I began shaping another dart. I didn’t want to kill it; I needed it to heal, but its head turned from me to Rhea.

  She was still on the floor, chest heaving, one hand pressed to the glowing lines and symbols she had carved into the ritual. Her eyes grew wide as she saw the monster lunging to her.

  “No,” I breathed.

  The champion was already there, it raised the sword and everything slowed. My heart thumped into my chest; my curse was screaming at me to act, move, and save her!

  I threw the dart before it was stable; it wobbled with its imperfect structure. Screaming through the air, it smashed into the creature’s arm. Muscle and fragments of armour burst away, the arm jerked, but the sword did not stop its momentum.

  It came down like a guillotine.

  Rhea screamed, raising her hands futilely over her head.

  The blade fell and impacted a red translucent barrier around Rhea, screeching and sliding on the floor where it destroyed part of the stone tiles.

  For a fraction of a second I saw nothing else but dust and debris.

  Then as I approached, I saw one of the pendants Rhea wore, a cross in her gothic style, something she always wore since day one; it was floating around her neck, red sygils flaring up with power. The relief I was feeling was immeasurable. But I didn’t have time to waste; I cast another round of hexes as the monster threw itself on the barrier, trying to claw its way to a paralysed Rhea, shock still marring her expression. “Move when I push it!” I roared at her.

  That broke her our of whatever shock she was experiencing.

  I was approaching as I charged another Arcane Blast; my wounds were nearly healed completely. At least I wasn’t at risk of bleeding out anymore, so I put all the lifeforce I was stealing into the spell and made the little bead of golden destruction fly at the monster's hands as it raised its weapon to slam it on the barrier again.

  Before the greatsword started to fall, my spell impacted its already weakened grip. Its remaining hand exploded, taking part of the forearm with it.

  As the barrier flickered and faded into red sparks after absorbing part of my explosion Rhea took the chance to scramble away on hands and knees as the blade sailed past her to finish on the floor again.

  As the monster roared its pain out, it used its broken limb to push its giant body in pursuit of Rhea.

  “LOOK AT ME!” I shouted, pouring all my rage and will into my aura.

  It stopped and turned its head to look at me.

  A lance of golden light appeared in my hand and sailed straight to its face, as it crossed both arms in front of its mask I launched another dart I kept behind my back, hidden from view.

  The lance impacted its arms, destroying them, only short stump that didn’t reached the elbow remained, while the other dart broke the unprotected knee of its good leg.

  The champion fell, its limb destroyed; it wasn’t a threat anymore.

  Behind it, Quinn was still wrestling the mask.

  Mary’s body convulsed. Black root veins now covered half the artefact. The golden green light sputtered in weak, erratic pulses.

  “AAH!” the entity howled. “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!?”

  “Just. Come. Off. Already!” Every word was punctuated by a tug; with a final scream, Quinn gave another yank to it, and this time, something tore. Black and white roots came free from Mary’s face; they were latching onto her. Her face was a ruined mess as the mask came free. At last.

  Mary went limp.

  The mask shrieked in Quinn’s hands, black and gold light fighting across its surface, the maroon core blazing like an open wound. As he stumbled back, the wriggling roots latched to his forearms, he screamed as he tried to pry it off himself.

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  “Quinn! Stay still!” I shouted at him.

  He did exactly that; as he screamed his lungs out, he lifted the mask, still in his hands, towards me. As I rushed to him, I shaped a dart to give it a bladed edge, then I took the golden weapon in my hand and bit down twice in quick succession; I severed the roots connected to his arms as he let the horns and the mask fall to the floor. A constant hum sounded from the mask, a strange vibration. The roots in it wriggled and twisted; they started spreading and searching for something to attach to.

  I sent a blast at the mask, sending it clattering at the base of the stairs, away from us and from the bodies of the fallen warriors. Then I took hold of the remaining roots still wriggling into Quinn’s arms and started tearing them away, leaving bleeding holes and blackened ruined hands and forearms. He screamed all the time, then fell to his knees. I wanted to help but I had something else ot do before.

  “Quinn, hold on, hold on just for a minute, come with me and everything will be fine.”

  The boy was probably not even capable of processing what I was saying because he didn’t give me any response; he just watched his ruined, trembling hands while screaming his pain out.

