She was relentless, because this was the only mercy left for this patch of land. In a thousand years it might heal, but until then, the only way to save it was to cauterize the wound.
Even when sweat poured down her body, mixing with the falling ash. Even when the ground bubbled and slurped beneath her feet. Even when the rancid stench of malice coated the back of her throat, thicker with every breath, she pushed herself harder.
“Nightrender!” shouted the prince. “I don’t see—”
She turned to find him standing on the burned ground just inside the malsite opening; his jaw was slack and his eyes wide, and there was a sick tint to his face. He was staring at his guards.
All six of them.
Dead.
Their bodies were already blackening, rotting and sprouting mold, but it didn’t quite disguise the claw marks crisscrossing their armor, the blood coursing from deep gashes.
She hadn’t even heard them die.
The sun fell below the horizon—sending them into the second dusk for today.
Time. This malsite affected time.
“Nightrender,” Prince Rune breathed. His eyes shifted from his guards to something else.
It was tall and gaunt, its parchment-pale skin scaled and coated with a film of acidic sweat that made the whole creature glow under the scattered lightrods.
It looked at Nightrender, a terrible grin stretching its face, barbed teeth like wet spikes.
The whole forest seemed to take a breath.
Then the plants stopped fighting. The air went still. And she understood what the prince had wanted to tell her before:
He didn’t see Princess Johanne.
The malsite was empty, except for him and her—and the rancor, which lifted its arms high above its head. With one clap of its clawed hands, the malsite snapped back into shape, circular, taut, and closed.
They were trapped.
11.
RUNE
His guards were dead. Princess Johanne was dead. And it seemed more likely than not that he was next. Victims of a rancor, all.
He hadn’t been prepared for the horror of the beast. Just the sight of it challenged his mind, his assumptions about reality: the disproportionately long limbs with too many joints, the spines along its back and shoulders, the way the whole world seemed to shift in and out of existence around it.
The first glance made his eyes unfocus. The second made him retch.
And this, he was certain, was what Princess Johanne had died feeling—what Swifthand and the others had died feeling. Shock and fear and horror beyond measure, because nothing like this should exist. But the evidence was right in front of his eyes, undeniable.
Unlike Rune, the Nightrender didn’t waste time realigning with reality. The moment the rancor closed the malsite, she lunged and thrust her sword deep into its body—but the creature flickered and the blade cut nothing.
That was when Rune came back to himself. He’d failed with Opi and Princess Johanne, but his kingdom still waited beyond this space, fragile and falling apart.
When the beast reappeared, it was mere paces in front of Rune, facing away. Rune seized his opportunity, stepping into an attack, swinging his sword in a long, silver arc that cut through the air so quickly it whistled. But then, the rancor spun. Faced him. Its mouth split into a wide, dreadful grin of sharp teeth and yellow saliva.
It was too late for Rune to pull his attack; without a care for its own flesh, the rancor batted the blade to the ground. Tarry blood oozed from its clawed hand, hissing where it touched the grass.
And Rune was disarmed.
But he’d served as a distraction. The Nightrender stepped in, thrusting her obsidian sword into the creature. Lightning sparked through the rancor’s body. A dark and dangerous smile formed on her lips as the creature shrieked, convulsing as electricity poured through it.
For a moment, Rune thought it was over. Then, the rancor ripped itself off the Nightrender’s sword with a terrible slurp and jolt of energy.
Rune staggered back in shock. How was it still alive?
The rancor surged toward him, claws slashing like daggers, but the Nightrender blocked and shoved the thing away.
Her shoulders were set, her face a grim mask of determination. She stabbed and sliced, on the offensive now that the rancor was weakened, and she was magnificent. She pursued the creature around trees and brush, sword snapping through the air like thunder; it must have weighed three times his, but she wielded it as an artist might a paintbrush.
And every time her weapon struck flesh, numinous fire shot through the dark blade, lighting the malsite with a holy glow.
Incredible, he thought. I am witnessing absolute greatness.
What a remarkable sensation.
He steeled himself to rejoin the fight, to make his moment in history alongside the champion of the three kingdoms, and dove for his sword.
But their advantage ended before either he or the Nightrender could make full use of it.
The earth shattered in an eruption of dirt and leaves and unidentifiable bone fragments, cutting a long gash into the ground. A terrible, acrid heat belched up through the malsite, along with a deep crimson light. It was a vein of the earth’s hot blood, running far below.
Rune gripped the tree he’d braced himself against, legs still limp after the ground’s betrayal, and scanned for his sword. But it was lost.
And maybe it didn’t matter.
The fissure sliced fully across the malsite, cutting him off from the Nightrender and the rancor. He couldn’t jump over it. He couldn’t fight. He couldn’t help.
Heat pumped from the fissure, making sweat dampen Rune’s clothes as the battle intensified. Both the rancor and Nightrender fought with a supernatural fury, the speed of their strikes too dizzying to follow.
Then, the rancor leaped atop the Nightrender and thumped her to the ground. Its claws tore at her throat as it let loose an awful, mind-scouring noise.
The sound caught in Rune’s ears, buzzing like a thousand wasps. He retched as his whole self struggled to make sense of it.
Now the rancor wasn’t just clawing at the Nightrender’s throat but was biting it, tearing into it with long, jagged teeth, and no matter how she fought, it kept its jaws clamped tight.
Terror kicked through Rune. He scrambled to find his sword, sweeping away chunks of rock and bone and plant matter. It had to be here somewhere. It had to.
Then, he looked over the edge of the fissure.
Dry, ancient heat roiled up, sapping the moisture from his skin and eyes and mouth. A vein of molten rock crept far below, the kind of blood only the deepest parts of the world could bear. Rune started to pull back, but then he saw it: his sword had been lodged between two huge rocks, and the metal glimmered in the glow of magma, losing integrity with every blast of heat.