Raven Blackwood's Arc

Chapter 75 of 11

The gate boomed shut. Raven turned from it to the long hall. Their armor lay scattered on the plain outside, bait for the serpent. Her party had passed the snake. Now they stood underarmed inside Thunder Maw, and the vampire queen waited at the end of the torchlight. Morgatha Nightshade did not move toward them. She was tall and thin, her black dress trailing the stone floor. A gray streak ran through her black hair. Her eyes were dark pits in a pale face. When she spoke, her voice came dry and slow. "You shed your shine to reach me. Clever. But you came empty-handed to a queen who feeds on blood." Isaiah stepped in front of Raven. He had kept his magical sword through the whole run. The serpent had struck at the glowing elven plate, not at plain steel on a man's hip. "We kept the one blade that matters," he said. Morgatha smiled. "One sword. Against me." She lifted a thin hand. Raven felt the air pull, the same cold drag she knew from the drain beneath the mountain. The queen was reaching for their warmth. But the pull came weak. Morgatha's hand shook. Silvran saw it too. "She's old," the elf whispered. "Her blood's thin. Her magic's failing. That's why she needs ours." Florence pressed a hand to the lead box at her belt. Her crystals had stayed hidden since the snow witch's pass. "She can't sense us," Florence said, low. "We buried our magic. To her we're nothing but meat and cold steel." Raven understood then. The serpent hunted shine. The queen hunted magic. They had stripped away both on their own backs. "She's starving," Raven said. "And she can't even find us to feed." Morgatha's smile cracked. She stretched both hands wide and strained. The torches dimmed. Then nothing. No warmth left their bodies. The queen staggered, caught herself on a black pillar. "Now," Raven said. Isaiah crossed the hall in four strides. Morgatha threw her magic at him and found only dead steel. The blow passed through empty air. His sword took her through the chest. She did not bleed red. She fell like dry paper, her black dress collapsing around nothing. The hall went still. The lightning on the walls died. The green glow in the serpent's carving faded to gray stone. Sylvara pushed the inner door. It swung open. Beyond it a narrow stair climbed into the tower. "The gate's sealed behind us," she said. "But this leads up." Silvran leaned on the wall, pale. "Forty years she held this valley. You ended her in a minute, by wearing nothing." Raven looked at the stair. Her grandmother had walked this hall and lived. Somewhere above, the tome her grandmother had hunted still waited. "We go up," Raven said. "And we get our armor back on the way out."