The morning was green, serene, and humid. Bedewed foliage glistened in the sun; every leaf looked like a mirror, the whole forest a prism, all bathed in light. But beneath the canopy it was still cool. Rook hardly slept. He spent all night watching his own breath hang in the air. It was less from anticipation and more paranoia, yet the end result was the same: a rise, alert but still exhausted, at dawn.

They discussed plans. Astera suggested Eris stay behind.

“I will not sit idly by like some pampered princess as my knights go wading into battle,” Eris scoffed. “I am coming.”

“You are defenseless,” Astera said. “A mundane human.”

“As is Rook, yet you have offered to him no instruction to sunbathe for the forthcoming fight.”

“He has training.”

“So do I,” Eris said decisively. “The matter is settled.”

Rook was inclined to agree with Astera, but he knew there was no winning this argument. So he nodded and smiled. “Then the matter is settled.”

“It did occur to me,” Robur said in the pause that followed, “we may try to administer the antipotion before the battle. It would greatly increase our power…”

“I have told you already, we are doing no such thing,” Eris said.

“Do you have it already?” Rook said.

“I have gathered the reagents during our travels. It wouldn’t take long to brew,” Robur said.

“It would be a good idea,” Astera agreed. “We can pursue the goblins for days if we must. A delay is worth the small risk—”

“Are you deaf, elf? I have said we are doing no such thing. I have survived these last months without my magic; we are not risking calamity with the end now in sight.”

“We don’t know what will happen when we confront the Wyrm if she’s already drunk the antipotion,” Rook said. “I agree with Eris. The risk is too great.” He looked at her, but she rolled her eyes.

Robur nodded, thinking nothing more of it, but Astera shook her head. “We would be trading a large present risk—the risk of defeat in battle—for one of magic that we do not fully understand.”

“Your ability to assess risks,” Eris shot back, “is no longer to be given weight in light of recent failures.”

The two women glared at each other. Rook intervened. “We’re wasting time. Eris has made her decision. Now, I had an idea…”

A cursory plan was thus set. Next they approached that place where the orc was seen last night. To no surprise he was gone, yet Pyraz picked up the scent, and before long they continued up the hills, chasing after their dog.

The orc moved quickly at night. Having found him so soon after leaving the mines, relatively, Rook expected to be upon their foes within hours. In fact it was past noon when Pyraz lowered himself on his forelegs once more, signaling that the smell grew fresher. Not long after, they spotted an antler-headed goblin scanning the woods. Its face looked like a melted wax sculpture, like its skin would bubble and burn if touched. In its hands was clutched a spear.

Astera forged ahead. That was the first part of their ambush. She would use her natural magic, her ability to conceal herself, to close the ground, while Rook would lead the magicians in on a charge at her signal—a call used by Elven huntresses, one that sounded much like an eagle’s caw to Rook.

He remembered back to the ambush outside the Manastone mines. They had fought back, briefly, but when it was clear they wouldn’t win, they gave up. That was the thing about warfare. Morale mattered more than killing the enemy. The problem with goblins was that they had no volition, so as long as the domination of a sorcerer held strong, they would never route, nor surrender, nor do anything at all except fight to the death—or until their wills were returned to themselves, at which point they might finally break.

The orc was different. With luck, and enough awe, they might cause him to route.

“All orcs are cowards,” Astera had given her assurance, “he will flee.”

Rook gave her the time she needed. He looked to Robur, armed with his magic and a knife, and Eris, who still had the Arktid Chieftain’s hatchet. She had generously offered Rook back his own dagger and kept the better weapon for herself. She also still had the jade ward on her wrist. He was glad for it, though; it would help keep her safe. He was concerned with that above all else.

An eagle cawed ahead. A sharp, whistling screech. The goblin, vision poor in the day, tilted his head, alerted.

That was the cue to strike.

Eight goblins, one orc. The former wore whatever they could and carried whatever weapons had longer reach than their claws. The orc was a different matter. He was arrayed like an Elven prince. From his shoulders hung a beautiful coat of silver mail, so splendid that it seemed a cruel joke beside his twisted, wasting form. A sword was at his hip; he had no quiver, but held a fine Elven bow in one of his hands, while the other clutched an amulet nearer his face.

He walked at the front of a baggage train. Not looking ahead, focused instead on the amulet.

