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She caught a glimpse of Lidishta now back on her feet, though blood poured out of a cut on her head and she was limping. As Iryana clung tightly, Lidishta stumbled around the nemak, cutting out at its wings and then drawing back again. The monster tried to avoid her, but it struggled to focus both on avoiding Lidishta’s blades and throwing Iryana off.

Iryana took the chance to climb higher until she was at the base of the monster’s head.

The nemak moved back toward the temple and threw itself against the stone wall, Iryana barely avoiding getting crushed against the rock. The nemak lined itself up and reared to slam again. Iryana squeezed her eyes shut, preparing for impact, when the monster stopped with a jerk.

She looked down, seeing her sister before them, her water-forged dagger embedded in the nemak’s foot.

“Hadima!” Iryana screamed, but she knew she couldn’t get to her in time. She lunged for the nemak’s face with wild abandon. She released her spear and reformed it, tearing her insides, just to jab it into the side of the nemak’s jaw. It screeched again, angrily snapping up and down as it tried to move with the spear lodged into it.

Iryana swung her body, one foot landing on the spear and kicking it against the nemak’s face as she propelled her lower body up and over the monster’s snout. Her dagger dug in just in time to keep her from sliding off the other end. She could hear her sister shouting her name.

She was eye to eye now with the monster, staring into one drooping eye and the other swollen and bleeding.

Bracing herself against her dagger, Iryana formed her spear, moaning from the pain, and jabbed it into the creature’s bleeding eyes as hard as she could.

The nemak thrashed its head and Iryana slid, her grip on the dagger and spear the only thing keeping her from falling. Her stomach flipped as her body swung back and forth.

The nemak stilled momentarily, allowing Iryana to scramble her feet back into its snout, dig her toes in, and shove.

She could feel the give when her staff made it through the worst of the resistance, slipping deep into the nemak’s head. It jerked beneath her, swaying. Then dropped.

Iryana screamed as she was thrown into the air, losing her grip on her staff.

She fought against her magic, trying to push her shield out as she fell, but her magic felt so twisted, so wrong, that she couldn’t tell that magic apart from the rest. Still, she tried. All she could think about was the pain, how much she wanted it to go away.

Her body collided with something softer than she expected, then kept falling, stopping with a painful thud.

Opening her eyes, Iryana saw Pyetar, face twisted into a grimace, his shield blanketing the ground beneath him. He’d caught her and used his shield to break their fall.

“Iryana,” he groaned, pushing himself to sit with a wince and pulling her into his lap.

Pyetar’s head swiveled, and Iryana followed his gaze to where she saw her forging still embedded in the nemak’s head. They’d killed the monster. Relief washed over her.

“We did it,” she moaned, voice wavering.

Then he was looking back at her, eyes tracing every line of her, worry growing.

She looked down at herself, too. Her armor was cut up; red and black blood covered her. Her adrenaline was crashing, and she could feel the lacerations all over her arms and legs. But it was nothing to the pain inside her.

“Don’t release your forgings yet,” Pyetar ordered, his muscles shaking beneath her. He turned, shouting, “Hadima! Hurry!”

Her sight was blurry as she locked onto her sister’s face. The side was dark red, and she was splattered with blood like the rest of them.

Iryana tried to hold on to her forgings but could feel them slipping away from her as the rush of battle waned.

“I can’t hold them,” she cried, face scrunching with pain as she fought to control her magic.

“Try,” Hadima ordered her, shouting out orders to someone nearby, though Iryana couldn’t process the words.

She failed, the magic of her staff, spear, and dagger surging into her all at once.

Iryana let out a bloodcurdling scream.

Agony. It was agony. A war raged inside her, a fight to the death. The magic pulled and ripped, thrashing and cutting into her insides.

She curled, leaning to the side as she vomited. Hands rubbed her back, but the touch hurt just like everything else. She couldn’t stand the pain, the wrongness of it. She was being torn apart.

“Don’t you dare leave me,” Pyetar’s deep voice begged from somewhere close to her ear. “You’re the only thing that makes sense to me in this world. I need you. Don’t leave me.”