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One would-be Warsword.

She liked those odds.

Fighting through the onslaught of onyx whips and jagged claws, Thea couldn’t get to Wilder to free him. She could barely see the others through the wisps of darkness, through the nightmares the reapers conjured all around her.

But everything she saw, she had seen before, had already faced it in the maze of mirrors and had emerged victorious. They couldn’t break her. Not anymore.

She slayed the first reaper by leaping onto its chest and carving out its heart where it stood.

She killed the next by pinning its leathery foot to the ice with the might of her throwing stars and cleaving through its chest with her dagger.

The thud of their two cursed hearts hitting the ice was like the beat of a war drum that spurred her on.

When she looked upon the three remaining reapers, her own heart nearly stopped. For they were poised back at the plinths to which her family were chained. Dark shadows swirled around them, choking the life out of her loved ones, forcing their way down their throats.

‘No!’ Thea shouted, surging forward —

Blinding pain blazed at her wrist, unlike anything she had ever experienced before. White-hot and ice-cold all at once, it seared through her skin, flesh and bone, agony in its purest form.

Tears streaming from her eyes, Thea whipped around – to see the vine blight tighten its grip around her.

A mere brush against your skin will cause immeasurable pain.

Thea screamed as the torture intensified.

Spittle formed at the corners of her mouth as she fell to her knees with a broken sob. ‘Make it stop,’ she cried, her voice raw as layers of her flesh were burned away.

Somewhere in the distance, someone screamed.

Or was it her?

All she could think of was the agony that tore at her wrist, that inched up her arm, that was destined for her mind, too.

More screaming.

Thea blinked through her tears, through the swirling shadows, to see a reaper reaching into Wren’s chest with its razor-sharp talons. And another doing the same to Wilder, and to —

The vine blight twisted its grasp and Thea’s vision blackened.

A strangled noise escaped her and she forced her eyes open, forced strength into her one free hand. She groped for her sword, for her dagger, for anything —

Her fingertips brushed Malik’s dagger and she lunged for it with all her might, her fingers closing over the hilt. With a strangled noise, she plunged it into the arm of the vine blight, the horrendous scent of it spilling out in force.

But the monster only twisted her wrist harder, forcing a garbled scream from her throat. She retched, the pain making her long for death itself. She couldn’t cleave into it; its tendrils were too hard, practically impenetrable as she clawed at it with broken sobs.

It was the screams of the others that stopped her from plunging the dagger into her own chest. She fought with what little strength she had against the grip of the monster, which was dragging her towards the abyss. The agony was nauseating, threatening to consume her to her very core. Fierce pain lanced from where the creature gripped her, all through her body like a hot blade, followed by a wave of wildfire, sinking into her muscles, her bones.

Madness overcame her and she flailed in the blight’s grip, jabbing her knife ineffectively at its wiry limbs. It was no use. There was no stopping it, no weakening its hold on her – there was no way but one.

With another shout, hoarse with the chaos that seemed to overcome her, Thea palmed her weapon. And with a swift, precise motion, she carved not through the vine blight, but through her own arm.

The scream that tore from her was more animal than human.

She felt every inch of the blade as it passed through skin, tissue, bone.

Her breathing changed. Short, shallow gasps that refused to pump the frigid air into her lungs.

Red blood spurted from the gaping wound. Thea nearly fell with the momentum as the blade cleaved through the last remaining layers of flesh.