her throat, needled into Nesaea’s skull, brought tears to her eyes. With each step, Yiri burned brighter, the heat of her filling the corridor, sucking the breath from Nesaea’s chest. Brighter … hotter.

Nesaea retreated, her skin tightening, hair crisping.

“Stop, Yiri!” Horge called, scuttling away from her.

Yiri’s humanity faded, in its place a blinding light filled the narrow space.