Shit. Shit shit shit.

  “What do we do?” I ask. Hypna doesn’t answer, still staring out the window. A cold chill enters the room, like death’s icy claws scraping at our napes, marking us.

  “Hypna!” I shake her shoulder. She turns back to me. Eyes wide and unsure. “Which memory do we move to? Forward in time? Backward? What—”

  The roof comes away.

  At first, it looks like the thatching above us disintegrates thanks to a black circle of rot that stems from its center. However, it's not rot, but hundreds—no, thousands of black bugs that eat the roof away, scuttling atop each other, munching with the sound of high-pitched rings.

  From the grey-clouded night comes a form that blurs like a scarlet star, ripping through the sky.

  As she touches down, I can feel the very aura of her anger. Her red eyes glare darkly at me from the moment she passes the roof, all the way till she impacts the floor, shattering the woodtiles. The air flurries around her.

  A halo of rats with their tails twisted together hovers and spins above her head: her rat king crown. A sight I last bore witness to when she fought Hui—a person she dubbed an “interloper”.

  I suppose that is what she considers me now.

  In her hands, she brandishes the great Meteor Blade—a sword that looks savage in her grasp, for against all of Thrae’s fearsome beauty it has none: plain tang; no crossguard; just raw iron meant for one purpose.

  I pop an amulet.

  Red essence runs to my skin.

  My long mane of hair rises as electric power pulses through my veins.

  “You—” she stops, her voice literally shaking with fury. “You not only reject me. You also dare to invade my mind?” The bugs on the roof now flow down to her back, forming a billowing cape of blackness that swirls around the entrance of the witch’s childhood room. They chitter happily at their mistress’s madness.

  Lightning dances from my fingertips. I close them to make a fistful of crimson, readying myself to throw an Iron Winter punch at her. Now that I have unlimited amulets, I can try out so many things that I’ve always wanted to—like integrating my newly formed martial arts into my lightning usage. I experimented with those ideas briefly in my fight with Baroth—but never to their full realization. And now, I’m a far better martial artist than back then.

  I’ll use Eternal Spring for mobility and defense.

  Iron Winter for killing.

  She’ll make a ripe test dummy.

  If this even works. After all, it's her domain now. She could just make my lightning turn into flowers for all I know.

  Before I can throw the punch, however, Hypna steps in front of me.

  Thraevirula’s eyes widen. Her hands fall for a brief moment. “Mo–Mother?”

  This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

  How did she not notice—I stop that train of thought. I know damn well how easy it is to get tunnel visioned on vengeance.

  So much so that you miss what matters most.

  Hypna takes a step towards her daughter. “Yes, Tia, it's me.”

  “That’s—” Thraevirula takes a deep breath. Then her eyes narrow darkly once more. “That’s not my name.”

  “But it was. At one point, you were my daughter. You caught bugs, kissed frogs, made pies with me. Helped me pick flowers and sell potions.” She takes another step. Closer. Her arms are outraised. For a moment, even my fists quiver.

  Thrae’s eyes twitch. Her fingers twiddle.

  A third step. “It's alright, Tia. I’m here. You don’t have to do this anymore.”

  Thraevirula blinks. Then, she forces out a chuckle. “Don’t have to? No, you don’t understand, do you? I’m doing this for you. For me. For all the others like us.”

  Hypna pauses. I shift around the bed, feet shuffling slowly on the woodtiles to get a flanking position. I could attack. I should attack. End this. Yet, I know that it might be futile. This is the better option. If it works.

  “Tia, it—it doesn’t have to be like this. Not like this. Not joining wars and slaughters and plaguing children. I taught you to be good. And you still can be.”

  The memory version of Tia sleeps soundly in bed, frozen in time. She looks so innocent. Thraevirula’s eyes glance at her slumbering form.

  She wavers.

  Hypna takes a final step. Her arms begin to wrap around her Tia.

  But Thraevirula answers instead, raising her sword to her mother’s throat. The eyes are still flickering, yet the mouth sneers. “You are dead.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you don’t even know how you died yet, do you?”

  Hypna gulps. Hands upraised. Blue light begins to ebb on her spine, but not her hands. My fists go taut with tension.

  “No. But I saw Saegor say in Raiten’s—”

  “You let her into your head? Are you insane?” Thraevirula asks me now. Yet still, her red eyes are glued to her mother’s purple.

  “‘Let’ is a strong word,” I mutter, but she continues to spew her anger.

  “You’d rather ally with this… this remnant thing that pretends to be my mother than me? Is that how it is Raiten?”

  “I—I might not be exactly as you remember her,” Hypna protests, trying to gently push the blade aside with two fingers. “But I am still a part of her. I carry her wishes, her desires for you to—”

  “No no no, you are nothing more than a fake,” Thraevirula spits, keeping the blade steady at her throat. A line of red blood wells at the tip.

  “Please, Tia, I—”

  “I told you: That’s. Not. My. Name.”

  The bugs are in a frenzy now and the rat king crown spins faster. Her feet begin to levitate off the ground, carried by the bird-shaped wings formed by those thousands of black dots.

  A whirlwind of buzzing hell forms around us.

  “I am Thraevirula. I am The Terror of Grettleberg, the Scourge of Havenmarch. I am The Witch of Plagues.”

  Hypna closes her eyes. Blue aether wings sprout from her back and fly her to meet Thrae’s level. A thorned halo of Aether forms above her head. And in that flurry of chaos, her hair moves wild in the wind—black, white, and gold facing the wildfire red of her daughter.

  The lightning coalesces around me, sparking along the floors. I shove some into my feet, ready to spring.

  A sword of Aether forms in Hypna’s hands, and she uses it to bat away Thraevirula’s Meteor blade.

  She gives her daughter one last look of ultimate despair before shaking her head.

  “So be it.”