The creature’s mocking smile stretched wider, as if it could already taste our defeat. The expression sent a slithering pulse of rage through my body.

The nerve! I let the fire surge within me, stoking it into a roaring inferno. The oriental ember ignited, devouring the tendrils that dared to hold me. Heat licked along my skin without burning me, and I rose to my full height, steadying myself as the ground trembled beneath my feet.

The figure raised a shadowed hand. “You cannot win this.”

“Funny,” I said, compressing the fire into my palms. The flames snarled hungrily, mirroring my irritation. “We were just thinking the same about you.”

The fire crackled in response, feeding off my fury. I advanced a step, eyes locked on the swirling mass of shadows.

“You want Mouriana?” My voice dropped into a low and lethal growl. “Then you’ll have to drag her out. And that means beating me within an inch of my life.”

I curled my fingers around the condensed flames, the heat vibrating through the air. “So come on,” I growled. “Have at it.”

The first wave of cursed witches lunged forward.

Devon was faster. He launched himself into their ranks, claws tearing through their brittle, mist-cloaked forms with feral efficiency. Limbs scattered, but the witches reformed seconds later, their bodies fuelled by the corrupted ley lines.

“Azriel!” I shouted, the name ripping from my throat with the sharpness of command. The sound dragged me back to those old raids when it was just the three of us—Zaria, Azriel, and me—running point, calling shots, out thinking enemies twice our size at the academy. I’d always been scout captain, the one barking orders while Azriel followed with unflinching precision.

He didn’t hesitate now. The Whips of Judgment lashed through the air, cracking like thunder as they sliced through the witches” torsos. The enchanted water surged with deadly accuracy, freezing the mist that tried to reconstitute their lifeless bodies. The witches floundered, their limbs jerking awkwardly as the ice spread through their corrupted cores.

“Good!” I called, hurling a searing ball of fire into the nearest cluster. The flames hit with a deafening roar, incinerating three witches on impact. Their forms disintegrated into the ground like ash. “Focus on freezing their cores! They can’t reform without them!”

The focus in Azriel’s eyes sharpened. He adjusted his stance, wrists snapping as the whips tore through the cursed ranks, simultaneously wrapping a shield of water around him.

The creature at the altar watched us with growing irritation. Its molten silver eyes narrowed, and the shadows swirling around it writhed like furious serpents.

“Enough.”

The ground convulsed below us. Magic surged from the fissure, an invisible hammer that slammed into my chest and knocked me back. I staggered, the flames in my hands flickering under the suffocating force of it.

“Celeste!” Azriel yelled.

“I’ve got it,” I growled, planting my feet. I forced the fire back to life in my left hand, while water spiralled into my right. The elements intertwined, crackling as they fused together. With a snarl, I slammed the orb of magic into the ground.

The resulting shock wave detonated outward in a violent ripple. Witches crumbled, their spectral forms obliterated by the elemental blast. The creature flinched, its shadowed contours thinning momentarily.

“Camille,” I whispered through the bond. “I need you.”

The response was immediate. “I am here,” Camille’s voice hummed through me.

The mist beside me thickened into a humanoid shape. Camille materialized with eyes of vibrant green fire, her expression colder than I’d ever seen it. Since when did her fire change colour?

“Burn it down?” she said, summoning her own flames.

I nodded. “Devon, Camille—take that vile thing! Azriel, handle the minions. I’m getting Zaria!” I barked, the old captain in me roaring to life.

Devon answered with a guttural snarl. He launched himself at the creature, the force of his leap cracking the stone under his paws. His massive body collided mid-air with the creature, jaws snapping for its throat.

Camille raised both hands, and twin columns of green fire spiralled from her palms as she advanced. The mist around the altar recoiled from her like a wounded animal.

Azriel pivoted smoothly, his whips slicing through another wave of witches. The frozen shards shattered on impact, the ground littered with crystalline remnants of the cursed.

I didn’t wait to see the outcome. I sprinted toward the altar, where Zaria still stood like a puppet tethered to unseen strings. Her eyes glowed silver. Her body didn’t move. The magic pulsing around her was suffocatingly thick with possession.

“Zaria!” I yelled, skidding to a stop in front of her.

She didn’t blink.

I reached out and seized her wrist. Her skin was ice-cold and unnaturally still.

