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Only Fionna could now see how it was done. As she stared at the remains of Koschei’s life force, a tangle of dark knots, she did something risky, possibly something that she would regret. But she did it anyhow. She began tugging at the tangled mess, pulling free a single strand and weaving it into her wound. Then another. And another.
Koschei noticed and his agitation ceased as he screamed,What are you doing?
Simple, taking what she needed to survive. She couldn’t manipulate her own body’s threads to fix herself, but she could use someone else’s. Someone the world would be better off without.
She plucked more threads, and the mass began to show thin spots.
No. You can’t do that. You’re not supposed to be able to.The dark mass went to flee the cave, but she followed, her steps staggering, but determined.
As she trailed the diminished Koschei, she grabbed more and more of his lingering life force, dark because it lacked a body. Dark because of the evil that kept it alive beyond the norm. She kept blending it into her wound, the magical weaving knitting the flesh, the threads she took changing color as they merged with hers. Lightening. Becoming her own.
A ragged Koschei, his essence showing holes and thin spots, shot out of the cave and hovered in the air as if uncertain where to go. Panicking.
I need a body. I need…
“To die,” Fionna stated. Feeling stronger, she grabbed with both hands, tugging apart what was left. Shredding it, scattering it to the winds until there was nothing left.
Nothing but her.
Or so she hoped, before she collapsed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The spider stabbing him through the chest didn’t hurt Kormac as much as seeing Fionna possessed by the evil in the cave. And she’d done it to save him.
Sacrificed herself for him.
How could she ask him then to turn around and kill her?
He couldn’t, but Lomar, without hesitation, did.
Seeing the knife enter her flesh caused Kormac to snap. He went after his friend, rage in his strikes that were also clumsy with grief. Fionna couldn’t survive that deep of a chest wound. He’d seen too many to have any kind of hope.
Lomar tried to apologize as he kept dodging his swings. “I’m sorry. But you know it had to be done. The thing in this cave can’t be allowed to escape. It was the only way.”
He knew that. But just like he couldn’t kill Lomar, he couldn’t murder Fionna either.
Lomar finally stopped moving and knelt, bowing his head. “I’m sorry. For everything. At least I can die knowing I’ve saved our world.”
Kormac lifted his sword, ready to deal the final blow, only to pause.
Lomar truly believed he’d done the right thing. And in a sense, he had. He’d had the strength to do what Kormac couldn’t.
Killing him wouldn’t bring back Fionna.
His sword tip dropped just as Lomar whispered, “What’s that dark cloud?”
Kormac whirled to see Fionna barely standing, encased in a shimmering veil of red and pink against which battered a dark, undulating cloud.
“The spirit left her,” he whispered. Left and now tried to get back in.
But Fionna, with that fierce determination he loved, wasn’t allowing it. With her dying strength, she fought.
“What’s happening to the cloud?” Lomar murmured. “Is it getting smaller?”
Kormac squinted and realized it did indeed diminish. As it reduced in size, Fionna stood taller, her pallor from blood loss reversed. Her flesh took on a healthy hue. The blood gushing from her chest didn’t just slow, it stopped.
As the small cloud suddenly went to leave the cave, she followed, and so did Kormac, Lomar on his heels. They emerged and watched as Fionna appeared to grip and tear apart what remained of the spirit, rending it into tiny flecks that scattered until nothing was left.
