Despite his penchant for linguistic pedantry, Demon King Olethros rejected my request as if diplomacy wasn’t a word in his lexicon, opting instead to set off a flurry of dark detonations. A thick, choking mist flooded the throne room in their wake, threatening to snuff out our magical glow.

  “Oh, no you don’t,” Nora said, flinging her fingers wide. Brilliant green wisps erupted from her fingertips before spiraling through the air in multiple directions. Several veered off course mid-flight, embedding themselves in cracks and seams across the stone floor and walls.

  “That’s everywhere he’s concentrated his animus,” she shouted triumphantly. “Trip those traps!”

  “How—”

  Never mind, no time.

  Muttering a curse, I gave up on keeping my sword out of the fray. Even with my amity amped, I wouldn’t be punching through rocks. After dodging another blinding blast, I yanked the Will of Euphridia from its scabbard. It erupted into joyful flame, tugging me off kilter in several directions.

  He’s not our target, Will! I know you heard Nora.

  The sword twitched as if sulking.

  I know it’s a test. But if we want him to take us seriously, we’ll have to play along for now.

  From the shadows, Olethros made sure we could never all focus on his hidden magical batteries. His scythe carved in and out of existence like a free and frenzied guillotine, forcing me to scramble and block. Nora called up the stone flooring in staggered waves, shielding the spaces I couldn’t reach fast enough.

  A telltale flicker—and I threw Faith up just in time to absorb the incoming blast. The impact knocked me backward onto one of the marked flagstones.

  Not where I was aiming to get to, but we can start with this one.

  Will yanked again, and this time I gave in. Together, we slammed downward into the tile. Gold lightning cracked from hilt to tip, fracturing the floor and a glowing green glyph beneath it. The stone dissolved into sizzling fragments, and whatever animus it held bled into nothing.

  One down, several more to—

  Nora struck another stone with the top of her staff, shattering the glass ball within it. To my doubled surprise, a colorless fluid spilled from it, fuming dark purple as it ate through the rock and rune beneath.

  Then she flung her hand wide, and animus-enhanced acid splashed onto another stone embedded in the opposite wall, melting everything it touched.

  Right. Ranged attacks!

  I stabbed out another stone and glyph.

  But Amity Bolt only worked on illusions, and this place feels real. The basalt was dense, pitted, and crudely carved. It fractured in the way that real rock should.

  I’ll save it for later—no need to tip my hand just yet.

  One angry explosion slipped past Nora’s rising stone wall, peppering Relias’s golden barrier with a spray of molten pebbles.

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  “Stay closer to me,” he called as he reinforced the barrier with a wave of his staff, sweat pouring down his face.

  The farther we spread, the weaker our amity shield gets. I guess I’ll leave the distant ones to—

  Relias suddenly switched to a one-handed grip, planting his staff to stabilize the barrier as he traced a circle with his free hand. Sigils locked themselves across several targets, and gold light shot outward from each mark, searing through the shadows and disintegrating entire clusters of stone.

  “Cease thy games and show yourself, cowardly snake!” he shrieked through a bestial snarl. “You shall not—”

  Shing!

  A pinpoint beam of dark purple light shot through his barrier, dissolving it and burning a hole through the top of His Holiness’s staff. The shaft turned dark, then crumbled between his fingertips.

  “Now?” Olethros shrieked from the shadows. “You dare bare your teeth now? You are years too late, priest—and still just as weak!”

  Well now, there’s something.

  “When you say things like that, it makes me think you’re unhappy with the current situation,” I said to the walls, as Relias tried to resummon the barrier with both hands. “Why don’t we explore that a little bit?”

  Okay. I’m not an expert at this. But I’m trying.

  The throne room shook, and small pebbles began to rain down from the high walls.

  So that’s a no…

  “You invite me near for conversation,” he whispered softly. “So you can slit me open and offer up my soul to your Goddess!”

  Oh, we’re talking! Just… don’t look at Relias right now.

  “No, actually, I—”

  A slab of basalt fell next to me with a resounding thud.

  That holy barrier would be nice to have right about now.

  “But why pretend?” Olethros hissed. “Strike and be done with it! If you can.”

  Sickly green lights raced in zigzags across the floor, burning away the various titles they touched. I leapt back just in time to avoid dropping into a spike-rimmed chasm that plunged into darkness far deeper than the tower could account for.

  “Did Aziza give you that jewel as a replacement?” Oltheros called, seemingly from the pit itself. “Did you make a deal with her, too?”

  “A… replacement?”

  “Oh, but you forgot about that, didn’t you? Otherwise, you would have remembered to have the dark mage refill it first!”

  Before I could ask for clarification, his scythe reappeared before Nora. She blasted off with Ventos the moment it materialized, the swipe just missing her.

  As the blade arced past, Nora clawed her fingers. Thick black threads of animus shot from her fingertips, snagging the weapon in mid-recoil.

  “Hah!” she crowed, yanking it from the folded space it had sought refuge in. With a beckoning gesture, she drew it closer, its haft flashing.

  “Nora, wait—”

  When her fingers closed around it, she seemed to fight with it for control, but then a violent surge of animus shot through her body. She screamed and writhed, still clutching the weapon as it arced and crackled with electric darkness.

  A hollow thoom echoed from the shadows—then Amos, of all things, was there, rising from smoke.

  “Let go of it, fool!”

  He ripped the scythe from her paralyzed grasp, dark steam sizzling around his hands as the weapon screeched in protest. Nora collapsed to the floor, twitching.

  Amos flung the weapon directly at Relias’s feet. “Contain it,” he rasped to His Holiness. “Now!”

  “Amos?!” Demon King Olethros shrieked. “Amos! Amos!”

  Hysterical laughter filled the air.

  Relias stared at the weapon for a split second, stunned, then dropped to his knees, locking the scythe in a glowing containment sigil with shaking hands.

  “I knew you’d betray me in the end, Amos! Everyone does! Everyone!” Olethros howled in eerie, unhinged glee. “Suffer and die and suffer again with them all!”

  Geysers of darkness spewed up from the chasm, spiraling with enough force to threaten the narrow ledge we still occupied.

  Amos held out his hand. A dark sphere bloomed from his palm, tendrils of animus pulsing in slow, steady waves. The geysers twisted and turned in midair, pulled by the orb’s sudden gravity. He swung his arm in a slow arc, guiding the streams into a barrier that wrapped around us.

  “Do whatever is necessary, Captain Lightbringer,” he said with a deep sigh. “But know this—the being before you is not my Master.” He set his shoulders, his form appearing much more robust than before. “He would have never made such a stupid mistake, attacking a demon like me with pure animus.”

  And with those words, his orb unfurled into a yawning void, swallowing Nora, Relias, the scythe, and Amos himself, leaving only me and the Demon King behind.

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