Dance of Death 2

Dance of Death 2
  Vorare swung a blow aimed at Ethan’s gut, but Ethan blocked it only to be tossed into the air. He hit the ground hard, and stood up again.
  “And how exactly do I fit in your plans?” Ethan pried, taking another defensive stance.
  I hated that all I could do was watch as I tightened my fingers around my necklace.
  “When a Primordial Alpha dies, they release the pure energy rooted in the 'blessing' of being the king of beasts,” Vorare began. “Your death will be cataclysmic enough to tear the seams holding me here. I'll finally be free.”
  “You want me to perish in the name of your peace?” Ethan’s voice cut sharply, and loudly with disbelief. “I’m not a sacrificial lamb.”
  Vorare paused eerily as if contemplating the silliness of Ethan's rejection. Suddenly, he announced, “Then I will burn everything, until death is all that's left for you to choose.”
  In that moment, Abigail appeared by my side with blood trickling down her temples. “The Eye,” she shouted. “It’s useless!”
  I spun my head toward her. “What?”
  “It was already cracked. The Melbringer's tried to recover it, but it’s broken beyond use. We can’t seal him.” Her breathing was jagged. “Which means—”
  Ethan finished, eyes narrowing on Vorare. “There is no other way to end him.“
  “Things are looking up for me, isn't it, Alpha?“ Vorare dragged the title like a slur as though it didn't mean as much as he'd made it out to be.
  “Just to mention,” his arms retracted to their original form, albeit still grim. “While you all planned in that little hiding space,” he said calmly, “I rooted deeper.”
  As if reading my thoughts, his arms extended and shadow tendrils spilled under the pavement like veins in stone. “I spread into the tunnels, into the woods, and far into the wolves you left hidden in the caves.”
  My stomach dropped further. The townspeople? “You—” I started.
  “I will devour every one of them within reach unless the Primordial kills me!” His threat cracked menacingly and resonated enough for listening ears to hear.
  Khalid and Tyler were both knocked out, Abigail appeared exhausted, and I was rendered immobile and utterly useless.
  “No,” I whispered. “No, no, no.”
  A voice yelled in alarm through the channel in my ear. “Something’s wrong. I can’t reach the caves. All comms are dead. The ground is breathing.”
  He had us. Vorare had us.
  “Ethan,” I choked as the situation seemed to escalate beyond our control.
  “You're really not leaving me much of a choice here,” Ethan muttered low, but I heard him as he gripped his wounded shoulder.
  Abigail shuffled uneasily by my side. “There's something we're missing,” she insisted as if waiting for something.
  “If I kill you,” Ethan continued, “My death itself alone could also wipe out the town, much less yours.”
  “Ethan! Don't talk to him about dying!“ I yelled over the rumbling, but to my dismay, Ethan ignored me
  Was he seriously considering it?
  “I believe so,” Vorare affirmed. “But you save the people beyond this town. Besides, she can't really die in the event of it,” his eyes crashed on mine to make his point.
  Because I was immune, but all the Moonstones and the Crescent werewolves weren't, and Ethan wouldn't survive it.
  I growled before I could think, feeling my bones push their limits to prompt my body to move.“You’re not allowed to kill him.“
  “Stay out of this Elaine,” Ethan warned.
  Vorare turned to me. “You fool,” his voice dropped into a ragged, tired whisper. “The roots I’ve buried in the land will rot everything.”
  He gestured to the pulsing veins of shadow that had pierced the pavement, the concrete on the floors, and even the light poles. “You can't save them.
  My gut twisted. His presence would eat the earth, but his death would bring the death of everything else on it. There was no victory to be won.
  “This is a rigged ending,” I mumbled lifelessly.
  I clutched my necklace before I even realized my hand was moving again. My body shook under the weight of my blatant helplessness.
  I was scared, terrified. I was going to lose Ethan, the town, the cemetery I was yet to visit, and the only home I had left behind.
  It felt unfair that everything I'd fought for amounted to nothing but loss, regardless. What could I do? What was I to do?
  I pressed the stone harder against my palm, “I don't want to lose anything again!” I confessed with gritted teeth as my vision blurred with tears. “Please.“
  My eyes shut to blink away the tears, but on opening them, my vision pulsed white.
  My supposedly subdued sorceress counterpart stirred, but not in blind, raging dominance. She was guiding a memory to me.
  And then I saw her.
  My mother is in labor.
  Chiling screaming through broken breaths as her power slipped from her with every contraction. Her midwife, a werewolf, shook her head in panic as she announced into the bright lit room, “You’re losing her.”
  It was then that my mother, with her bloody, shivering body, whispered something I couldn’t hear.
  Then she pressed her palm to her own heart and pulled at something. Energy surged in a white light beyond light.
  “I give,” she whispered. “Let her live.”
  And it worked. Her body slumped from fatigue, but the midwife had caught me in her arms.
  Tears flooded my eyes as I jolted out of the vision, somehow knowing what she did so happily without a second thought.
  She gave me part of her soul to live. That was the sacrifice that birthed me. A sorcery that required the greatest sacrifice for another.
  And now, maybe I could do the same.
  “I know how,” I said as my senses returned us to the scene where Vorare and Ethan had continued their clashing again.
  “I know how to end him,” I repeated. “Without tearing the Ethan or the town apart.”
  Abigail hummed beside me. “We’re out of time,” she urged, but paused when she saw my face. “What is it?”
  “My mother used part of her soul to bring me into this world. It saved my life,” I said, clutching the necklace tighter. “That same sacrifice can save Ethan.”
  Abigail’s eyes fell somberly as though she expected I'd say that, but it didn't ease much in her. “Your vision,” I exhaled deeply.
  “It was you,” she revealed. “Sorcery draining out of your body like light from a dying star. You will become hollow, Harlyn.”