Arcadius hisses, his eyes clenching shut.
Oh gods, his crystalline heart.That’s what Ignatius is gripping.
“I’m stepping down, you don’t need to do this,” Arcadius says.“Pl?—”
Ignatius wrenches his hand from Arcadius’s chest cavity.It makes the most godsawful squelching sound as he pulls it out.
My mouth hangs open.He killed the archdevil.He killed Arcadius.
Black liquid drips on the floor, dark smoke coils around his fist.Arcadius’s eyes widen impossibly far, his mouth forms an O and then he explodes in a puff of moths.
The air swarms, a shriek filling the dungeon as the moths surge in a tornado.Faster and faster they spin until they’re no longer moths but crumbling dust.
My heart slams against my chest.Ignatius has gone too far.He’s lost the plot, delusional with the power he’s stealing from me.
A silence falls over the dungeon corridor.
Deep in my core a line is drawn.He has to be stopped.Ihave to stop him.The runes roil and roar to life and I realise I always had access to them; I had to want them.To accept them, recognise I can use them for good.
Ignatius brings the blackened crystalline heart up to inspect.He looks at it from several angles, lowers his mouth and swallows it whole.
When he rounds on me, I no longer know who this man is.My father, or what little semblance of him remained has gone.
He’s corrupted himself on the power he’s stolen from me.It’s infected him.He rips the gate from the hinges and comes for me.His eyes are the colour of nightmares and murder and coagulated blood.His features are schooled into a vicious expression that makes me back away even as my runes are powering up.
This ends tonight.
My body takes over.
His gaze is skittish.He’s too confident because he thinks I’m weak and at his mercy.
The cell bursts with light.He recoils but only a step as he lurches towards me.I grip the manacles with my fingers, they loosen instantly.I just need him close enough to reach.My arms brighten.The runes—no, I—grow stronger and stronger.I focus on the manacles, pouring power into them, shifting their molecular makeup.Reshaping and remoulding them until they’re demon resistant.
Closer, Ignatius.
Closer.
“What have you done?”I whisper as he is now so close I can smell the acrid stench of Arcadius’s crystalline heart on his breath.
“Nothing can stop me now, I am the Chancellor.This city, you, Finis Academy… it’s all mine.I’ll finally get the recognition I deserve,” he snarls.The warmth in his voice from when I was a child has vanished.In a way, it makes this easier.
He grips my neck, cutting off my oxygen.His jaw disconnects as he lowers his mouth, and light peels off me.The room bursts to life with entropy moths manifesting all over the place.
He’s hurting me.His hands squeezing so tight my vision speckles.
I refuse to black out this time, refuse to quit.He just needs to stay focused on me.I pull one wrist out of the manacle as his eyes close and he sucks power out of me faster.Heat fills my entire body.Screams fill the cell.I’m not sure if they’re mine or his.
Fuck him.
I bite down on the inside of my cheek.The pain grounds me, keeps me conscious as I yank the other wrist out and flick open both restraints.
He throws his head back, lowering his mouth further, as he draws power out of me faster.The pain melts from heat to searing bolts that lance from my toes to my scalp.
My vision fades, grey smattering across my sight.
As my body grows weak, I realise I’m going to fail.I’ve lost my chance.
He knows it, because even though his jaw is distended, I can tell by the glitter in his eyes he’s smiling and revelling in everything he’s stealing from me.