Rook saw only his back. The goblins behind him escorted three chests, or maybe sarcophagi: coffins long enough for one goblin and tall enough for four which seemed to hold themselves three feet in the air. They left no trail in the woods and had no clear lids. Despite this they moved with great inertia. It took immense effort from two goblins at each side to push them forward.

The two spare goblins kept poor watch.

Sparks appeared on the grass. Small dancing embers, like microscopic fireflies in the daylight. The antlered goblin noticed first. It cocked its head.

The sparks spread. The red slid like paint down canvas, coating the ground about the chests and all the space beneath the goblins.

The sparks deepened.

Rook glanced up at a tree, and he saw Astera there, deep in concentration. Her arm was outstretched. She held it in their direction: her palm was level, and she pulled it upward—

From where the fireflies danced, streams of magma erupted. Jets of flame engulfed the goblin caravan. Screams overcame the forest.

“Now!” Rook shouted. He raised his sword, leading the charge toward the baggage.

Three of the goblins were incinerated outright. Rook caught another as it stumbled backward, covered in burns, and he sliced it in two. Black blood fountained onto green earth.

The orc looked up from his amulet. It dropped on its chain.

His black eyes locked on Rook—and he smiled.

There was something about the visage of an orc, so familiar, so like an elf, but with the evil gaze of a demon—and a mouth that was lined with fangs—that was so much worse than any other number of monstrosities Rook had stared down over the past two years. That smiling face, with those empty eyes, showed more than malice, but deliberate, intelligent evil; so that even as their ambush was executed without hitch, Rook found that he was the one whose morale wavered.

The orc spun the amulet around his fingers on the chain, bringing it in closer. In a movement too fast for Rook to react, the orc raised his bow, and from nothing at all there materialized a blue arrow on the string, glowing like Manastone. He let the arrow slip—

Eris stuck her right hand out in front of Rook. The arrow struck her in the palm, yet there was no force of impact; the projectile dissipated. Before he could make sense of what had happened, Astera dropped down from her perch. She came straight for the orc, swinging furiously.

He parried without any delay. With the amulet still wrapped around his fingers, he drew his own sword, parrying Astera’s slashes and delivering a few of his own.

“Behind you!” Eris shouted.

There was no time to gawk. Behind them Robur fought off one goblin with his dagger, holding it back with magic while he finished it off. Eris held her hatchet with courage but no skill, but she was tall and fast enough to handle these clumsy creatures, and with her jade ward’s protection Rook decided she would be able to take care of herself.

He rushed to Astera’s side.

The orc was a master swordsman. He stepped backward through the woods; with a single hand his blade flashed through the air, deflecting every incoming blow with the fluidity of a running river. His armor was never hit once.

He and Astera spoke to each other past their swords in a language Rook couldn’t understand.

One goblin was recalled to the orc’s side just as Rook arrived at the melee; it drove its spear into Astera’s side, but she was fast enough to jump away, deflecting the shaft with the flat of her blade, yet that moment was all the orc needed to land a slash on her dominant arm. He hit mail, saving her arm from dismemberment, but blood poured down her bicep at once. She dropped her sword.

Rook impaled the goblin. The small creature lifted up with his running momentum, and he carried it forward several feet before letting it fall off his sword, pulling the blade free, and coming for the orc in a leaping strike.

The perfect hit. Only a ward could save his life now. Rook prepared a clean slice at the wretched thing’s neck as his sword was still out of position—

The orc’s head turned. The bow dropped from his spare hand. He extended an open palm in Rook’s direction, and as his boots were about to hit the ground again, everything stopped.

Rook felt an invisible vice clamp down around his torso. Pressure at his neck. He was held in the air. On the orc’s sword arm, the amulet on his wrist, wrapped by a chain around his fingers, glowed bright with blue.

The orc hissed in Regal:

“Hewes peira deghemon. Mer.”

Cold overcame Rook. He tried to move his arms, but they were locked in place; he could do nothing but kick his feet in the air. His skin tingled. Even though his neck was stuck, he glanced downward, and he saw himself turn white.

Icicles formed in his veins. His body went numb. He gagged, choking, trying to free himself, but he could do nothing except watch as the breath left his lungs—and as the orc smiled at him.

