Hazel looked back and smiled as the demon bounded down a long hall that ended with a point of daylight from an opening in the side of the mountain.
“What have you done?!” Isabel demanded, drawing her dagger and advancing toward Hazel.
“I’ve just killed the leader of the Sin’Rath Coven,” Hazel said.
“By killing Horace?” Isabel glanced over at his withered and desiccated husk. His face was blackened, lips pulled away from his teeth, his eyes hollow and empty.
“A necessary sacrifice,” Hazel said. “The Sin’Rath must be destroyed, no matter the cost.”
The words hit Isabel like a slap in the face. She had uttered very similar words about Phane. And she’d meant them, yet looking at the cost Hazel had been willing to pay in order to deal a blow to the Sin’Rath, Isabel realized that some costs were too great, no matter the gain.
Hazel began whispering words under her breath. Sensing the threat, Isabel fled the chamber, taking a position behind a nearby pillar and casting a shield spell. She wasn’t sure what magic Hazel could wield and didn’t want to find out the hard way. If Hazel was able to charm her or even blow a pinch of henbane into her face, Isabel might be the next one sacrificed to the ghidora.
“You can’t hide from me,” Hazel said from inside the room. “And I fear you haven’t fully considered your tactical disadvantage. Do you really want to kill Ayela’s body? I’m sure you have plans to undo what I’ve done.” Her tone was taunting, filled with mirth.
Alexander appeared next to Isabel. “Slip up next to the doorway and be ready with your force-push. I’ll distract her.”
Isabel nodded and started to make her way around several cages so she could come up along the wall in the dark. Once in position, she saw herself step out from behind a pillar and advance toward the door as if she meant to murder Hazel … and Ayela with her.
“Come, Child, be reasonable,” Hazel said, a thinly veiled attempt to stall for time while the illusion of Isabel drew closer, becoming more vulnerable to Hazel’s magic with each step.
“There,” Hazel said with a triumphant smile as the illusion of Isabel entered the room. She clapped her hands once and the dust covering the section of the floor where the illusion stood rose up in a cloud surrounding her. When the illusion didn’t react, Hazel became alarmed. Isabel rolled around the edge of the door and unleashed her force-push. Hazel flew backward, tumbling to the floor and shaking her head before struggling to her feet.
Isabel was moving the moment she cast her spell, but Hazel regained her feet and quaffed a potion before she could reach her, vanishing with derisive laughter.
Ayela came into the room. Hearing her own laughter but not seeing her body, she backed up against the wall next to the door and shouted, “Give me my body back!” Laughter was the only response.
“Duck!” Alexander’s disembodied voice said.
Isabel saw a puff of powder appear before her; she immediately stopped breathing, closed her eyes, and rolled backward away from the threat, coming up with another force-push that fell on empty air.
“Your invisibility won’t last forever,” Isabel said, watching the dust on the ground for any hint of Hazel’s passage, straining to hear her footsteps or breathing.
Alexander appeared as a ball of light. “Target me,” he said.
Isabel didn’t hesitate, firing off a force-push that sent Hazel sprawling near the door, becoming visible a few moments after she hit the ground. Ayela lunged toward her, falling on top of her and trying to pin her to the ground, but her new body was no match for the youth and strength of her real body. Hazel easily overpowered her, tossing a pinch of powder into her face once she’d rolled to her feet.
Isabel raised her hand to cast another force-push, but Hazel fled into the menagerie. Ayela tried to regain her feet but collapsed, falling into a deep sleep.
“I’ll keep watch,” Alexander said. “See if you can wake Hector.”
“What about Hazel?”
“She can’t hide from me. Besides, you can’t leave them here like this. There’s no telling what’s lurking in the shadows just waiting for an easy meal.”
Isabel looked from Hector to Ayela and nodded reluctantly, her anger draining away, only to be replaced with sorrow. She went to Horace, shaking her head and wiping a tear from her face. He looked like he’d been dead for years, his body drained of every vestige of life.
Hector woke more easily than she’d expected, his eyes snapping open when she shook him by the shoulder. He looked up, confusion turning to alarm at the look on her face.
“I’m so sorry, Hector.”
He sat up, looking around, the haze of confusion fading slowly until he saw the form of his dead brother. He took a sharp breath and looked away, as if his unwillingness to believe the horrible reality of the situation could change it.
“I don’t understand,” he said. “Who did this?”
“Hazel,” Isabel whispered.
“But … Hazel loves us.”
“No, she doesn’t. She was using you.”
“I don’t understand,” Hector said, stumbling to his feet and shambling over to his brother, staring at the desiccated corpse with disbelief, then breaking down and sobbing with his head resting on Horace’s breastplate.
Isabel sat down and cried quietly while Hector mourned the loss of his brother. He sobbed for several minutes before he tipped his head back and howled, shattering the silence with his anguish, his death knell reverberating off the ancient stone walls.
“Where is she?” he said, turning away from Horace.
“She fled,” Isabel said, regaining her feet.
“That’s not her?” Hector asked, pointing toward Ayela.
Isabel shook her head sadly. “That’s Ayela … Hazel switched bodies with her.”
He sniffed back his tears and looked at the ground. “Well then, it seems we both have a score to settle.”
“We all do,” Isabel said, taking Hector by the shoulders, “but we have to give Ayela her body back first. Do you understand, Hector?”
He looked at Ayela for a moment and nodded slowly. “Promise me one thing.”
Isabel nodded, knowing what he wanted without him voicing his request.
“Let me be the one to kill her,” Hector said.
She nodded again. “You have my word.”
Ayela didn’t wake quickly. After shaking her, gently slapping her face, and even splashing her with water, they decided they’d just have to wait, knowing full well that every minute widened the gap between them and Hazel.
Hector stood stock-still before the platform where his dead brother lay, a mask of desolation and resolve contorting his face. Isabel left him to his grief.
“You don’t have a sword,” he said, without looking away from his dead brother. “You should take Horace’s blades. They’ve served him well and I know he would want you to have them.”
“Are you sure?”
Hector nodded. “Did you see how she did this?”
“I was just a few minutes too late,” Isabel said, new tears filling her eyes. “Hazel was chanting a series of words over and over again, but I don’t remember what they were.”
“I think I know, I just don’t know how to read them,” he said, pointing to some writing engraved into the side of the platform. “Do you think Lord Reishi is watching?”
Alexander appeared beside him. “I’ve been here the whole time. I’m sorry for your loss, Hector. Your brother was a good man.”
“He was,” Hector said, running his hand along the words on the platform. “Can you read this?”
“No, but I can ask the sovereigns.”
“I would consider it a favor, Lord Reishi.”
“What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking that I know exactly how I intend to kill that old witch.”
“That’s dangerous business, Hector. I don’t know what it might do to you.”
“I don’t care so long as it kills her.”
“I do care, Hector.”
“Will you tell me what these words say or not, Lord Reishi?”
Alexander held his gaze for a moment, and, seeing the resolution in his eyes, nodded solemnly before vanishing.