Chapter 144: Stolen from the Frostblade

The chime rang in Kael’s ear for what felt like the hundredth time.

Attempt after attempt had burned out against the Queen’s will, and he looked down at the ring on his hand with something between exasperation and appeal.

"A little help, friend?" he murmured. "When it actually matters?"

Whether the day ended in a kingdom or a funeral depended on a few lucky throws of the dice, and the Ring of Infinite Fortune had never before felt so much like a coin spinning in the air.

Over the rampart, the battle between the Frostblade and the Thorn Queen had raged for more than ten minutes, and the stone beneath them showed it.

Whole sections of the wall for hundreds of meters in either direction had crumbled under the aftershocks, reduced to a landscape of broken blocks and smoking craters.

More than once, Morgwyn had tried to escape. And more than once, the Urn’s spirits had caught her, dragging at her limbs and tearing at her face, while Isolde’s sword cut off every path of retreat.

Her health fell steadily. By now, it was below half.The Thorn Queen felt death coming, and something in her broke loose.

Her eyes flashed red, and she screamed across the ruined battlements, her voice raw with fury.

"Isolde! Face the truth! The Bulwark is broken! There is no power left in this world that can stop the Legion’s march south! Fight on, and all you do is die for nothing!"

She threw back her head, and her whole body blazed with crimson light.When the radiance cleared, the elegant queen was gone.

In her place, a vast shape reared against the sky, a monstrous plant of blood and thorn.

Great vines, thick as the trunks of old oaks and bristling with barbs, whipped in the air like giant serpents.

At the heart of the writhing mass, an immense blood-red flower unfolded, its petals trembling, and in the center of it, where the stamen should have been, her body rose from the bloom.

Her lower half was lost in the coils of the vine, but the upper half remained, pale and beautiful, her eyes burning.

She flung up both arms, and a dozen great vines lashed at Isolde like dragons of living blood.

Isolde’s face did not change, but her hands tightened on the hilt, and she met them.

Her sword flashed in a blur, and the two of them locked in a savage duel, vine against blade, thorn against ice.

The transformation had its price, and it gave Morgwyn terrible power. Her attributes surged.

Even with the spirits shredding at her flesh, she hit with a ferocity that began to push the Frostblade back, step by slow step.

But the great flower could not walk.

It was far too large, and it was rooted deep in the broken stone.

Whatever strength it gave her, she was now a target that could not move, standing in the open on a battlefield full of champions.

The rest of the Bulwark’s defenders did not miss the chance.

A Starseer of the Lunarian Empire stepped to the edge of the rampart and raised his staff.

His voice rose in a chant of impossible complexity, and the air above him shivered.

Nine stars lit in the daylight sky, brilliant and cold.

Their light drew together in a great bow of silver stretched across half the heavens.

A bowstring of pure radiance drew back to its full length, and a shaft of starlight gathered at its heart, blinding, vast, humming with a pressure that made the stones shiver.

The Starseer let go.

The arrow fell like a streak of silver thunder.

Morgwyn saw it coming and had no time to flee. She gritted her teeth and heaped her vines together into a thick, interwoven shield of living crimson.

The arrow struck.

The sound was like a mountain splitting. A cascade of starlight burst out across the wall, and the shield burst apart as if it had been made of paper.

The Thorn Queen’s face twisted, and a ragged cry tore out of her. Her health bar plunged.

Before she could draw breath, Isolde came on again.

The Queen’s true form had not saved her. It had only shown the rest of the wall that she was vulnerable, and more of the Bulwark’s greatest champions flooded toward her, eager for a share of the kill.

Nor did her own side stir to help her.

The Hollow Legion’s sovereigns were not friends. In their long ages of rule over the dead, they had known no loyalty beyond convenience.

Malachar and the others saw the Thorn Queen’s peril from where they hung in the sky, and none of them moved. One by one, they edged back from the fight.

She stood alone, fifth among the Ten Great Bosses, with all her terror and might, and nothing to protect her.

The champions of the living pressed in, led by Isolde, and she was beaten down until she had no anger left in her, only a dull, bitter fury. Her health fell, and fell.

Twenty minutes more passed. Noon was close.Then Isolde raised her sword, and the air around her turned black with cold.

Frost rolled out of her in a spreading wave, and above her, in the empty sky, a vast blade began to take shape, a hundred feet of pure, glittering ice, tapering to a point like a falling star. Its edge shone.

The pressure rolling off it cracked the stones of the rampart.

She brought her sword down.

The great ice sword fell like the judgment of a god.It struck the Thorn Queen’s vine form and tore through it.

The huge crimson coils burst into ribbons, the bloom shredded petal by petal, and the shock threw Morgwyn out of her monstrous shape and back into the shape of a woman, flung through the air and down into a heap of rubble. A thin line of blood ran down her temple.

Kael had been waiting for exactly this.

His eyes lit. He did not hesitate. With Spirit Communion, he borrowed Stormwing Sovereign’s skill, and the world dissolved into gold.

Stormstep.

He appeared at her side in a flash of lightning, dropping to a knee beside the stunned, bleeding queen, and thrust his hand forward.

Warden’s Mandate.

A pale golden sigil bloomed on her brow, drawing itself with astonishing speed.

Even at her weakest, her odds were hopeless.

Three chances in ten thousand.

Her eyes snapped open. Rage flared in them like a blast furnace, and she raised a hand to smash the glowing mark on her forehead.

"Morgwyn," Kael said, cold and quiet. "If you want to live, accept it."

She froze.

Her gaze flicked past him, to the sky, where the Frostblade was already diving, blade drawn, murder in her face.

For one instant, a flicker of doubt crossed the Thorn Queen’s features, a heartbeat of hesitation.

That heartbeat was enough.

The last stroke of the sigil closed.

[Notification: Warden’s Mandate successfully activated on Legendary boss [Morgwyn, the Thorn Queen]. Legendary companion acquired.]

"It’s done."

The chime was the sweetest sound Kael had ever heard. A grin split his face before he could stop it.

He flicked his hand, and the Thorn Queen vanished into the Rest Sanctum.

A moment later, Isolde touched down on the broken stone, her sword still in her grasp.

Her brows were drawn tight, and she looked from Kael to the empty rubble where her enemy had lain.

"Where," she said, in a low, dangerous voice, "did you put her?"