I stop being careful.
I become what I was before I learned control.
Dragonfire erupts from every wound on my body. Not controlled bursts. Not focused streams. Raw power bleeding from damaged flesh, pouring from my hands and mouth and the gash across my back that hasn’t stopped seeping. The narrow passage fills with flames so intense, the ice walls vaporize into steam, filling the space with scalding haze that sears exposed skin.
The creature staggers. Tries to adapt.
I don’t give it time.
I driveinto its mass with claws extended.
No precision. No targeting specific vulnerabilities. I tear through everything—reinforced sections and soft tissue alike, ripping chunks free faster than it can track my movements. My hands close around pulsing organs and rip them loose. My teeth find the connections between stitched segments and bite through.
The abomination strikes back. Talons rake across my already-broken ribs. An arm wraps around my torso and squeezes until bones grind against each other. I absorb new damage layered over old, my body accumulating injury faster than my body can repair.
I don’t care.
Another blow catches my shoulder. Dislocates it. I feel the joint separate, the pop of bone leaving the socket, and use the momentum to spin inside its guard. My good arm punches through the creature’s thorax. Finds the knot of tissue where three different monster segments converge. Tears it apart.
The abomination howls. Tries to close around me, to crush me inside its reforming bulk.
I drag myself deeper. Find the dense point I’d touched in the first canyon fight—the concentrated seat of it, where the creature’s wrongness gathered and its regeneration drew its power. My hand closes around it.
The abomination screams.
I tear the core free.
The creature convulses.Tries to reform around the wound.
I don’t let it.
Fire and claws and the mindless brutality of a predator that has stopped thinking and started destroying. I rip the thing apart piece by piece, burning each section before it can reattach, scattering ash across the steam-filled passage until there’s nothing left to regenerate.
The last piece falls.
Twitches once.
Goes still.
I collapseonto my knees in a pool of ichor and melted ice.
My body is finished. Not individual wounds—the cumulative damage. Blood loss that won’t stop. Broken bones grinding against each other with every breath. Muscles shredded beyond functional capacity. I ought to be dead three engagements ago.
I stay upright through willpower and nothing else.
Soreia.
I force myself to standing. My legs barely hold. I cross the distance to where she lies crumpled against the frozen stone.
She’s not breathing.
I knew this. Have known it since I left her to fight the creature. But seeing it confirmed—watching her ribs remain still, her lips turning blue, her skin going gray—drives the reality home with surgical precision.
The poison is winning.
I press my fingers to her throat again.
Thump.
