Just me.
I have been without magic before, and I was enough then.
I am enough still.
He gleams with something. Anticipation. He wants a fight, and a fight is what he’s going to get. A harsh metallic screech tears into me as he withdraws his sword from its scabbard.
So it won’t be a fistfight after all.
Dagger versus sword is never a good move, but somehow it feels right.
I don’t second-guess myself. Instead, I shift my weight just like Zelle taught me, and I launch myself at the monster.
‘Rose!’ Kyor’s cry is strangled and full of panic. Before I can tell him not to, he is racing towards my side.
‘I need to strike it with the dagger!’ I yell at him. ‘The judgement, like the trials!’
If Kyor thinks the idea is insanity, he doesn’t say as much. Instead, he simply moves closer, trying to attract the Myrkr’s attention to give me an opening.
But it doesn’t work and its blade flashes towards me.
Kyor is there to block it before I can begin to move.
The block doesn’t come without a cost though, and Kyor cries out as his tortured shoulder screams in pain, but he holds his blade steady. The grating screech of metal against metal sets my teeth on edge, but I don’t have time to be precious. The way Kyor keeps the Myrkr’s sword locked has given me the perfect opening and I don’t plan on wasting it.
‘Let the Gods judge you, arsehole!’
With every ounce of strength I have left, I slam the dagger into its chest, clenching and turning my head in anticipation of the blood that I expect to spurt from the wound. But instead, the blade sinks into something that resists like thick tar before giving way completely.
And the Myrkr…? Though I cannot see its face, I know somehow that itsmiles.
Then it laughs.
The sound is wrong, a tearing shriek that scrapes at the edges of my mind as it grows louder and louder.
I wrench the blade free and stumble back, clasping my hands to my ears as the creature begins to convulse.
‘Thank you, child of three, child of four,’ it says, the dissonant voice scraping along my nerves.
As it shakes, the darkness sloughs away, the black of its cloak drifting into the ether like … like feathers? As the shroud of darkness yields, drifting up into the air, colour bleeds into its form, and the shadowy form transforms into the solid, bright red fox-stole of the Sannings.
‘Great Mother,’ I breathe, goosebumps covering my skin as I watch on, transfixed as warm blond hair spills from his temples, his forehead marked with the stone of priesthood.
And there, around its neck, a single black feather hangs on a leather cord.
A man. Not a monster, but simply a man? All this time?
‘Child of one, of two, of three, of four …’ The nonsensical words continue to peel from his lips as he laughs again, pure joy ringing out. The sound echoes across the clearing and dread coils tightly in my gut.
I did not aim to kill a priest; I aimed to kill a monster. But the dagger is surely the Gods’ judgement, so priest or not, this thing has been found wanting.
The laughter breaks off in a wet gurgle as he slumps to the ground and his life slips away.
A moment later there is nothing more than fabric sprawled on the withered grass.
The hair on the back of my neck rises. Bodies don’t justdisappear.Is it dead? Did it portate?
‘Where … where did it go?’ I stutter, my eyes darting to Kyor, not daring to take my attention from the husk for a moment longer in case the body returns as quickly as it vanished.