The shadows around her lashed at me, but I didn’t let go. Fire surged down my arm, burning away the cursed tendrils as they tried to coil around us.

“Come on, Zaria,” I hissed through gritted teeth. “Fight this.”

Her lips moved, barely a whisper. “Too—late.”

The creature’s voice travelled across the courtyard. “She belongs to us now.”

“Like hell she does.” I drew on every ounce of magic I had, fire and water colliding into a vortex of scalding steam. The force of it crackled in the air, bending the corrupted magic to my will.

“Camille!” I screamed. “Now!”

She flung her green flames toward us, and I caught the energy mid-flight, fusing it into the swirling mass in my hands. Then I drove it into Zaria’s chest with all the strength I had.

The scream that followed shattered every window in the courtyard. The courtyard shook violently like an earthquake was happening, cracks racing outward from Zaria’s feet as the magic surged and recoiled simultaneously. The force of it knocked me backward, my body slamming into the cold, hard ground. Pain flared through my ribs, but I didn’t let go of the magic.

Zaria’s scream shifted into something a guttural, unearthly wail that didn’t belong to her. Her back arched unnaturally, limbs contorting as the silver glow in her eyes intensified. Oh now, it was about to possess her like the others. There would be no saving her if it succeeded.

“Hold her!” I shouted to Camille.

She lunged forward, her green fire wrapping around Zaria’s wrists like chains and anchoring her to the ground. The cursed magic fought back, tendrils snapping at Camille’s form, but she held fast.

“She’s resisting,” Camille said through gritted teeth. “Whatever this thing is, it doesn’t want to leave.”

“No worries. I will rip it out!” I forced myself upright, ignoring the sharp sting of bruised ribs. My fire flared in my palms as I readied to drive it out the hard way. I couldn’t risk entering her mind to dispel it, but I could scorch it.

Zaria’s head jerked toward me, eyes flashing silver. Her lips parted, and the creature’s voice emerged. “You’re wasting your strength, Celeste. She is ours.”

“Funny,” I said, moulding the magic into a spear of Scalding Retribution. “Where have I heard that before?”

I hurled the spear directly at her chest. Not into her heart, but directly to her core, where this thing was latching onto.

The impact detonated on contact. Zaria convulsed, her body lifting from the ground as steam exploded outward. The silver in her eyes shattered like cracked glass, replaced by wide, terrified brown irises.

“Celeste?” she rasped weakly before collapsing into my arms.

The fissure around the altar gaped wider with a sickening crack. Shadows erupted from it, taking on a monstrous form that dwarfed Devon, who was still locked in battle with the creature near the altar.

The new form solidified into a massive, four-legged creature with obsidian skin and veins of glowing molten silver. Its eyes were endless voids, and when it opened its mouth, the void hissed.

“Enough,” it said, voice vibrating through my bones.

Devon lunged at the creature, his jaws snapping shut on its throat. But his claws slid uselessly against the creature’s slick, shadowed hide. It swatted him aside like an insect. He hit the ground with a bone-shaking thud but rolled back to his feet, snarling.

Azriel whipped his weapons toward the beast. The water cracked like a whip across its flank, but the creature barely flinched.

“It’s feeding on the ley lines!” Azriel shouted. “The entire district’s magic is fuelling it!”

Gracious Gaia! We can’t catch a break at all! “We need to cut it off,” I said.

Camille appeared beside me. “The ley lines are buried under that altar. It’s why the curse took this coven. To sever them would require’”

“I know,” I cut in, already feeling the burden of what needed to be done.

Devon, bruised and bloodied but unbowed, staggered back to me. His eyes locked with mine as he shifted back to his human form, and I felt his pain as acutely as my own. He’d fight beside me until the bitter end if I let him.

But this fight needed untamed power that neither he nor Azriel possessed. They didn’t belong in this death trap, and I refused to watch them bleed for me.

“Celeste’”

“No time,” I snapped, cutting him off before he could argue. “Get Zaria out of here. Protect the others.”

His jaw clenched, but he nodded. “I’ll come back for you.”

“I know.”

I turned before he could second-guess himself, sprinting toward the altar. Magic surged with each step, flooding my veins like liquid fire. The creature’s gaze snapped toward me, its hollow eyes narrowing. The shadows around it twisted, reacting to my intent.

It recognized me.

Its mouth stretched into a grotesque parody of a grin. “Foolish witch,” it hissed. “Do you think you can sever the roots of gods?”

