With a backpack full of provisions and Flaccaro gleaming in his hand, Charlot felt very fine indeed. As Korak tromped south on the path, he was astonished to feel something he had not felt in a long very long time, a kind of eager, jittery lust for creation.

The Art jangled in his fingertips, and he felt swollen with an overabundance of power, craving release. Not since he was just a boy! The rest of him, too, felt limber and alive, and he swore he could see a step farther than the day before. Was it the dream with the goddess? The fine meal or the sweet morning air?

Certainly, they helped, but more than all of them, purpose had revitalized him. The destruction of Urth’Wyrth! How many thousands had tried? Adon the Sage, The Fiddler, Mere the Peerless, countless legends, cracked up at the feet of the great volcano!

All of the north was dotted with fallen kingdoms crushed beneath the boots of the legion. Mighty Iltran! Savage Malsk! All gone, all doomed the moment they set themselves against the Wyrth.

What if he was the one? Forget all that was against him for a moment, what if he was the one who brought the giant down? In an instant, he would go from a mere footnote in the history of the Arc to the most famous magician of all time!

As the heady thoughts tumbled in his skull, he felt bile rise at his own hubris. He spat over the side of the bear, nearly striking the war dog slinking beside them.

Lak looked up at him, then quickly looked away. They were in a sunny stretch of the path, and Charlot figured now was as good a time as any.

“Korak. Halt,” Charlot commanded, and the bear plodded to a stop. “Down.” The bear complied, and the wizard dismounted, Flaccaro in his hand.

If you lose, they all die, he reminded himself of the stakes.

“Emymu!” Charlot thundered. “Reveal your true form and stand before me!”

The war dog flinched, and then became totally rigid. For an instant, he could see the outline of the black crystal mask as it rose from the canine’s face, and then it slipped into the real. The asyndagrim flew through the air with a slow, perfectly straight motion.

There, it hung in the air, lovely and foreboding. Where the planes of the mask met, they spiraled down and down in a repeating pattern that drew the eye toward madness. Daylight streamed through the empty sockets of the mask, and then darkness spilled into the air, like ink billowing into water. The sïthur took form, long spindly arms and legs, wicked claws, everything about her sharp and threatening.

“Remove the mask,” Charlot demanded, and the Asyndagrim drifted back to the war dog, fading away to nothing as it reclaimed the confused canine. As the sïthur took shape, Siyabros circled behind her, his ears flattened back in alarm. At Charlot’s side, Korak huffed unhappily, raising a cloud of dust from the trail beneath his massive head.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Now, Charlot faced the sïthur’s true form. Her eyes were brilliant red, the many irises each turning and contracting seemingly of their own accord, a dozen shades of blood. For all their wickedness, the sïthur were beautiful creatures. Emymu’s skin was as smooth as polished onyx, her features so fine and symmetrical she seemed almost an abstraction rather than a living thing.

But Charlot knew behind those flawless lips were the pointed fangs of a predator, beneath the cold beauty was a demon who longed to conquer and enslave him. He searched her face for any sign of the woman who had once been, but he could not see even the faintest hint. As he peered at the devil, she was growing fainter by the minute, the brilliant light of morning eating at her substance.

Charlot stared on, watching her edges become translucent. Thin wisps of black smoke rose all around her as she began to disintegrate. At first, she tried to be stoic, standing tall and not flinching, but the pain was too much. Her fingers twitched, convulsions ran across her frame, and soon, her face was sewn into a rictus of agony.

“Will the light alone kill you?” Charlot asked, watching her diminish before his eyes.

She nodded. The suffering was too great to speak. In her alien eyes, he recognized true fear.

“Now, what I can’t understand is, if you wanted to be destroyed, why didn’t you simply ask me to unmake you? What did you think would happen if the mask managed to claim me? Do you think it would choose a dabbler who can barely stand the touch of day over one of the greatest mages who ever lived?”

She could not keep her eyes open. He did not know if she could even hear him. She’d shrunk to half her size. Still, he pressed the point.

“You lose either way. If the mask can’t master me, I destroy you utterly. If the mask can, I become the new host and the Asyndagrim devours your essence. Why did you do something so stupid?”

Burning blobs of shadow dripped from her sides. With a crack like tinder, one of her slender arms broke off and fell to the ground in a whorl of purple fire, scattering short-lived whorls of shadowflame among the leaves underfoot.

“Answer me,” Charlot demanded.

She opened her mouth to speak, but all that emerged was a racking scream that echoed through the dale, like the death cry of a puma. At Charlot’s side, Korak growled, and Siyabros was at her back, his teeth barred.

“Why?” Charlot thundered.

“I must be free!” Emymu hissed. The words crackled like burning paper. “Forgive me!” she begged, and that was the last sound she could make, her voice died away in a wheeze of black motes as her throat burned away.

“Vanish!” Charlot demanded, and with a howl of sucking air, she was drawn into the mask, leaving nothing but a circle of blackened earth where the shadow had stood.

He felt the pit of his stomach churning. What a terrible sight! How she’d suffered! Yet, for all her agony, he did not doubt she was still alive. The sïthur were far more resilient than men.

“It was inevitable you would make this attempt. I will not forgive another,” Charlot said, his voice implacable.

He re-mounted the bear as Korak dipped low, anticipating his wants. The bear made a hopeful snuffle in the direction of his backpack, but Charlot was not in the mood to indulge his pets. That howl had sunk into his bones. It rang still in his ears.

“Onward,” he told the bear, far more subdued than he’d been a just a few minutes before. Inevitable she would rebel, but surely she ought to have waited a bit longer. It was a shame to poison such a fine day.