Page 123 of Property of Scar

But he is no longer alone in the fight.

The ground beneath his feet freezes mid-step, Raze’s power ripping outward in jagged lines of ice that lock his footing in place with sudden, brutal precision. The movement he was already committed to stalls, his balance caught between forward momentum and forced stillness. It won’t hold him for long, nothing will, but it doesn’t need to.

Everything tightens around that moment.

Roxy’s magic constricts again, threads pulling taut as she reinforces the hold.

Ruckus bends the angle just enough to keep him from finding clean leverage.

Rhett and Bennett hold the line, the roar of their combined power keeping the edges of the battlefield clear.

And I move.

There’s no hesitation left in me now, no adjustment or second thought, just a straight, committed line from where I stand to where he’s locked in place, every part of me aligned with the strike before it even lands.

He sees it coming.

He tries to break free.

The ice fractures under the force of it, cracking in sharp lines as he tears against it, Roxy’s threads snapping one by one under the strain, his body fighting to reassert control, but it’s already too late.

Bringing my hand up, the stake drives forward with everything I have behind it, both hands locked in place, all of that speed and strength focused into a single, brutal point of contact. I feel the resistance when it hits, heavy and real, something that doesn’t want to give even now.

And then it does.

The wood punches through, breaking past what’s left of his defenses, sinking deep into his chest with a force that carries all the way through.

For a moment, everything stops.

Not the fight.

Him.

Mordain goes still in a way that nothing living should ever be still, his body locking around the strike. He remains upright for several seconds, held there by sheer will alone, his gaze dropping to the stake buried in his chest before lifting again to meet mine.

There’s something there I didn’t expect.

Awareness.

Not of me.

Of something beyond me.

His focus shifts past my shoulder, and I feel it before I understand it, something pulling my attention in the same direction.

Scar staggers to the doorway, barely upright, one hand braced against the frame as if the building itself is holding him in place. His red eyes are unfocused but locked onto this moment with a stubborn, impossible presence that shouldn’t exist after what Mordain did to him.

Mordain sees him.

And in that instant, something in his expression changes.

His mouth moves, the effort dragging through what little strength he has left, the words costing him everything he’s still holding onto. “Astrid loved you.” Mordain’s voice barely carries, scraped thin and ragged at the edges, but the silence in the ruined lab makes it carry anyway. “Even through the madness. Even at the end…” Mordain pauses, and what crosses his face in those final seconds isn’t triumph. It isn’t even regret. It’s something that might have been awe, a long time ago, before it curdled. “She was always stronger than my formulas, stronger than the torpor venom running through your veins,” he mumbles, then Mordain drops to the ground.

And behind me, I hear Scar’s breathing change.

It isn’t grief that takes him this time, not the way it was before, not the raw and ragged thing I’ve watched him carry. This is different, deeper, and more absolute. The torpor venom wraps around those words like it has been waiting for exactly this moment to pull him under completely. A soft sound leaves him, barely a murmur, as though some part of him is still trying to hold on.

Then his knees hit the floor.