“You should ask the last foolish thing that called me that.”

The ground beneath it groaned, protesting the dark magic siphoning its lifeblood. I planted my feet before the altar, thrusting my hands into the stone. Magic answered immediately, crackling up my arms like electrified vines. The ley lines beneath me pulsed, confused by my interference.

The creature moved then, hurtling toward me in a blur of shadow and fury.

“Camille!” I roared.

She streaked past me, green flames exploding in her wake. She intercepted the creature mid-lunge, their magic colliding with a concussive blast that sent fissures racing across the courtyard.

I dug deeper. Fire in one hand, water in the other, I drove my power into the ground. The ley lines shuddered against my assault.

“Yield,” I commanded.

The earth resisted. The ley lines, too long dominated by the curse, lashed back with a surge of corrupted energy that slammed into me like a tidal wave. Pain exploded behind my eyes as the ley lines buckled. I felt the ancient veins of magic tearing, resisting, and for a terrifying moment, the world blurred.

“Celeste!” Azriel’s panicked voice cut through to me.

You know what to do, little witch. You watched me do it.

Mouriana’s voice slithered through my mind from nowhere. I clenched my jaw, forcing her phantom presence away. She was gone, our contract was broken.

The words. The ancient chant I’d heard her use to rip apart the dark entity. The guttural sounds, unfamiliar but instinctively recognizable. I remembered how it drained me. How it nearly unravelled me from the inside out.

My hands trembled as I pressed them into the cracked earth. The curse writhed, fighting the intrusion. Magic surged through the ley lines, like oil slithering through water.

It didn’t need brute force. What I needed was Mouriana’s spell.

I inhaled, tasting the metallic tang of magic-laced air. My chest burned with the effort and blood trickled from my nose, warm against my lip.

“Gaia help me,” I whispered, then began the chant.

The words rolled from my tongue with a presence beyond sound, each syllable vibrating through my bones. It was the same language I’d heard in the void. Ancient and ruthless.

Camille faltered mid-fight, turning toward me. I felt her recognition through our bond, a spark of understanding.

The ground shuddered as the spell gained traction. My pulse accelerated, every beat forcing more blood from my nose. It splattered onto the stone, sizzling as the magic consumed it.

The cursed witches froze. Their bodies jerking unnaturally, as if the strings controlling them had been severed.

The shadowed creature howled from across the courtyard. Its molten eyes locked on me, and it lunged. Devon intercepted it with a snarl, sinking his claws into its side and driving it back with brute force.

The spell tightened around me like a noose. My vision blurred, everything swimming in shadow. The curse resisted, clawing through the ley lines with renewed desperation.

My chest seized. I coughed violently, spitting blood onto the altar stone. The liquid hissed on contact, veins of red lightning splintering through the rock.

“Celeste!” Azriel again, closer this time.

I couldn’t stop. The words poured out of me, each syllable carving through my throat like broken glass. Pain spiralled through my core as the magic demanded more—more blood, more strength, more of me.

The witches began to collapse, their bodies crumbling into ash. The cursed energy coiled inward, retreating from the ley lines.

The creature screeched in fury, its shadowed limbs thrashing wildly. It lunged toward me again, but Devon tackled it mid-stride. Camille summoned a vortex of green flame, driving it back ruthlessly.

The altar stone cracked under my palms as my vision tunnelled. Magic surged in one last, brutal pulse, and then” the ley lines snapped. The curse shattered like glass, its energy dissipating with a deafening crack.

The witches collapsed in unison, their forms disintegrating into harmless mist. The air lightened, the vileness lifting like a massive fist had unclenched from around my chest.

I exhaled, the last word of the incantation leaving my lips as a whisper.

The altar split down the middle with a final, decisive crack, and the corrupted energy dissipated into the sky like smoke.

I slumped forward, catching myself on trembling arms. Blood dripped steadily from my nose, splattering the stone below.

Devon reached me first, shifting back into human form as he knelt beside me. His hands gripped my shoulders.

“You did it,” he said as he stroked my hair.

“Yeah,” I rasped, wiping at the blood smeared across my mouth. My vision swam. “Didn’t—die either.”

He huffed a strained laugh, brushing hair from my face. “Let’s keep it that way.”

The last thing I saw before darkness claimed me was Azriel, sprinting toward me from across the courtyard.

And then, silence.