Three of his fingers fall to the deck in a heap of blood. Threydan sighs as he turns the empty sockets toward his face for examination. No sooner has he done so than fresh fingers sprout in their proper places.
He wiggles his new digits in my direction.
I rise slowly, rubbing at my eyes, even though there’s no need. It is a reflex more than anything else.
“Done yet?” Threydan asks.
“I’ve barely started.”
I launch myself at him.
Time ceases to be measured by seconds and minutes. It is counted by drops of blood and slashes of the sword. By the tiring of muscles. The encouragement and gasps from my crew.
We carry on for the better part of an hour.
Threydan is not in as good of physical condition as I am, having slept for a thousand years, but the panaceum sustains us both far longer than mortal muscles should allow.
My advantages have counted for naught.
I’ve sliced the arteries in both his legs. He’s lost an ear, the tip of his nose, and more fingers—each of which grew back shortly after they were separated from the rest of his body. It doesn’t matter what I do or how I cut him. That beating artifact in his heart keeps us both alive.
But tire, we eventually do.
We both collapse to the ground, arms like liquid, legs like rocks. The undead don’t move an inch, not while we both try to take control of them. Threydan has not stopped his mental assault once and neither have I.
“Shall we call it a tie?” Threydan asks, his voice slowed considerably from the exertion.
“No. This is only a respite.”
He manages to laugh. “And how long will you keep fighting?”
“Forever. That’s how long I’ll protect those I’m sworn to defend.”
“Not likely. The panaceum will make you forget them soon enough.”
From the deck of the ship, I stare up at the sky. Sweat should drain from every pore in my body. Instead, my muscles simply feel out of my reach, and I can hardly find the words to speak amidst the concentration I must maintain.
As I lie there, waiting for strength to return to my limbs, I listen to the panaceum beating away in Threydan’s chest. It is agonizing to be so aware of it yet separated by layers of meat and bone. This is the object that could be the answer to Threydan’s end, but he has made himself one with it, so he cannot be parted from it.
Unless …
It wasn’t Threydan’s heart I stabbed when he was in that ice coffin.
It was the panaceum. That is how I bonded us. That is how the transformation started. I’d chipped at it. And once he started to hear my memories, he let me in. Let me start to become as he is …
Threydan is not the only one the panaceum obeys now. I am just as bound to it.
Do the undead not attempt to listen to me just as they do Threydan? Am I not capable of sharing all his powers now? He said no one could take the panaceum from him.
But that was back when I was human.
I’m not human anymore.
No, he made it perfectly clear that I was to be exactly as he is. The only one who could share the panaceum’s powers with him.
Let’s put that to the test.
It takes several tries, but eventually I find my feet.
“Can’t I have a few more minutes, dearest?” Threydan asks as he tries to roll up first onto his knees and then his feet. He nearly falls twice. When he does manage to stand, he hunches considerably.
I tighten my grip on my rapier before charging at him. Threydan doesn’t seem to have the energy to do anything at all but let me ram him through the center. I drive him backward with every bit of strength left in me. Eventually the tip of my sword connects with the mainmast, skewering Threydan thoroughly to it.
“Thanks for that,” he says cheekily. “Nice to have something else holding me up for a bit.”
I reach in my clothing for a knife. I slam Threydan’s right hand against the wood, force his fingers open, and drive the point through his open palm.
My second knife is in my hands before he can react to the first. It impales his left hand to the mast on his other side.
He laughs. “You can’t kill me, so now you mean to trap me? I’ve dug myself out of cave-ins and bodies and more. I will free myself from this, too, Sorinda. Your mind will tire eventually. The undead will free me.”
He kicks me, sending me back several feet. I reach into my boot for a third knife and throw it. It slides through his right leg at the ankle, pinning him place.
Throw until you miss.
I grab another knife and hurl it with the practiced ease of one who has thrown knives every day of her life for thirteen years. My aim rarely fails me, especially when I’m desperate.
“Sorinda, stop this foolishness.”
I throw another knife, first through his right shoulder, then another through his left. When he tries to get leverage with his thighs, I pin them in place with knives around the edges of the limbs.
I throw and throw until he’s plastered against that mast with no hope of moving.
Until I have only one knife left.
Threydan laughs as I approach him. Using the tip, I draw an X right over his heart.
That silences him.
“What are you doing?” Threydan asks.
Before his skin can heal itself, I shove my hand into his chest. I place my knife between two of his ribs and use the leverage to crack the top one.
Threydan cannot feel the pain of it, but he screams anyway. “Stop it! Whatever you’re doing, stop it right now!”
“Why? I thought you said I couldn’t kill you.”
He says nothing, only tries to fight against the firm grip of all my knives.
I pry his heart from his chest.
“Please! Dearest, I didn’t mean to put this on you so quickly. You just need time to see. You must understand—”
“I understand plenty,” I say as I stare at his purple heart. The red of the organ mixes with the blue of the panaceum, resulting in a violet glow. I cut into the unmoving flesh, until I see the first signs of the panaceum. It is hardly bigger than a walnut, and it shines like a star in the night sky. Peacock blue.
“Revenge was the first real emotion you ever felt as an immortal,” I explain to him. “It consumed you, because it was all you could feel. It made you desperate, desperate enough to make me like you. But I am your undoing. Because I control the panaceum as much as you do.”
The moment I pry it from his heart, Threydan thrashes so much, he tears part of his skin from my knives, gaining an inch.
Though the skin of his chest now starts to repair itself, the panaceum is already clasped within my hand.
“It belongs to both of us!” he shouts, spittle flying from his lips. “We control it together. We are invincible together. I saw you, bits of your life. I know you’re the perfect match to take on the world with me!”
“It’s your will against mine, Threydan. I fight for my crew and the lives of all the world. You fight only for yourself. Whose will do you think will win in the end?”
It begins in earnest then, that mental battle between the two of us. I close my eyes and see him, both our metaphorical hands clasped upon the panaceum. Each trying to be the one to wrest it from the other.
Except Threydan is all alone. A black void stretches out behind him. It is only his own strength that he uses to try to claim control of the panaceum.