My mind wrenched back to the moment I faced the ooze. I left a furrow in the gray thorax, a long line following its concave curve before my blade reached his side and thrust past him beneath his arm. I couldn’t see exactly what Aingeal was doing. How could I hurt her? Maybe we could just hunt her down and kill her… “Do you even have a cock any longer?”
“I think I’ll just eat her,” Prince Meinard answered, his mandibles clacking as he rose to his feet, his limbs twisted and segmented in strange ways, fingers ending in sharp claws. Wind buffeted us. That he’d distilled the very essence of art. Flames half-obscured him. He thrust his sword out before him, the chiseled-sharp point lancing right for my chest. He had become a monster himself, molting away his human exterior. He cursed, twisting as I punched my right fist at his neck, katar jutting before my attack, a thick, triangular claw. He flattened his body to the ground.
