“They would,” Nightrender said. “Malice doesn’t go away on its own. It takes effort, the right skills, the ability to cut through the pellicle—and none of you have that.”
Prince Rune just looked at her, said nothing, and then shone his light beyond the yellow line. The glow stopped ten paces away, as though it hit a wall. “The princess was trapped in there.”
Nightrender could feel where the pellicle cut through the regular world, holding back the poisoned space inside. It was a slippy-smooth bubble, and when she adjusted her eyes to look at the pellicle itself, rather than the world around it, she could just perceive the oil-slick sheen of malice.
“This isn’t a scar,” she muttered, wrinkling her nose as the stink of rotting flesh rose up from the soil. Decay, ozone, and ammonia, perhaps. “It’s a septic wound.” And even after she drained the infection, it would take a long time to finish healing. “I’m surprised you haven’t noticed strange occurrences around it.”
“Like what?”
“Nightmares made manifest. Corpses walking. Gravity behaving strangely. Anything. Bearhaste’s black rot was likely caused by the rancor Lady Nadine saw, but this”—she gestured before her—”certainly made it worse.”
Prince Rune’s eyes were watering with the stench as he stepped up to the yellow line and stopped. “It didn’t smell so bad before. Can you destroy it?”
“I live to destroy it.” She drew her sword and marched forward, and then she swung.
Beloved touched the pellicle, and she breathed in anticipation of the rush of energy.
Instead, cold and blinding pain struck her mind, fracturing across her body so sharply she almost dropped her sword.
“Nightrender?”
Sparks cleared from her vision. She’d stepped backward, and she was gasping, but the pain had subsided.
“Nightrender?” Prince Rune didn’t move from the yellow line. Behind him, his guards looked uncertain. “Is something wrong?”
Yes, something was wrong. Fulfilling her duty was supposed to feel good and right, not induce agony.
Perhaps it was a fluke. Gingerly, she hefted Beloved once more and pressed the sword point against the pellicle. It bent inward, rippling like a bubble, but even as the tip of her blade pierced the malsite, the same icy pain ripped from the back of her head and scattered across her body.
She recoiled, her heart pounding, her breath catching, but this time she was prepared for the feeling and she recovered before betraying her weakness any further.
“Nightrender, can you—”
“Yes.” The word came out harsher than she intended. “It’s fine. Just old and strong.”
That had to be it: the malsite had been festering here for four hundred years, and she’d never cleansed something so deeply rooted. It was just another reason to be annoyed at the humans—fixing this Incursion was going to be painful because of their slowness—but at least she was prepared now, and she would warn them not to let malice sit this long ever again.
You don’t have to clean it, murmured the darkest of her thoughts. They did this to themselves.
She shook it away. She did have to clean the malice. It was her duty.
“All right,” Prince Rune said. “If you’re sure.”
Again, she lifted her blade, braced herself, and swung. Obsidian hit resistance, ice-cold agony burned through Nightrender’s head, and the razor edge of Beloved sliced through the wall of the dark little world she’d come to destroy. Pieces of the pellicle unraveled, shredded into iridescent ribbons. Light shone out, like illumination falling from a cracked-open door.
Nightrender breathed through the stabbing agony and swung again, and another section of the pellicle broke down.
More light.
She kept cutting, and the malsite rippled and fluttered and collapsed on itself as the entirety of its structure came undone.
Perhaps if the site hadn’t been so old and steeped in dark energies—
If the pain hadn’t been close to overwhelming—
If she’d been paying attention—
Freed from the pellicle, malice spilled outward, faster than she’d anticipated. Roots tore through the ground, growing at an impossible rate, and wrapped around her ankles, trying to drag her to the earth. A nearby vine gripped her sword arm and pulled. Trees bent toward her, their branches reaching to form a cage.
She flared her wings, the black-glass edges of feathers cutting clean through the angry vegetation. Within seconds, she was free, but now more malice-infected plants were growing at this accelerated rate.
Shouts erupted behind her, and Nightrender spun around just in time to see vines close over her mortal companions. She roared and ran for the prince, whose eyes were wide above the ivy curling around his throat. He clawed at it, but couldn’t get a grip. Nightrender ripped away the vine, and he gasped for breath as she sliced and chopped at the foliage ensnaring him.
“How is this possible?” he rasped, cutting at plants with his sword.
That was the least important question of the moment.
Green rushed around them, and the guards’ shouts rose louder.
Nightrender spread her wings again, slicing apart a fresh volley of roots and vines. Ice stabbed all through her mind, but she would give this pain no ground. She had work to do. “Help your guards. Get to safety. I will finish this.”
Prince Rune hurried to his guards, and Nightrender turned and arced her sword into the air, cutting short another barrage of plantlife. This was worse than she’d anticipated. Far worse. But this ground—these plants—had been soaking in malice for four hundred years, and now they sensed a threat. Now they sensed her.
Nightrender pushed through the shreds of the pellicle, into the strange afternoon light that existed within. She paused only to drive her sword deep into the roots of afflicted plants, letting the holy fire of the Numina pour through her and into the earth. She destroyed evil with her hands and wings and heart.
But for every bit of malice she felled, a new stab of pain cut through her, frigid reflection of her own fury.
She wouldn’t stop, though. She couldn’t.
In her wake, she left dozens of trees and bushes turning black from the inside out. The odor of burning wood joined the other stenches; behind her, the mortals gagged against the assault of toxic air.
Inside the malsite, where the sun had fallen behind the trees, Nightrender plunged her sword into every plant she found, heedless of her own agony. The leaves of picked-clean berry bushes shriveled like broken fingers. Tree trunks sloughed sideways and ash fell from above like a deadly snow. Every time something came for her, she stabbed or sliced, letting her wings do their share of the work as well. The body of the malsite fell in pieces around her.