  I took him by the arm, he and Mary, and quickly dragged them both near Alya. The poor girl was lying in a puddle of her own blood. There was so much I feared for the worst. My curse was clawing at me, urging me to save them. But Mary was the healer; I wasn’t capable of healing anyone except myself… no, it was one of the possible evolutions of my skill. It was possible to transfer the lifeforce through it.

  I got an idea, I cursed Alya with a hex to clot the blood, and Quinn to numb any sensation. Mary was already cursed. All of them were primed for Drain the Accursed.

  Rhea came to me, shaking like a leaf. “W-what do we do? How can I help?! I can’t… I don’t have the reagents for a ritual like before!”

  “I’ll deal with it; leave me to work.” I told her curtly. There was no time to waste. The fact that my hex sank into Alya meant that she was still alive, but not for long, I'm sure.

  I connected to the champion; it was dying too. I sucked his lifeforce and bled it out too much; despite all its power, it wouldn’t last much more. It will have to do. I stole more of its vitality, I felt it flowing inside of me, that warm current of potential that I learned to bend to my will. I will have to bend it more; I could shape it into my spells, so there was no reason I couldn’t pass it to someone else, infusing them with it.

  Infusing…

  I had a spell for that, but I never used it for anything that wasn’t another spell. Will it work? It had to; I will make it work.

  I put my hands on Alya’s chest; her wounds were so deep I could see her severed ribcage, and then I closed my eyes. Focus, focus…

  A flow of golden particles was going around my system, repairing my wounds and energising my cells, muscles and organs, but there was much more that was just passing by, not doing anything. I took control of the flow, then I tried to push it past my hands and into Alya… nothing; The energy won’t leave me, not even a bit, but it worked with spells. Maybe if I had time to practise,, I could do this myself, but I had to try; it was a matter of life and death. I activated Arcane Infusion with pure life energy, and poured the golden flow into Alya’s wound, willing it to stay and mend.

  My hands glowed with golden light, veins and bones showing through my skin as the intense light illuminated them. I saw the skin near the wound start to wriggle, “YES!”

  I couldn’t contain my excitement; I nearly let the spell fade but quickly regained control and stole more energy from the champion as I healed my fearless girl, her wound closing fast. It took a lot of energy, but in the end not even a scar remained; I lifted the hex on her and turned to Quinn.

  The boy lay curled on the floor, whimpering and holding his arms to his chest. “I’m here. Everything’s will be fine.” I gently placed my hands on him and started infusing lifeforce into his blackened and hole riddled hands. It took a lot of energy, a lot, first the holes closed, repairing the damage done, then the torrent of lifeforce I was pouring into him started to fight against the black, I wasn’t a doctor, but it looked like it was a kind of necrosis, or the magical equivalent because his hands were practically starved for life. As they got back to normal and I didn’t feel any more need to work on them, I left a now-sleeping Quinn and moved on to Mary.

  Rhea was frantically tending to Alya, putting her jacket under her head and starting to trace some symbols in a circle around her, “What are you doing?”

  “It’s a ritual for replenishing blood, it’s the only thing I can do for her right now, and it need blood to work, there’s enough on the floor to power it.” She answered. I just nodded at her while I returned my gaze to Mary. Her face was a mess, ruined by the roots the mask planted into her, as I started infusing all the energy I could into her, I spread my senses inside her body, trying to figure out where to better infuse the energy. I could leave it to do its own work, but I wanted to prioritize the worst, she could lose a limb, but not her life, and the energy by itself wouldn’t differentiate between a hand and a lung if both were injured.

  “Fuck…” Her body was a mess; there were roots still inside her. Some grew into her veins, clogging them. She had so many I could do nothing about it; they were spread into all her body. But the face was the worst. I placed my hands on the sides of her head, cupping her face and infused the enrgy, willing it to stay there.

  Little by little the damage on her face got restored; she didn’t look like a honeycomb anymore, and I could tell that her brain wasn’t damaged, but when I wanted to move into the other part of her body, the flow of life ended. A series of dings sounded in my mind and turning around I saw the champion, reduced to a husk of its former self.

  It was dead, but I wasn’t finished…

  Mary was stable, but there was something more dangerous than the mere damage inside of her now; the curse from the gorg core was still weakening her, and she needed all the strength she could for fighting off the damage she received.

  I knew what I had to do, but I didn’t like it, not at all.

  20 chapters ahead!