Darkness encroached across his vision—

Astera struck. A bolt of lightning burned across Rook’s vision, arcing into the orc’s body. It hit his mail shirt and sent crackling electricity arcing across his skin. He stumbled backward, turning toward Astera. The moment he did the grip on Rook’s neck broke; the orc was forced to raise his sword to parry an incoming blow, and a moment later Rook found himself flying through the air, at random, out of the way.

He hit a tree upside down and tumbled five feet down into a bush. He felt like he had been run over by a triumph of ten hundred chariots, the wind torn from his lungs, but as he lied there, he could still breathe—and he saw the battle unfold.

One goblin was left by the baggage train. Robur and Eris worked together to put it down. It hissed at them as they tried to get close, thrusting away with its spear, until Eris worked up the courage to ignore any incoming blows and bring her hatchet down on the creature’s neck. Her jade ward did its job; the goblin fell dead to the ground.

They both turned their attention to Astera.

The lightning bolt left a steaming burn in the orc’s armor, but nothing more. Astera managed to grapple the orc for a moment and push him away, and in that time she unleashed a cloud of chilled air from her offhand, enough to freeze a human, but the orc was unaffected—he only smiled, emerging from the mist as pale as he went in, and in Astera’s brief moment of surprise he landed another blow on the same arm—cutting it badly once again. This time, as she fell, he extended his sword arm, and his amulet glowed blue once again: clouds of white mist billowed from his wrist, and the humid forest was overcome with frost.

Astera stopped moving.

He brought his sword up to finish her off—

His sword hit a shield of red energy. He turned to see Eris and Robur sprinting his way. The black orbs in the orc’s head might have rolled to see two more humans on approach, but he turned.

All three said something again, but Rook was too far off to hear what. He tried to stand up; a moment later he fell back down, gasping. For a long moment he kept his eyes closed. Focused only on his breath. It wasn’t until he felt a warm, wet, rough tongue on his cheek that he looked up and saw Pyraz over him, mouth open and panting. He barked once, then darted off toward the battle.

The orc was at a stand-off. He held his sword in two hands now and glanced between Robur and Eris. Eris waited until his attention was on Robur; then she darted forward, bringing her hatchet down. The orc’s amulet flashed blue again and a gust of wind knocked Robur to the ground. He then brought a slash into Eris’ side, a fatal blow, but his features contorted into a hideous snarl when his blade was deflected away by the jade ward. The surprise was enough that Eris landed her axe head’s strike.

She dented the mail, but nothing more.

The orc slashed at her again, and again, to the same results. Eris hissed in pain as the energy was focused to her wrist. She dodged backward, disengaging.

The orc smiled. He extended a hand. A jet of blue flame projected from his fingertips—

Eris raised her right arm. That gauntlet she wore, the bronze strip, caught the fire and dissipated it in an instant. She smiled back, and with that she prepared to charge the orc, rushing him down like a man in unbreakable armor.

The orc laughed. He dropped his sword. The moment Eris got close, he caught her gloved hand and pulled it to the side, disabling her hatchet as well as her spell defense. Then he pulled her in closer.

She yelped.

The amulet flashed blue. An arrow materialized in the orc’s free hand, blue and aethereal. He held it for a moment—

And plunged it through her gut. The jade ward did nothing to stop the arcane bolt.

He slashed across her face with his clawed fingertips. She fell limp to the ground.

Rook’s face went white. He climbed to his feet. His neck hurt more than he could imagine. Every breath stung. His ankle felt sprained. But he limped forward, trying to approach the melee, ignoring the pain with every step.

The orc pulled a loose strand of his white hair backward. But rather than going straight for his sword, he paused, dropping the chain on his amulet once more—and closing his eyes.

He shuddered as the blue glow emanated against his skin, like a lizard basking in sunlight. After a long moment he opened his eyes again, shaking his head, gasping, and his focus returned, but just as it did, Robur pulled the amulet from his hands.

The orc didn’t notice the source at first. A tug from an unseen direction. He pulled the opposite way. Then another, harder, and the chain was extended; then another, and the amulet was pulled from his fingers, and soon the orc met Robur’s eyes: the two stood two dozen feet away. Robur used a spell to pull the chain remotely, gesturing for the thing to come his way. The orc let out a roar; he tugged with immense strength, so immense that it was Robur who stumbled forward, losing concentration—

But now Astera was on her feet. She tackled the orc to the ground. That moment was all Robur needed to center himself. He yanked hard again. The amulet flew through the air, directly into his hands. He nearly caught it, too, but he missed, and it hit a nearby tree. He dove into the grass to find it.

