They're in.

  The sconces flickered once, then died. Copper conduits that had hummed with energy for decades fell silent, their enchantments devoured. The air, normally charged with the symphony of her spellwork, lay unnaturally still.

  Unenchanted. Probability of survival without immediate action: seventeen precent.

  Lynara moved to the nearest wall, fingers brushing along the sigils she had carved with bloody intention. Cold. Inert. She withdrew her hand when a small shock ran up her arm and down her spine, carrying with it the death cries of fractured wards.

  The realization settled within her with mathematical certainty.

  Something has consumed my defenses. Not breached—consumed. Soul engines. Three, perhaps four. Expensive.

  Thump.

  Three beats before they reach the door. Two more before they break through. Perhaps one before they reach me. Acceptable timeline for abbreviated ritual preparation.

  She braced herself as the runes etched into the foundation cracked like dry skin. Within her mind, the network of souls fractured. Nine connections severed at once.

  Nine gone. The diplomat, . The scholar. The child-bride from the southern kingdoms. The poison master. All useful. All lost.

  Her breath hitched as the network of identities within her buckled. Fragments of souls tore loose and spiraled into chaos.

  —blood of the innocent shall flow— —mother, where are you? I can't see— —fourteen ways to crack the skull and extract the— —please don't let me go, I don't want to—

  "Nine," she whispered, focusing on the number to maintain her grip on reality. Blood trickled from where she'd bitten her tongue deliberately, using pain to anchor the master consciousness against the tide of fracturing personalities.

  We've survived worse collapses. The plague years. The burning of Aleria. Focus.

  The intrusion had been too efficient, too silent. There was only one logical conclusion.

  He came himself. Probability: ninety-seven percent. Maraco always did enjoy personal vengeance.

  Two minutes. That's all it had taken for her tower to fall beneath the heel of her would-be brother. She recognized the tactical approach with bitter familiarity: soul engines to disrupt the ward harmonics, astral communion under the 4th sphere to call down meteoric iron. Her own methodology turned against her.

  I taught him that technique in the winter of his eleventh year. Ironic. Perhaps even poetic, if one appreciates such symmetries.

  The mongrel had even dared use their family sigil, the Brahe wings, in his assault. She detected the magical signature, the faint echo of familiar blood.

  Sentimentalism? No. Final mockery. He always did have a flair for dramatic symbolism.

  Crack.

  She gathered her mana with practiced precision, pulling her grimoire closer. Her fingers rested on the skinbound tome, its human leather warm beneath her touch. Her heart beat in measured rhythm as her hands moved of their own accord, muscles remembering what the mind need not.

  Ritual of Rebirth. Cost: forty souls. Available: thirty-seven. Insufficient. Modifications required. Single-memory transfer only.

  Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  Power pulsed down her spine in mathematical harmony with her heartbeat as she calculated parameters, mind turning like oiled clockwork.

  One memory only. Which to preserve? The binding of the third circle? The true name of the Vermilion Prince? The location of the western cache?

  —take the blood rites, they're most valuable— —save the childhood memories, they establish identity— —preserve the ritual knowledge, rebuild from there—

  A miscalculation. The door shattered 0.7 seconds sooner than her model predicted. She hadn't accounted for the strength the mantle of the Flayed King would grant him: an oversight. Data to be recorded if she survived.

  Her thoughts fractured in three directions: heat, light, and screaming.

  A jagged spear of meteoric iron punched through her midsection, hoisting her against the wall. Pain bloomed, and she cataloged it with clinical detachment:

  Broken vertebrae: T9, T10, L1. Torn stomach, 40% blood volume loss imminent. Collapsed left lung. Right compromised. Survival window: eight minutes without intervention.

  She didn't scream. Didn't blink. Simply observed the damage as the last vestiges of conscious thought arranged themselves into perfect stillness.

  Darkness followed. Then flashes.

  She lay on a carving table, surrounded by the stink of ash and herbs. Her skin flayed in precise patterns, flesh rent to the bone at calculated intervals. Yet, she breathed.

  Ritual configuration: soul binding. Western orthodox approach. Minor deviations in the fifth and seventh circles. Amateur work, but effective.

  She couldn't move, but she could feel her exposed nerves firing, her arm twitching involuntarily against the air. Her skin was gone from rib to elbow in methodical patches, peeled like an orange by someone who understood both anatomy and symbolism.

  This pain is nothing. We've endured worse. The Inquisition's methods were far more creative. The Viking blood eagle was more extensive. Categorize and dismiss.

  From the corner of her eye, she saw him approach, though she smelled him first—blood and ceremonial oils, sandalwood and something else. Fear, perhaps. Interesting.

  "Maraco," she rasped, her damaged lungs struggling to form the name.

  He looked older than she remembered, not in face, but in bearing. The weight of his newly acquired crown, the blood of his father on his hands, and a cold conviction in his eyes that hadn't been there when she'd last seen him.

  Seven years difference. Significant psychological development. Harder edges. More focused intent. Less impulsivity.

  Wearing the flayed skin of his father, stitched into a pulsating cloack; the fool took it too soon, it still deems him unworthy. Pathetic.

  "I go by that name no more, as you well know." His voice was measured, almost gentle. "I am the Flayed King now."

  The formal cadence of the newly initiated. He's still settling into the role. Exploitable.

  Moving with clinical precision, he tended to the ritual space around her. She caught glimpses of the circle drawn on the floor—a soul binding contraption crafted in dried blood and something else. Pixie ichor, perhaps. Two, maybe three lives' worth, judging from the distinctive metallic-sweet smell.

  —we murdered an entire pixie grove in 1623, their screams were like bells—

  —silence. Not relevant now.

  A silver tether in her mind of minds tightened with finality, the fragmented souls silenced until further notice.

  It took her another moment before she noticed what he held in his hand—something wet and pulsing.

  Her heart.

  It beat once in his palm, and an internal scream reverberated through the remnants of her consciousness. The chains of her logic tightened around her almost-empty core, silencing the panic of her fractured selves.

  Just one left. One life remaining. The warrior-queen. Acceptable counsel for current circumstances.

  "I know what you are," he said, leaning close. "I know what you became, what you broke our childhood promise for. I read your notes." His expression twisted into something between disgust and admiration. "Lich. Parasite. Worm. Your heart as a phylactery? The height of skill and arrogance."

  An error in his understanding. Useful. Let him believe I am a conventional lich. The truth would only complicate matters.

  His smile didn't reach his eyes. "I'll keep you alive, but I won't give you another body. This one's sufficient. It can walk and talk—just enough to smile for the dogs of the Federation."

  His grip tightened around her heart, and her vision blurred momentarily.

  Pressure applied: 60% of crushing force. Warning gesture. Pain is irrelevant. Focus on survival parameters.

  "If you try anything! Even so much as think about standing back up without my permission, I'll crush it myself."

  She coughed, blood bubbling between her lips, gathering her thoughts while fighting to keep a sardonic smile from forming. Seven responses calculated, six discarded.

  "You're making a mistake," she whispered, voice precise despite her damaged lungs.

  He smiled, blood-curdling and mad.

  "I'm making a weapon."

  Predictable. They always think they're the first to try this approach. King Leonus tried in the fourth century. The Borgias in the fifteenth. They all believed themselves puppet masters until the very end..

  Within her fractured mind, the last remaining souls whispered in anticipation. One life might be enough. It always had been before.