The girl stood on one side of the temple, watching carefully as her strange opponent lurched towards her. The fog had congealed tighter around it; wrapping into slowly twisting chains of shadow whose layers still obscured its full form. It grew longer as she watched, stretching out probingly towards her. Its movements were awkward, like a marionette controlled by a child.

She flexed her arms experimentally. Her left arm could move again. Good. She could feel that some of the internal damage was healed as well. Probably enough to escape, if it came down to it.

She wouldn’t run, though. Not yet. She wanted more. The power contained in the being beggared belief, even a tiny fraction of it had been enough to mostly heal her when she finally seized control of it.

Drinking it had subtly shifted her body as well, in a way that she couldn’t fully comprehend. She wasn’t faster, or stronger. But she felt somehow more present in the world, more connected. As if she’d only been a reflection on the surface of a lake, until now.

And the thing was weak, dying, the fog only an external manifestation of the poison that was slowly consuming it. On top of that, the poison held nearly as much power as the creature itself. Albeit in a form less accessible to her.

No need to rush, though. She felt her ankle swelling, the bone unable to knit back together yet but locked in place despite that. Good. She would need to move quickly. Whatever was dying inside the shadows could crush her with ease, if it got close enough.

The thing came closer, thrusting forward like the head of an enormous, shadowy snake. She kept her eyes locked on it. Her nails shifted, growing curved and sharp. She stepped slowly to one side, experimentally circling away. The massive head of fog turned, jerkily, following her.

She stepped forward this time, baiting it. In response the fog solidified further, lashing out at her in long, sharp tendrils. But despite their speed, they seemed to move instinctually, with no thought behind them, swinging in wide, predictable arcs. She danced back, trying to favor her uninjured right foot, and slashed with her claws. To her surprise, she easily cut through one of the shadows and it seemed to melt away. It was seemingly unable to sustain itself without a connection to its host.

More tendrils of fog swept towards her, and one brushed her shoulder as she cut back at them. It seemed almost intangible, with no force behind it, but she hissed in pain as she felt her flesh corrode under her jacket. She sliced through it a moment later, and the pain dulled slightly. She could take a few hits then. Good to know.

A second later, her eyes widened as the main mass of fog lunged ponderously towards her. She threw herself to one side, and it smashed into the ground with a huge crash of breaking stone. A fragment of tile sliced her cheek open as she continued to backpedal, cutting down more tendrils of shadow as she retreated further around the room.

She wouldn’t be taking one of those hits, that was for sure.

The thing raised its head (she was growing more sure that this was its head), questing towards her again. She was smiling, her bared teeth exposed to the cold air. Her foe was slow, weakened far beyond what seemed natural by its internal conflict. Barely faster than the partners she’d sparred with in Ivar’s class, and far more predictable. The only danger was its huge size, and the risk of getting overwhelmed by the fog if she moved too close.

She glanced back towards the center of the temple. Her sword was visible now, the fog having pulled away from it as the creature uncoiled itself. The blade was gleaming red and black in the strange, ever-present light coming from the walls.

The girl continued to skirt the pillars by the edge of the room, staying just at the edge of her opponent’s range. Slowly, carefully, she cut away pieces of the fog as she continued to fall back. She could see the shadows by its head shrinking. The damage she was inflicting must be adding up.

Then, as she drew more than halfway around the circular room, she moved, darting back towards the center. Her ankle screamed at the abuse, but she ignored it, snatching back up her sword and quickly falling back from the remaining fog at the center of the room. As she retreated, something enormous within it curled out towards her, smashing into the ground behind her. A tail?

The tail didn’t move again. The fog was slowing, stilling in places, she realized. She turned back towards the head, half limping back across towards it, sword in hand.

A few more tendrils came at her as she approached. Her sword batted them aside with ease, the blade far too long for them to approach her. Her grin widened further. Her sword was made to fight monsters, after all.

Again, she stepped forward. No longer was she restricted to slashing through one or two of the shadowy tentacles at a time, her sword flashing in great arcs as she dissected them.

