CHAPTER 74
1047 Words
The world became a single collision.
Becky struck like fire given flesh, her dagger screaming down toward Elise’s throat. Elise braced, spear haft up, the impact ringing through her bones like a bell. Sparks burst where steel kissed wood. The force drove Elise back, heels skidding through mud and ash, firelight burning her vision raw.
She shoved upward, wrenching Becky’s blade wide. Her counterthrust was lightning—straight for Becky’s chest.
But Becky twisted, impossibly fast despite the limp in her leg. The spear tore through her shoulder instead. Blood spurted, black-red in the firelight, but Becky only screamed with laughter, shoving herself further down the shaft until her dagger was inches from Elise’s heart.
Elise’s muscles shrieked in protest as she forced the weapon back. Heat scorched her face, the world narrowing to Becky’s eyes—mad, luminous, bottomless.
“Do you feel it?” Becky gasped, her breath hot and foul. “This is the end, Elise. Yours. Mine. All of it burns with us!”
“Elise!” Kai’s voice tore through the firestorm. He staggered toward her, blood pouring from his back, sword dragging at his side. A mercenary leapt from the smoke behind him—blade raised—
Mira was there first. Her stolen sword punched through the man’s chest, her arm trembling with the effort. She barely kept her feet, her face ashen, sweat streaking through soot. “Go!” she shouted hoarsely. “Don’t look back—finish her!”
Becky snarled and twisted, tearing free of the spear. The shaft cracked against Elise’s cheek as Becky spun, dagger arcing for Mira. Elise’s body moved before her mind—her spear lashed, intercepting the blow, the shock nearly shattering her grip.
“Stay away from them!” Elise’s voice ripped the air raw.
She rammed forward, fury behind every strike. Spear and dagger blurred—clash, scrape, sparks. Becky ducked low, slashing, Elise’s blood spilling fresh across the mud. Elise ignored it. Pain was nothing now. Nothing but ending this.
The mob screamed around them—some fleeing, some killing each other, all madness. Flaming beams collapsed into the square, smoke choking the air until the world shrank to three shapes in the storm: Elise, Becky, and death between them.
Kai forced himself upright again, sword in both hands. He staggered toward them, every step carved from agony. “Elise!”
Becky’s eyes flicked, hungry, predatory. She feinted left and drove hard right—straight at Kai.
“No!” Elise hurled herself between them, spear catching the dagger mid-strike. The weapons locked, faces inches apart, fire roaring behind them. Becky’s smile was blood and ruin.
“You’ll break first,” she whispered. “Because you still care.”
Elise bared her teeth, every muscle burning, and shoved with everything left in her. Her scream tore through the square as the spear forced Becky back—one step, then another, toward the wall of fire.
Becky’s feet slid in the mud. For the first time, her grin faltered.
Kai raised his sword. Mira staggered to his side, lifting hers too.
The three of them stood, bloodied, broken, backs to one another, ringed in flame and fury. Becky shrieked, cloak ablaze, and lunged again.
And Elise met her, spear flashing like the judgment of gods.
The square erupted—fire, steel, voices—until nothing remained but the clash that would decide if the night belonged to ruin or to them.
The clash shook the square.
Elise’s spear struck Becky’s dagger again and again, each blow a thunderclap. Sparks cascaded, firelight warping Becky’s face into something monstrous. Her laughter was gone now, replaced with a ragged snarl, breath whistling through bloodied teeth.
Elise pressed forward, every strike faster, harder, her body screaming to collapse. The world had narrowed to this single truth: Becky must fall.
Becky lashed wide, cutting Elise’s arm to the bone. Elise barely felt it. She twisted her spear and drove the butt end hard into Becky’s ribs. Something cracked. Becky staggered, coughing blood, but her eyes burned brighter with fevered rage.
“You think you can end me?” she rasped, voice breaking. “I am the fire—you can’t kill fire!”
She lunged, dagger raised for Elise’s throat.
Elise pivoted, sidestepped, and in a single brutal motion rammed the spear straight through Becky’s chest.
The sound was final—a wet, tearing silence that swallowed even the roar of the flames.
Becky froze, eyes wide, lips parting in disbelief. For a heartbeat, she almost looked human again. Then blood bubbled at her mouth, and her laugh—weak, broken—slipped free.
“Fire… always spreads…”
Elise ripped the spear free. Becky collapsed, cloak still burning, her body thrashing once, twice, then stilling in the mud. The fire devoured her, a crown turning to ash.
The mob saw.
The frenzy cracked. Some screamed and fled into the night, others dropped their weapons, weeping, the fever broken. The fire still raged, but without Becky’s voice, without her madness, the storm of violence faltered.
Elise staggered back, chest heaving, spear slick with blood. Her vision blurred, knees buckling. She might have fallen—
—but Kai caught her, one arm banded tight around her waist despite his own wounds. His face was pale, blood running down his temple, but his eyes were steady. “You did it,” he rasped. “It’s over.”
Elise wanted to believe him. But as the flames consumed Becky’s body, the smell of burning flesh thick in the air, a shiver crawled through her bones. Becky’s last words echoed, sharp as a blade: Fire always spreads.
Mira stumbled to them, bloodied sword still in hand, eyes wide with exhaustion. She dropped to her knees beside Becky’s corpse, staring at the flames until tears carved tracks through the soot on her face.
“Is it truly over?” she whispered, voice raw.
No one answered.
The square burned around them, screams fading into silence. The city had seen its monster fall, but Elise felt in her bones that this was not an ending—only the spark of something larger.
She tightened her grip on her spear, blood dripping to the stones. Her body trembled, but her spirit stood unbroken.
- Writer