Astera put her hands on the orc’s face. They sizzled, heat directed against the gray, gaunt skin, but nothing happened—no burn was left. The orc bared its fangs and bit Astera on her neck, then headbutted her, and then the two fought with nothing but fists, brawling back and forth. The orc got on top, and with its claws it tore at her torso—

That was when Rook arrived. He leveled his sword at the orc’s neck, prepared to swing, but as he did the orc shot upward, and he grabbed the blade. Black blood like tar dripped down his fingers as his grip slid down the edge, but he held it anyway, and he turned to Rook.

The orc wasn’t smiling now. His face was gaunter than before. His skin so translucent that Rook saw the bones beneath. His eyes were shot with white, like cracks in onyx marbles. When his mouth opened his teeth seemed crooked, and his whole face was twisted into the look of a rabid wolf.

He yanked the sword from Rook’s hands with more strength than anything so thin should possibly have been able to conjure. Rook stumbled backward; the orc still held the weapon by the blade, and he struck out at Rook’s head with the pommel as a hammer—

Astera, bloodied beyond belief, rose behind the orc—holding his sword in her hands. Rook dodged the orc’s first hammer strike, falling to the ground in the process, unable to lift himself back up, and just as he did, Astera sliced at the orc’s neck.

Her blade bit into the skin. An inch, then halfway through, then clean; she decapitated the rabid thing, and its head fell to the ground at Rook’s side.

The body dropped to its knees.

A moment passed…

The body and head both melted. They oozed away, leaving nothing at all behind, not even ash, yet melting like ice all the same—quickly, over the course of seconds, so that no time later there was nothing at all left of the orc except a suit of beautiful Elven armor.

Rook dropped to the ground at Eris’ side. He tore off his shirt and pressed it down on her bloodied stomach. “Astera!” he cried.

It was an eternity before she came. An eternity between no one but him and Eris on the ground, gagging, moaning, groaning, dying.

His heart raced. He kept his hand on her wound, but he grabbed her by the hair. He said her name again and again. Pleaded with her to live. Fast, not considering anything carefully. There was no thought of himself or Arqa in what he told her; he just wanted to see her survive.

He stole a glance at the wound. Her blood covered his hands now, and her clothes, and his. Her intestines were visible beneath. Torn. Halfway ripped out.

“Eris,” he said, “you said—you told me you would live forever—you can’t die here. You said—you hadn’t lied to me. Eris! Wake up!”

She didn’t respond bargaining.

Astera finally came into view. She was healed already, though she looked exhausted, and she kneeled down across from Rook. “Move,” she commanded, and he did.

“You can save her,” he said.

She examined the wound. Robur appeared thereafter with their things, their few medical supplies left, but she shook her head. “She is beyond that now. A human cannot recover from this wound. Without magic she will die.”

“Then use your magic!” he was shouting now, “you’ve done it to yourself already!”

“I have told you!” she snapped back, “I cannot heal a human. She has no Essence; my magic would do nothing. And even if I could, it would take centuries off my own life.”

Rook slumped down backward in shock. He pulled back his hair, streaking blood across his scalp. “No,” he said. “There must be something…”

“She has an Essence,” Robur said, “she is a magician.”

Astera glanced at Robur. “Yes, I suppose—but—”

“The antipotion!” Rook said. “If you administer it now, it would bring her Essence back, wouldn’t it?”

Robur wasted no time after that. He immediately dived into his own pack, pulling forth reagents, a crucible, and a box of crushed Manastone.

“She may not survive long enough to drink it, if she can drink it at all,” Astera said.

“She’ll drink it, and you will heal her!” Rook said. “Now keep her alive!”

She stared at him. But she nodded, retrieving her medical supplies, and she did what she could to mend the jagged wound.

“Keep her upright,” she said, “so she does not choke on her blood.”

