“Oh, shut the fuck up, Tobi.” Amara severed the connection, lighting Tobias’ corpse on fire, nearly burning Katherine in the process.
“Don’t do that,” Moire snapped. “You could’ve ignited me.”
“Please, you’d just find a new body.” Amara waved a dismissive hand.
Theodore flicked his attention onto Tara, who sat completely still, absorbing this revelation.
“Well, well, well, tragic little Tara.” He smirked.
“What will we do with the abomination?” Moire asked.
“Sacrifice it, of course,” Amara answered. “I will wait for the right constellation and perform the ritual. Perhaps offer a fewadditional souls as compensation for Tobi’s crass behavior. The delay, the deaths of the demon envoy. They will be grateful to finally have their rightful Slave King of Hell, but this will require a delicate touch.”
“Enough of this bullshit,” Tara shouted, shadows shattering her barrier.
That was what drew Theodore’s gaze. He’d noticed his sister slip her shadows into the cracks of the barrier that hid the golden hue of her warding magic. Now that the barrier had burst, the golden glow of her sealing magic revealed itself on the symbols of the pentagram.
Simply amazing.
Tara had come so far with her branches.
“You leave me no choice, Mother.” Tara stepped in front of Caleb, who was still kneeling on the ground in dismay and disbelief. “I will end your life here and now before I allow you to hurt Caleb or anyone else.”
“Bold words from a broken goddess.” Amara craned her neck, tilting her hat in the process, and taking in the sight of her daughter with pure pride. “Don’t worry, my sweet. Mommy will fix you.”
Taradidn’t hesitate for a second, immediately buffering Caleb with a golden aura meant to shield him from damage, while she lunged ahead. Sinking into the floor with her intangibility magic, Tara all but vanished until she reappeared behind Amara with shadowed tendrils lashing out.
Amara spun around, defending herself with cosmic light. The two clashed again, light versus darkness. But Tara added an icy chill to her shadows, doing everything in her power to close the distance.
Her mind was steady, unafraid of the battle, of her mother, of unleashing the full extent of her branches. I’d never seen Tara move with such confidence.
“You could help,” I thought, pleading with Theodore.
He tugged at his enchanted collar. “Never involve oneself in family squabbles, I always say.”
“Moire, detain the goddess.” Amara weaved around Tara’s strikes, barely avoiding fatal blows.
Still, I expected Amara to put up a greater fight. Perhaps she held back because she didn’t want to harm her daughter.
“Doubtful,” Theodore mused, plopping into a crisscrossposition to observe the fight. “She’s probably just drained from her brief battle with the top ten.”
Theodore revealed flashes of Amara appearing before the top ten witches, detaining them all in her Oceanic Collapse magic before releasing the vampires to possess them. Christ, if she unleashed that onto Tara, this fight would end in seconds.
“Get the hell out of my friend’s body!” Tara raged, hurling a flurry of shadow tendrils at Moire, aiming to restrain Katherine’s body entirely.
Moire muttered a spell, and the shadows exploded into autumn leaves. They hit the ground and crumbled away to nothingness.
“Get out of Katherine!” Caleb swung a fist, full force, and stopped before colliding with Katherine’s chest. “Now!”
Without hesitation or delay, he cast banishment. If only he realized she wasn’t a demon possessing Katherine but another witch who’d somehow wedged her way into Katherine’s mind.
Moire screeched, furious and in utter agony, nearly toppling over before Amara intervened and telekinetically threw Caleb back.
“Caleb,” Katherine said in a fog.
“Shut up, girl.” Moire slapped her hands on Katherine’s temples and forced her back down into the depths of her own mind.
“Sloppy, Moire.”
