One moment, Thraevirula’s childhood room exists.

  The next, we eviscerate it.

  I punch three bolts of lightning at Thrae just as she sends her army of bugs at me and at the same time, she strikes Hypna with the Meteor Blade. There comes a high pitched ring as Hypna parries her daughter’s blade with her Aether sword. Meanwhile, the bugs take the brunt of my lightning, spreading it amongst themselves.

  Diffusely.

  The lightning chains across all of them at once. The walls explode, the bed is set aflame, the stands and books crumble into black dust, and ash sketches a wretched scene through all the fiery smoke of burning insects.

  I inhale some of that smoke accidentally—blacken my lungs. I cough like I’m trying to scrape a sword out of my gullet, before pounding my chest clean of the grit. I wipe my mouth with ragged breaths. Then, I spring off the ground with lightning-imbued legs, flying towards…

  Nothing.

  The smoke hid Hypna and Thraevirula, but I thought they would’ve been clashing with their blades just by the room’s entrance. Instead, like an idiot, I crash through the wooden wall and my head hurtles into the kitchen sink. The metal of the faucet bends. Liquid spews out of it like a gushing corpse.

  Water runs down my ear, tinged a little red from some cut I opened at the side of my head. I kick off the counter with a grunt and turn, lightning racing across my knuckles. The memory versions of Hypna and Saegor are still suspended in some deep looking conversation at the table.

  A sound like a war horn echoes.

  A scream like a banshee pierces.

  The myriad clashing of blades heightens.

  Then, an explosion of thatched wood rains down from the rooftop as blue angel wings blur and crack onto the dining table, splitting it in two. Thraevirula mounts atop her mother, blade pressed against blade, chest to chest, a bloody smile matching her red eyes.

  I blitz her again. This time, I don’t miss.

  My wide hook crunches into Thrae’s side. Her body bends against mine and she grunts in pain. She tries turning to me, but what happens next is too fast for even her to stop. That’s because I delayed my lightning this time—made it a secondary reaction after the contact of my knuckles. When the red of it chains along her flank, the Witch of Plagues gives me a baleful glare—then she is sent soaring into the opposite wall. Her body flips, crashes into the wood, tumbles somewhere out of sight down the hill.

  The smell of smoke pervades.

  I steady my remaining momentum by grabbing onto the half-broken table. Then, I offer a hand to Hypna.

  She takes it, coughing out some blood. “Thanks.”

  “How do we beat—” I begin, but she talks over me. At least, I think it's her at first. But her mouth isn’t moving.

  “Saegor, I don’t understand. Why are so worried—”

  “The other faction of the Disciples won the vote, Hypna. We have to leave.”

  Are you kidding me? The two memory versions of Saegor and Hypna, no longer suspended in time, talk to each other as if everything is normal—as if the table between them didn’t just break in two and now another version of Hypna and I stand in the middle of their conversation.

  “You have to come with me, Hypna. Leave this. We can take your daughter and you somewhere safe—run away together,” Saegor continues, now reaching across the table. His arm passes through my leg, grabbing onto memory Hypna’s hand.

  “I—I don’t know Saegor. These people, they need me. And—”

  “Did you lose control?” I ask, turning to my Hypna now.

  “We have bigger worries right now, Raiten. She’ll be back any sec—”

  On cue, a blast of locusts takes Hypna by force. She screams something out and blue aether encompasses her body, exploding from it with raw energetic force. Yet more locusts and rats now assault her. An army of them run past my legs. I move to help.

  Thraevirula drops down in front of me, barring my path.

  Her sword swivels up. I side-step a hair’s length from her downward swing and sweep low. She dances back from my outstretched leg and rages forward, her blade a whirlwind of metal.

  I try spraying lightning, but like I predicted prior, she’s undoing it. Anytime red streaks venture close to her, they turn into more bugs or rats, all of whom ignore us and attack Hypna.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  So I have to adapt. If she’s undoing the external, keep it internal. I shove lightning into my limbs, enhancing their speed and explosiveness. Which I desperately need, because Thrae is aiming to cut my head off. Eternal Spring helps me flow against her, but her blade form is so masterful that I can’t find an opening to strike with Iron Winter.

  Another arc of the blade. She nips a red line along my chest. In backing away from that, I corner myself against the kitchen countertops. My hands grab for anything to wield. Plates.

