Healer's Nightmare

The Burned Watchtower slept on the outskirts, a survivor of the first Great Conflagration. Since then, fever winds have infested the city of Ravencross.

Ash drifted like dead snowflakes through the stale air near the Burned Watchtower. The spiral staircase wound upward like a serpent's spine, its forged iron walls pressing closer with every turn, as if the tower itself sought to crush her beneath the weight of its charred sorrows.

The steps rumbled beneath her feet, releasing puffs of gray that danced in the dim light filtering through arrowslit windows. Each offered a brief glimpse of Ravencross below, the city's infested streets glowing with a sickening purple hue beneath the rising moon. The wind that whistled through the gaps in the stone carried the taste of burnt offering and sand.

Mara's hand traced the cold wall, her fingers combing the dust as she climbed. The Plague Token in her pocket seared through with a ghostly chill, while the ledger tucked against her chest pulsed with its own poisoned heartbeat. She had shed the former shadow that would've acknowledged it a grievous sin to possess these objects.

The higher she climbed, the more the air grew thinner and colder. Her throat tightened; whether from the ash or fear, she couldn't confirm. The memory of the shadow-weaver's death in the Black Market District played behind her eyes with each footfall. She had killed him—she was certain of it—yet something in her bones told her that death hadn't been enough to stop such a beast. Shadow-weavers usually execute their missions alone. One would choose death over assisting or coordinating with their own brethren. No one would be seeking vengeance for such a ruthless assassin. All the given clues strung together nothing less than a dire contradiction.

As she neared the top of the tower, moonlight spilled down the final curve of stairs like molten silver. The air thickened with a promise of blood. Mara's hand instinctively moved to her trusty dagger strapped to her belt, though she knew the Artifact alone would offer little protection against what awaited her. Luck delivered her once from the fate she staked, but would it play the same card twice? Unlike the last confrontation, there was no Lightning Nectar in her blood.

The top chamber of the Burned Watchtower gaped before her like the mouth of a dragon. Moonlight poured through the broken ceiling, casting sharp shadows across the ash-covered floor. And there, in the center of it all, stood the devil, whole and unchanged, as if death had been nothing more than an inconvenience. In one hand, he held the Grimoire, its pages flipping in the night breeze, and in another...

"Lily!" The name tore from Mara's throat before she could stop it, echoing off the ancient walls. Her sister stood silent beside the shadow-weaver, her small hand clasped in his, her face hidden beneath the fall of her copper locks. 

"The ledger and the token," he said, his voice carrying the same hollow resonance she remembered from their last encounter. "Hand them over, and your sister's free to go."

Mara's blood clogged in her veins. 

That scar!

This was the same man she witnessed in the Black Market District she dispatched. Yet here he stood, rejuvenated and overflowing with an ominous aura.

"How the hell are you here?" she demanded. "I killed you."

The shadow-weaver answered with silence.

Lily hadn't moved or spoken. She hadn't given any sign that she recognized her sister's presence. The sight of her so still, so unlike her usually vibrant self, made Mara's heart clench. Whatever illusion the shadow-weaver stitched before her, she couldn't risk Lily's safety.

With a steady hand, Mara withdrew the Token from her jacket. 

Its cold bite lingered on her fingers as she drew it from her pocket. The rusty metal disc caught the moonlight as she tossed it in a high arc toward the shadow-weaver as it spun through the air.

The shadow-weaver released Lily's hand and caught the token. The moment his fingers closed around the metal, something changed. The air in the chamber grew thicker, heavy with a flash that mocked a lightning bolt's glow. The shadow-weaver's form wavered, and his mouth opened in a scream that shattered the serene silence. The sound layered itself in several voices of rage and pain compressed into a deafening cacophony. His form began to dissolve, darkness peeling away from him, revealing nothing but void beneath.

The Infernal Grimoire fell from his dissolving fingers, landing with a heavy thud on the floor. In moments, all that remained of the shadow-weaver was a pile of ashes.

Mara rushed forward, her boots leaving deep prints in the ash as she ran to Lily. Her sister hadn't moved during the shadow-weaver's dissolution, standing as still as an oblivious statue.

"Lily!" Mara dropped to her knees before her sister, pulling her into a tight embrace. Tears cascaded from her eyes as she pressed her face into Lily's chest. A chest void of warmth and heartbeat, yet Mara didn't dare question the conflict. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry I let them take you. You're safe now—"

Agony pierced Mara like a gunshot, sharp and unforgivable. Something had stabbed through her abdomen. Mara released her hold on Lily and stumbled backward, her hands tending to the hole. 

Where Lily's right hand should have been, a crystalline spike extended, its surface slick with Mara's blood. Her sister's lips had curved into a dead smile she had never worn before. As Mara watched, coughing up blood. As a gust of wind swept through the chamber, it pushed Lily's hair back from her face, revealing eyes that sparkled like rubies in the moonlight. Gone were the familiar emerald eyes that had looked to Mara for protection and love. 

Mara forced the words up her throat, but blood filled her mouth, hot with a tang of iron. The pain in her abdomen intensified with each heartbeat. She tried to push herself up and face whatever abomination beneath her sister's skin. However, Mara's vision darkened at the edges and blurred with each breath. As pitch-black infected her vision, she watched a sharp blade slice through her sister's neck and cleaved it off from the rest of her body.

"Lily…"