Rook did just that. He propped Eris up against himself, holding her, while both of his companions worked. He never felt so useless in his life. She screamed, yelped, and gasped as Astera applied bandages and herbs to prevent infection, and he whispered whatever he could think to say into her ear. But he had nothing but confidence now. Their plan would work. It had to. There was no choice. Eris couldn’t die—he wouldn’t let her. No one under his protection would ever die again.

For one moment her eyes opened. Brown eyes. Rook could never get used to brown eyes. He stared down at her, tracing her features with a bloodstained hand. But then they closed again, and after that she did nothing but breathe shallow breaths.

It was nearly dusk when Robur yelled triumphantly from his makeshift fire—still surrounded by the bodies of decaying goblins—that he was finished.

“We must administer it at once,” he said. He darted over. In his hands was his waterskin, and inside bubbled a noxious-smelling black liquid. “Pull back her head.”

Rook did so, and with Robur’s help the two of them poured the contents directly down her throat. She gagged, fighting against them, but she was nearly gone and far too weak to resist—and soon it was over.

“How long before it takes effect?” Rook said.

“Hours, perhaps longer,” Robur said, shaking his head.

“Will she last as long?”

Astera shrugged. “I will detect her Essence if it works. We will wait no longer than necessary.”

Rook held Eris all night. Soaked in blood, it was the worst, coldest night of his life, with only Pyraz for warmth, but he didn’t dare move. Robur stayed at his whole side that whole time. They spoke only softly.

“Your magic did nothing,” Rook said while Astera was still near. “Why?”

She shook her head. “An orc whose Essence is so atrophied and decayed that he is immune to mana is very rare. I have only heard stories.”

“But it makes sense,” Robur said quickly, “that a creature who feeds on mana is only bolstered by it. The demon we encountered—”

“He must have been ancient as the Old Kingdom,” Astera continued, as if no one else had said anything.

“He went berserk when Robur took his amulet,” Rook said.

Robur still had the amulet. He showed it.

Astera glanced to the coffins in the baggage train. “It is no amulet. It is a soulcharm for the Manawyrm’s Essence. He has imprisoned the creature’s spirit within. He overextended himself by using spells; he needed to siphon mana from the Wyrm to direct it at us, yet doing so taxed him.”

“He didn’t seem tired,” Rook said. He lowered his head toward Eris’ chest to make sure she was still breathing.

“No. Not tired. But with his source of magic removed, his ability to think clearly was taken with it. He was sent into withdrawal. You did well to take the charm from him.” She looked to Robur.

“Destroy it,” Rook said.

Robur shook his head. “That will do nothing but release its Essence back into its bones.” He gestured toward the coffins.

“We will still need to slay it if we wish Eris to be free,” Astera said.

“Maybe,” Rook said. “Or maybe it might free her in exchange for us freeing it.”

Rook slept brief seconds with his head on Eris’. It was at the first crack of dawn that he noticed the green welts across her bloodied arms: hives. A golden rash formed on her neck. Blue swells up and down her back.

She started gagging soon after. Convulsing. Whimpering in pain. Twitching.

“Astera!” Rook shouted.

She rushed over, and a single glimpse was all she needed. She nodded and put her hands on Eris’ bare stomach. Her eyes closed.

White light poured from her fingers. The wound from the arrow’s head was overcome by energy. The process took much longer than when Astera healed herself—required far more time and magic than when Astera recovered from injury even comparatively more grievous. Yet slowly, before Rook’s eyes, the open wound knitted itself shut. Her intestines moved back into their proper place; blood, so much of which had been lost, flushed behind the open wound; the skin regenerated, front and back, until nothing at all—not even a scar—was left.

It was more than just the arrow through her gut. The cuts on her face closed. All the scars on the side of her torso, from when her first jade ward burst, vanished. More scars, too, scars Rook had noticed in their nights together, healed over just the same—claw marks, cuts from swords, until there was nothing at all left to blemish her skin except the rainbow-colored rashes and hives that still swelled everywhere. Everything else was healed away over the course of five minutes.

When finally finished, Astera collapsed backward. But Rook wasn’t watching. He lifted Eris up and turned her to face him, shaking her, and he shouted her name, trying to wake her:

“Eris!”

She was limp still for a long time—but he said her name again, and that was when her eyes opened.

Her eyes were golden.

She stared at Rook with confusion—

And she threw up luminescent green on him.