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Theren steps out the door and smirks. “You will learn to regret your decision to enslave me, Morrigan.” He squeezes his hand into a fist, causing blood to drip into the snow in a beautifully macabre scene.

The blood begins to swirl, forming a golden staff with a blade at the hilt and a luminous ruby that vibrates with dark magic.

Recognizing the weapon, I take a subconscious step back. “How is it possible? Only the strongest mages can wield the Staff of Scorn.”

“You answered your own question,” he sneers. “There are no mages who can match my power. The staff came to me in a time when I feared mirrors the most. While the glass can betray me, toy with my mind, blood is the purest element. So I mastered it in secret, and now it will help me defeat you.”

Fear cloying at my insides, I spin the blade in my hand and hold it out in front of me. Magic courses through my bones, pulling strength from the talisman. This fight... it will take everything out of me.

“I should have killed you when I had the chance, Theren. You’ve proven to be a bigger problem than you ever were a help.”

“You know what they say about hindsight,” he answers with a shrug.

His casual attitude vexes me and I feel my eyes narrow. “If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll make sure you watch Eilish gasp for breath as I kill her with unhindered joy!”

Theren releases a bloodthirsty roar and races toward me. His red floods the whites of his golden eyes and dark veins crawl up his neck. He slides to a stop, using the momentum to hurl a vicious spell at me. I summon a shield and block the ball of roiling energy. The impact causes my arms to burn.

He’s right—he’s powerful.

He doesn’t hesitate to fire one spell after another in a hellstorm of magic. I struggle to catch them all. One grazes my arm, tearing through my flesh like the claws of a beast.

My visions shifts and I see Theren’s aura.

It bursts with flames like a phoenix of vengeance and I know the odds aren’t in my favor.

I press my hands together, palms flat, and pull them apart.

Lightning crackles, growing stronger as I allow it to build before I channel it through my blade and slice the blade toward him.

Theren goes flying, but he stabs his staff into the ice and uses it to slow himself.

The ice begins to shift and crack beneath our feet. I jump into the air, hovering above the trees that surround us, and scream. Shockwaves boom toward Theren, but he deflects them with a wall of ice. The scream bounces off the surface of the ice and ricochets back at me.

He stands and walks toward me atop the frigid waters. “You can always submit, Morrigan. Let’s not drag this out any longer than we must.”

“I won’t give up.”

“No, but you will run out of power in that talisman of yours before I run out of blood.”

***

THEREN

Delendren Glade

Morrigan crouches in the snow beside the fractured lake.

Her lips are tinged with blue and the long strands of her ebony hair are whitened with frost as the day grows colder.

Puffs of steam flow from her barely parted lips as she glares up at me.

She’s beautiful in her own right, but the Midnight Queen’s beauty can’t compare to Eilish’s.

I watch as Morrigan wobbles to her feet, the blade in her hand a reminder of her treachery.

“Broken Theren,” she wheezes. “What would your father say if he saw you now? Would he be proud that you’ve toed the line he once straddled?”

“Elioth was a poor excuse for a father. And I don’t give a fuck what he’d think.”

“But you’re aware he’s alive?”

“I don’t care.”

“You should,” she answers with a serpent’s smile.

“He waits in the depths of the abyss for the one who sent him there,” she taunts.

“If Abedon releases him, then they’ll be unstoppable.

There won’t be anything to keep them from taking your little angelic whore.

They’ll use her and defile her as they strip away her magic, little by little.

And then they’ll burn this world and the next. ”

“And you’re telling me this because? You see yourself as some sort of savior?

” I throw my head back and laugh. “Silvanus trapped Abedon. You are the one who forced Variant to break his oath. You are the one who started this chaos in hopes of taking Abedon’s power for yourself.

And, unlike the others, I have no doubt that he will rise.

And when Abedon rises... I hope to hell that I’m one who gets to tell him you played the starring role in his capture. ”

Morrigan looks surprised. “You want him to rise?”

I frown at her. “I’m Unseelie, Morrigan. I thrive in darkness.”

I attack once more, lunging for her as I strike hard with my staff blade.

A thin line of blood appears on her cheek.

Morrigan shrieks with fury and bolts of magic batter my body, knocking me off my feet.

I spin the staff and secure it to my back, then slide on my knees across the snow until I ram my shoulder into her middle.

Morrigan isn’t expecting a physical attack, so she falls and she falls hard.

I flip back onto my feet and grab her blade from the ground.

It causes my fingers to grow numb as I examine the spells at work.

I use it to stab myself in the abdomen as Morrigan looks on in horror and confusion.

Blood pools from my middle, steaming in the snow.

Morrigan summons her blade back to her hands.

And from the blood, dark figures rise, morphing until they look identical to my own image.

She hisses and turns to flee, but there’s nowhere to go.

Spotting a tree, she climbs it with unmatched speed, what little magic she still possesses aiding her all the way.

Morrigan looks up at the sky and whistles.

The sound is faint, so quiet my twitching ears barely pick up the sharp notes.

A swarm of black birds swoop down from the sky.

I turn around and run for the hovel in order to take shelter from them.

The birds are so close, I can feel the flapping of their wings on the back of my neck.

I dive through the door and slam it shut.

Morrigan is trapped in the tree as my minions hunt her from the ground and I’m trapped within the hovel so long as her swarm lingers.

The throbbing in my head amplifies with the horrid shriek of distorted caws that sound far too similar to the cries of children.

The Obuqui birds are from the Cogost Mountains, their nesting grounds not far from Redoleir Village.

Last I saw, the place was in ruins, just as much as the succubae home.

But if the Obuqui aren’t extinct, their black riders still draw breath.

It would seem Eilish and the others have a lot more to worry about than demons, orcs, and Unseelie armies.

The forces that dwell in the Cogost Mountains are legendary for a reason.

When the cawing and squawking halts, I move away from the door.

The birds burst inside as I race for the rear entrance, slamming that door shut as well.

I see several barrels off to the right and use my power to barricade the door with the barrels as I climb onto the roof through the only window in the room.

Morrigan approaches. Her robes billow in the wind like an enemy’s banner on a battlefield.

She stops when my minions appear behind her, turning slowly to defend herself. I jump from the roof and charge.

While Morrigan uses her magic to destroy my shadow clones/”:/8*9\

pushes her into the side of a tree. Immediately, the Obuqui birds disappear.

Morrigan grips her side as she falls down to the ground, desperately attempting to catch her breath.

I walk over to her and she looks up, her eyes going wide.

She scrambles back on her hands and knees, her fingers digging into the snow until she claws out a branch.

I watch her lips move quickly as she whispers a spell.

The branch forms into a wand within her hand, twisting and bending to the will of her magic.

I circle her. “That won’t help you.”

“Perhaps not, but I won’t bow to you.” Morrigan twirls the wand and a burst of dark magic strikes me in the shoulder.

I release my staff and return her blow with one of my own.

Each spell causes her hands to tremble. She can’t keep this up for much longer.

But her determination and resilience have gotten her far before.