Madeira struggled to stay upright as the pain and blood loss wore her down. She could taste magic sizzling on her tongue. Sweet whispers in her ears were telling her to push her soul farther, tear it deeper.
Tipping on the edge of madness, she swiped her sword in a wide arch before opening her arms to the sky. Look what I've done, she wanted to cry. What a show she had put on. A fight to the death, and one remains! The drama, the tears, the suspense! Would the Speakers be impressed? Would Ionu applaud her, would Dira? She had rooted out the evil, and now she would vanquish it in a blaze of glory. Are you proud?
The ascended beings were dragging Jomi across the meadow towards her. The sounds coming from him were animal and brutal and sweet as summer wine. She would destroy him, her right hand was telling her so. Not kill him, no. She couldn't kill a ghost in any way that mattered. But to destroy him like he tried to destroy her...
The aura of the beings was overwhelming. As they stood the ghost in front of her she could feel it wedging itself between her body and her soul, repelling one and attracting the other until it felt like it would tear the two apart. She couldn't imagine what a soul without a body to shelter would feel, but she could guess.
Jomi was still screaming. He was held in place as a formless, chaotic roar of nothing. The rage was gone, the loathing ripped away into a beastial, primal wave of pain and panic. Her showman smile faltered, and she wavered where she stood. Something was wrong here. She had never seen Jomi scared before; not even when the Desolate One blew through their lives. She had never even imagined what that emotion would look like in him, and she found it didn't fit the image of her grand performance. The villain shouldn't be scared.
"No, no, this isn't right. Be mad, Jomi", she breathed, leaning in dangerously close to his whipping soulmist. "I want you angry."
Seizing the feathered souldart in her fist she fought a white wave of unconsciousness as she pulled it out of her shoulder. Everything hurt. It hurt so much. The adrenaline wouldn't keep her standing much longer. Yet the show must go on.
She opened her arms and wrapped them around the wild soul, pressing the fresh wound into him. Then her soul shrank, shuddered, and began to pull.
There was nothing quite like the feeling of dusting a creature. It wasn't taking life, it was imbibing it. It was sipping raw power. And for those few brave students of hers who had ever asked about the taboo practise she could only smile and say: "It's lighting up and burning down all at once. It's like drinking poison from the god's very own chalice."
Jomi couldn't overpower her like this, pinned as he was, held to the open wound and having what was left of his life stolen. Yet through the haze of euphoria that danced electric through the very core of her Madeira could still feel it, the small, persistent feeling that something was wrong.
"Fight back", she demanded, as she could feel his edges start to crumble away. "Jomi, fight back"
Knock me aside, roll away, escape. This wasn't right.
Nausea rolled through her. Her right hand ached, the scar tissue becoming unbearably tight. Her skinny arms contracted around him, her fingers digging into his soul, daring him. "Is this all I get? Did I really make you this weak?" she choked on her gurgling laugh. "Fight back."
Don't let me win.
That one small realization of what she really wanted forced itself up from somewhere deep inside of her. She never expected to get this far, and now that she had reached this point she didn't know what to do. She felt like a little child who hadn't learned their lines before being forced out on stage.
It wasn't supposed to end like this. After all the shyke, after everywhere the story had taken them, after everything they had done together, she wanted them to endure. Not out of love, or camaraderie, or even respect, but because he was the first and only thing that ever truly belonged to Madeira Craven.
Her soul heaved, and the dusting stopped. The thread of power snapped and came rushing back to Jomi, and with sudden force the Spiritist unwound her arms and pushed the suffering spirit away, only to fall over herself. She tripped on her own heavy feet and landed hard on the gouged earth in the middle of the glyph.
In her head was a roar of applause, or perhaps it was the sound of her blood in her ears. Dira forgive her. She couldn't finish the villain and close the curtain. The story couldn't end like this. But there was time for one last monologue.
"This is it!", she laughed, water spilling from her eyes and darkening her dress as she struggled to stand. "You'll always be mine now. I've dug the fire out of the very depths of you. This hate will keep me warm for the rest of my life. So leave! Enjoy her tepid love. Just remember that you'll never burn like this again, except for me."
The ascended beings began to vanish one by one, and without their light the clearing seemed dark and cold even in the middle of the day. Without their harsh otherworldly light the young Spiritist looked somehow softer than before, even with her blue irises fixed and cold in her bloodshot eyes.
"I hate you, I always have, and it was magnificent."