  Her sword comes up and I dive left, holding a porcelain bowl as a shield. It splinters into fat pieces as the blade smashes through it. White dust mists up from it. I use that distraction as a chance to duck low. Then, I kick off the lower shelves and grab for Thrae’s leg. She tries sliding back. Doesn’t work. I snatch her ankle and sweep her off the ground while building up to my feet, holding tight to her boot now.

  She twists beneath me. Slashes the sword at my legs.

  I let it hit, strengthening my calf with lightning.

  The blade bites deep. The pain lances. Thraevirula’s cathartic smile broadens.

  But I grab her by the collar and lift her off the ground. Smash her down. The tile breaks. Her body bends and arches like a puppet. Her mouth spews blood.

  “That wasn’t—” Thrae coughs some bloody spittle onto my face. “Very nice.”

  As a response to that, I lift her up again. She kicks at my head with her other boot, rocking my jaw hard. Yet I’m not trying to smash her down this time.

  Rather, I toss her up.

  She goes flying through the roof, making another hole in the thatching, raining wood and taking her sword with her and leaving a trail of my own blood. I jump up to pursue, spinning my body, flipping as fast as I possibly can. We rise high above the cottage.

  She also spins mid-air to face me, body twisting as she slashes hard with the blade.

  But I pass her too quickly, and the blade merely THWIPS through air. I lasso a near cloud we passed with lightning and once again, blur by Thrae’s now falling form. She dispels the lightning lasso. Too late. I’ve already made a full arc around the cloud and now I fall spinning towards Thraevirula.

  She raises her blade to defend.

  I straighten my leg out at the last moment of my spin—a full axe kick.

  It thumps down against the flat of her blade and into her chest. There’s a sonic boom of air and lightning and momentum as her body becomes an arrow in the dark, ripping into the cottage once more. A plume of blood particles, dust, and smoke rises from her crash.

  I lasso another cloud—hang from it with one hand, eyes searching the chaos below.

  The cottage is half-ruined. Flames lick up from Tia’s room and spread to the kitchen.

  Laughter bubbles up to me, to the sky itself, echoing around the whole plane of this memory.

  “Not bad Raiten! I see you’ve gotten better at dream magicks.”

  My eyes hunt for her. But I can’t see a damn—

  “Behind you,” she whispers, her icy breath tickling my ear. I dispel the lightning to fall while kicking up at her wildly. She snatches my foot. Raises me up.

  Thraevirula sports wings now, like her mother. But these are not the beautifully symmetric Aether wings—rather, they are made of rats and black goo that glues their dead forms together—a mockery of angel wings.

  I try crunching up to punch her, but I’m frozen. My mouth works and I spit and shake my body, but nothing works.

  “Aw, how cute. Did you really think you were beating me for a moment? You did, didn’t you? That’s funny.” She brings me closer, now passing my ankle off to one of the rats on her wing. The animal is dead, yet the tail wraps around my foot and raises me to her face.

  “See, I wanted to make this slow. Enjoyable. I haven’t been able to let loose in a bit. But to be honest, I’m so angry at you that I just can’t keep up that act anymore. I wonder, is this how you feel all the time? Hmm? With Masaru? This unyielding fucking rage Raiten?” she grabs onto my chin and squeezes my cheeks together.

  “It must be hard, oh so hard for you. Poor little boy. Poor little Thunderwatcher. No mommy, no lover, no nothing. You’re such a pathetic man. I know your mind Raiten. I’ve seen what you fear most. You mythologize yourself to be some sort of protagonist in a tragedy, but the tragedy is of your own making. And even though you know that, even though you hate yourself for that, you still insist upon living. That is a crime in itself. A crime that you should dearly pay for. ”

  “Kill yourself,” I growl.

  “That’s the spirit. Now, since you rejected me earlier, I figured we should try again. Work on it.”

  She brings her mouth close. I try backing away, because I’m not stupid enough to think that this will be anything sensual.

  It isn’t.

  Because when she opens her mouth, the jaw hangs down a bit too wide, her mouth stretching uncannily, and from the black of her throat comes the biggest centipede I’ve ever seen. It squeezes out of her lips, using its many legs to pull on their redness for leverage. The creature clicks its mandibles together hungrily.

  So this is what Hypna meant by Thrae trying to break me.

  Honestly? I’d rather die than this.

  I try closing my mouth. She squeezes harder, pushing my lips up violently. The centipede bridges between our two mouths, its long form black and red and horrifying, and it pries my lips apart and it grabs onto my tongue with its mandibles for traction, squeezing it to enter my mouth.

  I gag.

  I bite.

  And I fucking scream.