“Help Mathas, damn it,” Janik barked at the dwarf. He had better be alive, Maija, he thought, or … or what?
Or I’ll never forgive myself for bringing him here, he thought. He shifted his grip on his sword and advanced warily toward Maija again.
“So you’re playing the cleric, are you, dwarf?” Maija growled, and she thrust her palm in Auftane’s direction, sending him sprawling on his face. The wand clattered across the floor. “Tinkering with the power of the gods?” She emphasized her last word by slamming her fist into her open hand. Auftane convulsed once with the force of an unseen blow, then lay still.
In that instant, Janik managed to land one solid blow on Maija, his sword jabbing into her shoulder. Her cry of pain sounded like the roar of a zakya, but she ignored him, turning her attention to Dania instead.
“Now you, Dania,” she snarled. “I always knew you lusted after my Janik.”
“It wasn’t lust,” Dania said, still on the defensive against the wildly swinging sword. “Not love, either.”
Janik cocked an eyebrow as he managed to nick Maija’s other shoulder with his blade. Maija gestured dismissively at him, knocking him back.
“The truth is, Maija,” Dania said, “I wanted to be you.”
Maija stepped backward at that, making Janik wonder whether some remnant of Maija’s own will expressed her surprise that way, or whether Dania’s response had taken the Fleshrender aback. In any case, it was the distraction that Dania needed. With one mighty blow, she smashed her sword into Maija’s dancing magical blade, shattering it into tiny shards of darkness that melted into the floor. Then she extended her arm straight out in front of her, the tip of her sword leveled at Maija’s throat.
“Out,” Dania said.
Janik wasn’t sure what he had expected, but that wasn’t it. Some elaborate ritual, perhaps, or a lengthy prayer invoking the power of the Silver Flame. But not this, just a simple command—spoken with such authority that if Janik could have stepped out of his own skin, he would have. Dania’s voice echoed in the chamber, resonating with power.
Maija stood transfixed, her eyes locked with Dania’s. Slowly, Dania’s sword arm lowered, but both of them were otherwise motionless. Janik stood helpless, watching as silent conflict raged between the two women.
Silence settled on the room. In the stillness, Janik felt some resonance of the battle he was witnessing, and he realized what had failed to sink in before: Dania was no less possessed than Maija. At least four wills were involved in this battle, with Dania and the spirit inhabiting her body pitted against the Fleshrender and the far greater evil that rumbled in the earth beneath the place. Janik wondered whether Maija’s will played any part at all, or if she was just the battleground, the piece of land these titanic forces were fighting over.
Janik had spent months arguing with Dania, but he had to admit that she had been right. This was different than the Last War. He had served Breland, even described his work for the crown as the true conflict, from which the massed armies and bloody battlefields were a mere distraction. But all his intrigues and exploits were no more than a shadow.
The real war was being fought right in front of him, and it was a war Janik didn’t know how to fight. He shifted his sword in his hand, suddenly aware of its irrelevance.
The floor of the cavern began to shake—the merest tremor at first, not enough to break the silence. But it grew, until first the stone tablet rattled against the altar, then Dania’s armor softly clanked, then the room rumbled. Trickles of dust started falling from the ceiling. Janik’s body tensed for action, but he had no idea what to do.
The rumbling stopped, and Maija cried out and convulsed.
A shadow seemed to seep from her body, a smear of darkness without form or feature. It slowly separated from Maija and then sloughed her off as if stepping out of a robe. Maija slumped to the floor, discarded.
Dania didn’t move. Her hands hung at her sides, her sword dangling from one and her shield from the other. She didn’t lift either as the dark spirit slid forward, engulfed her—
And melded into her.
“No!” Janik cried.
As the darkness sank into Dania’s skin, Janik saw a spasm of pain cross her face, and she dropped to her knees, her mouth stretched in a silent howl. She drew a long, tortured breath, then began wrestling her face and body under control.
But whose control? Janik had no idea whether the Fleshrender, the argent spirit that inhabited Dania, or Dania herself was the will that moved Dania’s body. Whichever it was, it moved her body with agonizing slowness—lifting one knee off the floor and planting the foot, dragging her arms forward to rest on the raised knee, shifting the weight forward and dragging the other foot until the body stood erect. Dania’s face was calm except for a muscle twitching wildly beside one eye.
Janik stood tensed in a defensive stance, his sword gripped firmly between him and Dania. He watched carefully for a sign of who was in control and what her intentions were.
Slowly, Dania’s head lowered and turned to the right. Then her right arm rose, the sword hanging limply from her hand.
“Janik,” she said, her voice a hoarse whisper.
She extended her arm, holding the sword out toward Janik and lifting its point toward him. He stepped back.
“Take … take my sword,” she said.
“What?”
“Take it!” Her voice was regaining strength.
Janik sheathed his sword in one smooth motion. Hesitantly, he stepped forward and lifted the sword from Dania’s fingers. His hands tingled where they touched it, but the sensation was not unpleasant—certainly not the biting pain Krael had endured.
“Now, Janik,” she said. “Do it now.”
Janik’s eyes widened. “Do what?” he asked, knowing and yet dreading the answer.
“Kill me,” Dania said.
“No!”
“Kill me!” she repeated. “And the Fleshrender dies with me!”
Her eyes met his, and he realized with a start that they were again their normal dusky blue. They pleaded with him in a way her voice could not manage, even as one eye twitched, reflecting the struggle that raged inside her.
Her words at the pinnacle of the temple came back to him. “Do not let your heart be troubled, Janik. I have chosen this path, and I am not afraid.” He had not understood at the time, but now he grasped her meaning. She had known that this was how she would defeat the Fleshrender.
And she had been counting on Janik to do it, to kill her. His fingers shifted on the unfamiliar grip of her sword.
“Janik,” she said, gaining a little more control over her voice. “Back in Karrnath, I swore an oath by everything holy that my sword would bring an end to this. Please—” her voice was a desperate gasp—“fulfill my oath!” A spasm of pain passed across her face, a sign of the struggle for control that raged within her.
Janik lifted the sword and stepped back a little, testing the heft of the weapon, thinking about swinging it. For a moment, he almost convinced himself he could do it.
Then he saw her eyes again. The sword slipped from his fingers and clattered to the stone floor, sparking motes of silver light.
“I can’t, Dania.” His gaze fell on Maija, lying on the floor like a discarded robe. “I can’t do it.”
“Janik!” Dania cried, but he turned away.
As he turned, he saw a small cloud of shadow detach itself from the ambient gloom of the chamber. It quickly congealed into a human form, then Krael stood before him. The vampire ducked past Janik to pick up Dania’s sword.
Silver light flared as Krael’s hand touched the hilt, and the smell of burning flesh reached Janik’s nose.
The vampire’s voice was choked with pain. “I told you I’d return the favor if I could, Dania,” he said, grimacing in agony as the sword continued to sear his hand.