Page 173 of Memories Like Fangs
It was Leah. Not quite small but fierce and steadfast, Leah’s sudden gasping cry thundered through everything. Sharp and impossible to ignore.
Mom and the others faded away like mist burning away in the sapphire’s starlight, but the warmth from her touch remained.
Then, there was an explosive shatter.
A light burst right in front of Lilah’s face. It was so brilliant that it cleared the shadows from my vision and pulled me back from the depths I was being dragged to.
In front of me, Lilah shrieked, flinching violently backward. The octave of it made me want to stumble away, too. A hand flew to her eyes, closed and already reddening from some irritation. A cloud lingered briefly in Lilah’s face, glowing with a strange, ghostly shimmer. It looked to be ash with its dark silver coloring and flakes of fire’s remains. However, instead of falling to the ground, the dust drifted like it was alive, spreading like a nebula cloud among the sapphires. In their starlight, I was able to make out the sparks of coral orange magic in the plumes of ash.
Talli. My heart broke and swelled at the same time. She had saved me from the brink of death one last time.
Thank you, Talli. I will take it from here. Rest and find peace, I thought, watching the coral orange in the cloud flare for a beat as though it had heard me before the dust settled among the sapphires like it had always belonged there.
In the next beat of my heart, I reached a hand out. I pulled on one of the many thin, almost invisible strings tying me to the sliver of sapphires floating nearby. A piece that was the perfectmixture of orange and pink drifted down toward me, reminding me of my mother’s ring. As it landed in my open palm like it had always belonged there and was an extension of me, a radiant warmth surged through my arm, up my shoulder, and into the very heart of me that it embraced tightly. I answered in kind, my own crystal magic rising to meet and intertwine like a family reunion, intensifying the warmth and power by at least double.
With all the power I had left within me and a raw roar that stretched from my soul to generations before, I drove the gemstone through Lilah’s ribs.
It struck true, sliding through skin and bone like her body had been waiting for it, like the universe had carved out a perfect space for this reckoning, a space that no amount of power could shield her from.
Lilah’s red eyes snapped open along with her mouth. Her eyes were wide with something halfway between awe and anger.
A beat passed in total silence.
Then, two.
Then—
Lilah coughed. Blood gurgled and overflowed out and down her lips and chin in a black-red waterfall. Her gasp was wet, the wheeze that followed cracking and resounding. The fabric of her dress around the crystal was stained with the swelling circle of viscous dark red, reminding me of spilled wine. She looked at me, her crimson eyes bloodshot already. She blinked slowly.
“Well, would you look at you, Byrdie-pie. I didn’t think you were strong enough…” Lilah laughed breathlessly before it ended in another raspy cough.
I shook my head, a hot, ragged breath dragging through my lungs. “You never did. It’s about time you saw how wrong you were.”
“I wanted… t-to be… powerful,” she croaked, choking intermittently on the blood still rising in her throat. On the brinkof death, she smiled too confidently. “Guess I girlbossed… a little too close to the sun, huh?”
I almost laughed. It was so absurd yet so fitting that it was tragic.
“I truly hope you find the peace you deserve, Lilah.”
Her lips parted like she might say something else, but the only thing that came out was an exhale. For the briefest instant, her features softened. Or, maybe I imagined it. Maybe I wanted to believe that even someone like her, twisted by her choices, could see the end coming and accept it with some small scrap of humanity. I was a kind-hearted optimist to a fault.
Lilah stilled then. Her eyes, once that blinding and searing red, faded into something duller and more empty. Her knees hit the cavern ground with an awkward thud before the rest of her crumpled, unmoving.
Ding dong, the fucking blood witch was dead.
A thunderclap resounded throughout the cave, roaring outward toward the barricade at the entrance. The bloody shield shattered like a sheet of glass under pressure. The pieces dissolved into a fine red mist before they hit the ground and vanished completely like they had never been there at all. As my family rejoiced, all of the crystals made of dragon’s blood that Lilah had used during the fight crumbled into dead, black rocks. Lilah’s sword did the same, raining tiny stones in front and behind me. The sound of all the black rocks hitting the sapphire floor was like rainfall hitting a dry pavement in a drought. It sounded almost like a sigh of relief, and it likely was for the spirits. I couldn’t resist the soft smile that graced my lips, knowing they would be able to finally rest and find peace.
My eyes fluttered.
My body seized for a moment as if realizing the battle was over now.
Then, the pain crashed into me.
The crystalized magic from before that gave my injuries a shield while they worked on healing was long gone. Now, they tried to crystallize, the edges of the wounds hardening into tiny stones, but it was crusting too slowly. The wound in my shoulder wasn’t healing at all as it poured blood down my body like a faucet. Some of it was my own, some of it Lilah’s, but it all fell from the front and back of my shoulder to pool on the floor around the black rocks of the dead dragon’s blood. The opalescent dusting of my blood mixed with the electric red of Lilah’s blood. It was oil and water, a fantastical fairycore clashing with B-rated horror-thriller gore. It did lowkey match the vibes of the rest of my body. My delicate wings that were bent, twisted, crumpled, sliced, and broken. My tail limp and disconnected. My scales stark white, the holographic colors clouded and murky. Every inch of me screamed. My chest felt like it had caved in, and I could barely breathe without wheezing, the crackling rattle of it growing louder. My tears were pink as they mixed with blood and fell freely from my face.
My knees gave way.
I collapsed under all the damage and ruin.
