With a small returned nod, Mal’s hand slipped from her waist. She stepped away from him, crossing the frozen ground to her sword, as he looked back down at his trapped prey.
At the vile creature clawing at his restored hands.
He raised a single finger, gathering his first strike in a swirling mass of Magic. The barrier of Aterna Magic that circled them collapsed as Maeve bled the weapon dry, seizing all the holy Magic she’d placed in it.
When she returned to Mal’s side, they shared a single, silent glance and began their dance.
Mal was careful not to pour all his energy, all his fury, and ancient power into a single fatal blow, though he was certain that would come soon enough. He’d forgotten how seamlessly they moved as one. How Maeve anticipated his every move, how she Obscured just where he wanted her to, slamming Shadow with harrowing electric Magic as he blasted her from the other side.
The air was alive with their joined power as they moved across the slowly melting ice beneath their feet, cracking and oppressive. The ground shifted, plates of power scattering beneath each step they took as one force.
Again.
And again and again, Shadow buckled beneath their combined Magic.
Each time he glanced at his Viper’s face of stone, he surged with more determination. She channeled the lightning of the Dread Stone with such ease, bending it to her intentions. He allowed himself a moment to admire her, the true-born fighter she was. How she’d grown from that girl he tutored at Vaukore, afraid to cast even a simple shield, to the woman before him. Who faced a threat as lethal as Shadow without a single accelerated pulse.
At last, when the Dread King and his Dread Viper had sufficiently wounded their quarry, Shadow kneeled before Mal.
Her head hung low, and her previously luscious hair was now stringy and faded. Her bony fingers pressed into the ground, skin barely clinging to them. She appeared shrunken in size.
Maeve stood at his right. Where she had sworn to be. Where he wanted her to be until his last breath.
“That little drop of my Magic that remains mine,” uttered Mal, his gaze cast down at Shadow, “the bit you cannot take because you were foolish enough to agree not to kill me when I alone was prophesied to kill you. . . that drop was still enough to join with my son’s. Itisstill enough to destroy you.”
And so he did.
With a twist of his fingers, she rose, levitating. He lifted her until her gaunt-once-more face was level with his. He touched the filth that had ripped his world from him one last time, trapping one hand at the back of her head, and placed a single finger on her forehead.
Then he let the Magic of his blood, his family before him, guide his path to her termination. It sang through him in victory, eager to break its target. Despite being pumped full of stolen Magic she lacked the understanding to use, and being weakened from their attack, she remained a deadly force. It would take an equally deadly force to end her.
He called upon the Magic granted to him, and it answered, as it always did. Ready and pliant, though demanding of its own desires. The cost didn’t matter to him. He’d pay it.
The air turned thick and oppressive, pressing down on them as his Magic charged the atmosphere. Shadow’s form continued to decay as Mal overtook her fully. The exchange was swift as his power began depleting, shattering, vanishing rapidly as it did the same to Shadow. He was using all of himself against her, reckless and without restraint.
Hehadto use all of himself against her. Maeve may have been superior in her ability to understand Magic, but Mal could see what was required of him to make Shadow’s death stick.
He’d suspected it for some time.
And as Maeve spoke, he knew she was realizing it too.
“Mal, stop.”
But he couldn’t stop. Not until Shadow was gone. Not until this magic-thirsty blight was vanquished from the world his son occupied. He pressed harder, more, sharp cracks slicing across his front, manifesting in physical wounds. His teeth slid together, grinding in defiance as his senses told him to let go.
“Mal.”
Her beautiful, panicked voice was closer now. Her hands moved over his wounds. Her sweet fingers pressed all of the Magic she’d Inherited from Reeve into the sliced skin.
“Mal, stop, now,” she snapped. “I can’t heal you at the rate you are going.”
It wasn’t going to heal even if he stopped.
Dread Magic came at a cost. There was always an exchange.
The exchange for Shadow’s life was his life.
The swell of Magic around them grew impossibly still, breathing as one with Mal.
