“Not if I can help it,” I growl.
Then I charge, moving faster than I ever thought possible, thoughts of my little bird spurring me on. My blood surges with the heat of rage and desperation.
The oracle-monster looks at me, that demented grin stretching wider and wider.
She swings her poison-tipped claw at me, but I’m faster, ducking low and then spinning to the side until I can come up behind her.
But I can’t get close enough to strike. Not yet.
And I think I know exactly where to aim this time around.
Krystian’s arrow hits again, this time in her knee, and she stumbles.
That’s all the opening I need.
The blood in my palm solidifies until it forms a blade, and I jump on her back, clinging to her neck with all my might. I slam the blade down into her right eye.
Again and again and again and again.
A black substance oozes from the wound and hits my skin, causing it to burn. The pain is like nothing I’ve ever felt before, and instinctively, I cry out, releasing my grip on the creature’s neck. I fall to the ground with a pained shout.
“Rafe!” Thea screams, racing for me.
Zaid reaches for her, but Thea’s faster.
She swings her borrowed dagger at the monster’s stomach—the only part of the beast she can reach—and the monster staggers back. The oracle cries out and falls, slamming against the door she was attempting to lead me through only moments earlier.
The wood shatters, revealing hundreds—if not thousands—of corpses. Yellow bones litter the entire room.
Zaid was right.
If we were to ask her questions, we would’ve ended up just like them.
“Thea!” Krystian roars, shooting arrow after arrow at the beast in an attempt to distract her.
But the oracle doesn’t peel her pitch-black gaze from the approaching reaper.
The strangest thing begins to happen.
Thea’s skin begins to glow—an unearthly luminescent sheen that makes it appear as if she’s been dipped in sparkles. The dagger in her hand transforms before my very eyes. While before it was an unassuming, somewhat blunt dagger, it’s now sharp and covered in ancient runes.
The dagger Thea arrived with.
The dagger that has somehow melded with her body.
“Thea!” I stagger to my feet and race for her.
No. No. No. No.
Thea doesn’t seem to hear any of us. It’s as if she’s in a trance.
She lifts her arm in the air…and then brings it down, hitting the creature in the heart.
And while our attacks did nothing to stop the grotesque monster, Thea’s has the opposite effect.
The oracle-monster screeches, her form twisting and distorting as the entire room reacts to her demise. The walls begin to shake violently, and the floor crumbles beneath us. The creature’s massive body starts to unravel like twine, her form breaking down into nothing but tendrils of darkness that dissolve in the air.
The room pulses once, twice, three times, then—everything stops.