Chapter 25: The Last Breath of Autumn
She was impossibly fast, not waiting or pausing for me to plan. Each strike of a weapon in her hand pushed me back from my own attempt at combat.
A gilded axe came down just as Salora's sabre found its parry. My hands moved with the blade's intuition, and I desperately tried to keep up with every sensation my body seemed to recall from every cycle before. An obsidian dagger thrust toward my chest, not an inch from the silverthorn flower carved into my armour. Something pulled me back just in time.
Everything about the Fiend's assault was built to put me off-guard.
The shadows slurped back, giving me a second to breathe. Where was Jasmin? Searching wasn't exactly an option as the Fiend drew a scarlet bow and something like cold-flame came careening toward me from its string. I couldn't see it, but I felt the heat of its approach.
Emerald fire leapt to the space between where I stood and where the Fiend had retreated. Jasmin, silver hair whipping around her, was closing the space to fight alongside me.
"That was stupid, dearest," she laughed as she found her place at my right.
My own laugh mingled with hers, a song that tried desperately to echo around us. "But you have to admit it was fun, darling, no?"
She didn't have a chance to answer as an ivory hammer cleaved the space between us and the Fiend took up a renewed fight. I'd had just enough time to notice that Jasmin was still wearing her weapons, rather than wielding them, before the gilded axe went for my neck.
It wasn't the sabre that moved me, but something else as I managed to dodge and parry the swing by taking a swipe at the handle of the Fiend's stolen weapon. As quickly as I recovered, she did as well, but Jasmin intervened again.
The vines that burst through the floor as Jasmin channelled her soul into the stones wrapped around the Fiend and held her for a breath. "How do you fight shadows?" I growled as she turned her attention to Jasmin.
She'd told me in Blue Stone. Her training was to fend off ambushes, not to win duels. But Jasmin was moving like I'd never seen before.
When the Fiend made a second retreat and used the scarlet bow, Jasmin was distracted. I moved between them and repeated the trick she'd used moments before, deflecting whatever that was with a sickly silver cold-flame, bright as the sun on fresh snow.
The Fiend withdrew. It burned her. Cold-flame wasn't meant to burn, but she was clearly in pain.
"Jasmin," I called, not taking my eyes from the creature that called itself queen.
She was at my side in a blink. "Roisin," she said, not even a little breathless.
"Give me some time." A plea, not a command.
"How much?" A promise, not a question.
"I'll take anything you can give me."
Jasmin moved forward, drawing my mother's dagger from her hip. She wasn't trained in small blades, but her movements were fluid. Nothing could stop her. I watched in awe for several breaths as she moved freely deflecting every weapon the Fiend held.
Now was the time for planning. Thirteen steps. Four breaths. Every second had to count.
Step.
Take in the room. Assets? Jasmin fighting with me. Liabilities? A thousand soldiers and the embodiment of hunger. We were fine.
Step.
Plan. Jasmin was good, but she couldn't hold the Fiend back forever. Look for the opening, then close the gap.
Step.
Control the sword, not the other way round. No mistakes. No second chances.
Breath.
The dagger's strength and weakness is that it's a close-quarters weapon. Jasmin being that close means the Fiend has to match her scrap.
Step.
I knew what was coming, and I knew what it meant. And for once, it wouldn't be Salora who was taken. I only hoped she'd forgive me for the impertinence.
Step.
One single strike. One single moment. One single
Breath.
The Fiend had moved to engulf Jasmin, stretching its shadowy form into positions not possible for flesh. If she stayed, she would be dead. My shoulder met hers, rock hard and stable, but she gave in. She let go and allowed herself to be thrown out of the way.
My right hand was up, and I produced a cold-flame flash, the same way Aster had taught me. I didn't have time to register the metal hitting the stone behind me. No time to worry that the obsidian dagger was already piercing leather. Not a second to hold back as I plunged the silverthorn into the Fiend's middle and released its form.
My hand clenched around the thorns, piercing my skin as the flower itself embedded in the queen's stolen form.
I fell back, tripping over the weapons she had dropped, and I stumbled to the floor with a voidstem dagger buried in my chest. The Fiend's shriek of terror was desperate, pained. Or perhaps that was my own. It was hard to say.
A Prawn Mouse Whisper
I had been stabbed before. Hundreds of times. Kitchen knives. Beasts' claws. Jasmin's sword once – though that had been a tragic accident. But this was different. I knew it the moment the blacker-than-death dagger slipped through my skin. But I had to. I couldn't let Jasmin die.
Somehow she'd recovered from being shoved out of the way and caught me as I fell. Impossibly strong, even at the last. Her tears were already mingling with my blood. Even if the dagger didn't kill me, the silverthorn poison was already tracing its deadly web along my arm.
"Jasmin," I barely whispered as my blood soaked her dress.
"Roisin, my love," she did it wrong. If I hadn't known already, that would've been the final stab to my resolve.
"I'm sorry." It was less an apology and more a eulogy. "I wasn't enough."
"Oh, hush you. My dear sweet darling woman. Hush, my heart. Save your breath." Her body shook deeply as she spoke. That wasn't like her. "Roisin. Love. You were never lesser. I should've seen it sooner." Her voice shifted, her amber eyes shone brilliantly, shattering to emeralds. "You were mine. And I should have seen how special you were sooner." Her words were grave. The voice of one who'd seen this moment thousands of times, but reversed, and never been able to stop it.
This time especially, she still couldn't.
"Rest now, my dear sweet one," she said the words as she lowered me gently to the cold stone floor. I watched as she stood to her full height, drawing her silverthorn flower at last and advancing on the queen.
Eight steps. The remaining ones I'd planned for. She took them as she closed the gap. Her movements were measured. Not the desperate charge of a woman in pain, but the calculated steps of a goddess scorned.
"No," the thing that inhabited Queen Lavender growled, fearful for the first time since we arrived, "I killed you. Devoured your essence."
"And yet, Fiend, here I stand. Unlike last time," she looked back at me as she said the words, "I have nothing left to lose. And soon, neither will you." Salora was calm. She was swift. Her long flowing silver hair whipped behind her as the blade in her hand pierced the queen's chest just as my vision began to fade.
My already shallow breath weakened with each exhale. I felt myself lifted from the floor, carried from the throne room. My mind was filled with the scent of Queen's Heart, and my ears with the lullaby she always hummed for me.
The last thing I felt was the bite of winter's first frost finally falling. And then ... nothing.