She chopped to her right. A stray strike came at her from the other side and she cut it down with the claws on her left hand, wielding her sword one-handed for a moment. She was in her element now, a bird finally given wings. She barely even needed to think, her sword moving almost automatically to strike down the repetitive attacks.

She slashed again, almost contemptuously now. The tendrils had slowed further, she realized. They came at her only sporadically now, in half-hearted flailing bursts. As if they were giving up—

Oh. Oh.

Idelle used her magic-sight. It came easily to her, feeling more natural than it ever had before.

The room suddenly seemed almost empty to her. The great tempest of magic that had filled the black mist was nothing more than faint embers.

Another few of them winked out even as she watched.

The fog was dissipating around them as they faded, slowly slipping away, in patchwork pieces, where there was no magic left to feed it.

The burning desire for the power she’d seen, the hunger that had filled her? It had quietly slipped away as well, leaving only a sense of loss in its place.

Idelle looked down at her bloodstained sword, filled with a sudden inexplicable feeling of shame.

Was this all she really was? Someone who would attack and kill anything in front of her to survive and grow stronger, who would just discard other people if they got in her way?

She really was a hypocrite, wasn’t she.

The scattered, barely comprehensible memories she’d seen rose back to her mind. They weren’t the memories of some mindless monster, they had been filled with emotion and imagination. She’d touched the soul of a thinking, breathing creature, for all that it was far beyond her comprehension.

She set her sword down and limped forward, ignoring the pounding in her head. The fog seemed to struggle and writhe as she approached, but she ignored it, stopping just in front of it.

Haltingly, she spoke. “...I don’t know if you can hear me. No, I don’t know if you could even understand me. But. I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

Neither the fog nor the creature within it reacted to her words. She pressed on regardless.

“I don’t know if I can help you… but I can try. Is that all right with you?”

Still no response. A few of the embers of magic winked out of existence.

“...I hate this…” Idelle mumbled, staring at the shadowed creature lying in front of her. Her hands balled into fists, claws cutting into her palms.

What was the point of surviving, of being strong, if all you did with that strength was hurt people? She remembered Clovis’s face, his neck cut open as he laid among countless other corpses in the courtyard where she’d met him, and her heart clenched.

Was her sin really so irredeemable, compared to that?

She stepped forward, closing her eyes. What was left of the fog ate once more into her skin, but she ignored the pain. She deserved it, anyway. She groped forward, feeling something smooth and tough under her hands and she quickly pressed against it and sank her teeth into it.

Idelle tasted the same blood as before, still sweet but nearly bereft of that tyrannical fire, and she ignored it. Instead, she seized the poison that ran through it, the bitter contaminating filth, pulling at it with all her will. It came at her call, flowing black and viscous into her mouth, clogging her throat and choking her.

She felt the poison stir for a moment, as if it distantly recognized her this time, pressing back against her control, but it was too weak to resist. It spread through her body, dissipating, slowly healing her wounds. She could almost pretend the foul flavor was medicine like this; good medicine tastes bitter, after all.

She choked again, struggling to handle the sheer quantity of the black liquid. She’d never tried to drink this much before. Not that she was really drinking, as she could tell now, she was somehow channeling everything through her heart and into her bloodstream where it was absorbed into her body. The process felt natural and obvious, despite flying against everything she knew of digestion.

And still, more of the fading poison came. Would she reach a limit, Idelle wondered? What would happen when her body was fully healed, could she still absorb more? She didn’t know. She wished she’d forced herself to explore her power further before now. No, there couldn’t be much more, she realized, for the fog was no longer eating away at her skin —

For a moment, her mouth cleared of the filth and she tasted only a sweet, gentle heat that filled her with a wild, unstoppable craving. Then, all at once, the embers in her magic-sight burst apart into tiny sparkling motes of light. Before she could open her eyes, she felt something vast and ancient brush against her mind, and she slumped to the ground, unconscious.