Page 197 of Curse of Darkness
Andraste lunges forward, forcing the Horned One to focus on her. I dart in, but he dances aside, wary of my blade.
It’s the first true vulnerability he’s shown. For all his talk, he fears the Sword of Oblivion.
Edain’s eyes meet mine as if he realizes the exact same truth, and then he’s moving, covering the goblin king, shielding Andraste.
“Pathetic,” the Horned One says, flinging a cloud of shadow at Edain’s face. Miniature lashes of lightning writhe within it, and Edain goes down, screaming as he clutches his face.
“Got him!” the goblin king bellows, lunging over Edain’s fallen form and driving his enormous shield up to deflect that vicious magic.
He slams the shield into the Horned One’s shoulder, pushing him back with brute force.
The Horned One’s heels slide across the Hallow.
Fury lights through his dark eyes, but it gives Edain time to fling the lightning off his face, the skin around his eyes red and burned.
And then the Horned One vanishes in a cloud of shadow, reappearing three feet back, so that when the goblin king staggers forward at the sudden lack of resistance, he slams right into the Horned One’s sword.
“Raith!” Andraste screams as the goblin king goes down.
She flings herself at the Horned One, driving him back with unrelenting sweeps of her sword. While he’s not as afraid of her flames as he is of my sword, he’s wary of them.
I dart in from the other side, forcing him to lay about him with desperate strikes. He bares his teeth in a dangerous smile, turning and slamming his elbow into Andraste’s face. Her flames might sear him, but he moves so fast, we can barely keep up.
We’re not going to be enough. No matter how many times we hit him, his wounds simply heal. We’re just buying time, falling one by one.
I have to make my move.
I have to take out his heart.
It pulses like a magnet, sending an injection of pure power through his veins.
“Cover me!” I yell at Edain, lunging forward in a blistering attack.
Our swords clash again and again, even as a dark truth surfaces in my heart. I’ve never faced anything like this before. He’s faster than Eris. Stronger than Baylor. More devious than Finn. He meets everything I can throw at him and then he hammers me back, lashing out with a fistful of lightning.
I take it to the chest, a shock of heat slamming through me.
Another.
My heart skips a beat. I’m down on one knee, desperately trying to hold onto my Darkyn steel.
And he smiles as if he senses the same truth I just have: He’s got me.
“It was a good fight,” he says, “It reminds me of your ancestor. But you are not whole. And without that one last missing piece, you cannot stand against me.”
“Not yet,” says a very quiet voice from the right.
Amaya steps out of the shadows as if she’s just stepped through the Hallow, Grimm in her arms. Her black hair is braided back from her face, and though her green eyes are wide and frightened as she stares at the monster before us, there’s a steely look upon her face.
The same look her mother gets sometimes.
“Brother D says he’ll surrender,” she whispers to me. “He said he loved me. That he’ll give himself up for me. And then he showed me how to do it. How to make you whole.”
Holding out her palm, she conjures a flame of pure darkness. A flame of oblivion.
It floats toward me, flickering and wavering.
“Yes,” Death breathes, reaching for it greedily.
