Darian's POV
The possessed Elara-body lunges at me with the Lance of Sorrow, and I barely dodge in time.
"MOVE LEFT!" Elara screams in my mind. "She's faster than she looks!"
I roll left. The Lance stabs through the space where my chest was a second ago. Black energy drips from its blade, burning holes in the ground.
"Garrett! Nyx! Stay back!" I shout. "This is between me and her!"
The thing wearing Elara's original body laughs. It sounds like breaking glass. "Smart boy. This IS between us. Between the two Elaras. The broken one in your sword and the perfect one standing before you."
"That's not me!" Real-Elara rages. "That's a corrupted fragment controlling my body!"
"Then help me stop it!" I think back.
Our bond pulses with power. Elara's consciousness floods into my muscles, my reflexes, my instincts. We move together—me providing the body, her providing three centuries of combat knowledge.
We're faster now. Stronger.
The Lance strikes again. We dodge, spin, and counter-attack.
Our blade—the Blade of Remembrance—clashes against the Lance. Red light explodes against black. The impact sends shockwaves through the camp, knocking soldiers off their feet.
"Impressive," the possessed body says. "You two are learning to work together. But let me show you what REAL synchronization looks like."
The body's eyes turn completely black. The Lance's spirit fully possesses it, and suddenly the woman moves like liquid death.
She's not just fast. She's INHUMAN.
"Elara, I can't keep up!"
"Yes you can! Trust me!"
She pushes deeper into our bond. Suddenly I'm not just hearing her voice—I'm THINKING with her mind. Her thoughts become my thoughts. Her reflexes become my reflexes.
We're not two people working together anymore.
We're ONE.
I see the Lance coming before it strikes. Feel the possessed body shifting weight before it moves. Predict every attack like I've fought this opponent a thousand times.
Because Elara HAS fought this opponent. She knows the Lance intimately—it was in her original collection.
"It attacks in patterns of three," Elara's knowledge flows into me. "Thrust, sweep, overhead. Then it always—"
"—creates distance to reset,"I finish, somehow knowing this is true.
We fight as one being. Duck under the Lance's sweep. Parry the overhead strike. And when the possessed body tries to create distance—
We're already there.
Our blade cuts across the body's arm. Not deep enough to kill, but deep enough to hurt.
The possessed body screams. Black blood drips from the wound—not Elara's blood, but the Lance's corrupted energy.
"You'll pay for that!" it shrieks.
"Wait," Elara says suddenly. "Something's wrong. That body—my original body—shouldn't be able to handle full possession. The soul inside is too weak. So why—"
The possessed body's wound closes instantly. Black energy crawls across the skin like living shadows.
"Oh no."
"What?" I demand.
"The Lance is eating the body's life force to maintain possession. That woman—Elara Mercer—she's being consumed from the inside. If we don't stop this soon, there won't be anything left of her!"
My stomach drops. "You're killing an innocent person!"
"Innocent?" The possessed body spits. "This placeholder was never really alive. Just a shell waiting for the REAL Elara to claim it. I'm doing her a favor."
"That's not true!" Real-Elara shouts through me. "She was a PERSON! She had a life!"
Rage floods through our bond. Not my rage—Elara's. Three hundred years of fury at being trapped, forgotten, treated like an object instead of a person.
The Blade of Remembrance blazes brighter.
"Let me out," Elara demands. "I need to manifest. I need to face this thing directly!"
"But it'll drain my energy! You saw what happened last time!"
"I know! But if we don't stop the Lance now, that body dies! My body dies! Please, Darian!"
I feel her desperation. Her guilt. Her need to save the only other version of herself in this world.
"Fine. Do it!"
Elara explodes outward in a burst of red light. She manifests beside me—ghostly, translucent, but visible.
The possessed body's eyes widen. "Impossible. You can't maintain form and fight simultaneously!"
"Watch me," Ghost-Elara snarls.
What happens next is the most bizarre thing I've ever experienced.
Elara splits her consciousness. Part stays in the sword, flowing through our bond to guide my movements. Part inhabits her ghostly form, engaging the Lance directly.
We're fighting as TWO bodies but ONE mind.
I attack from the left. Ghost-Elara attacks from the right. The possessed body tries to defend against me and stumbles right into Elara's ghostly hand.
She grabs the Lance directly.
Both scream.
Through our bond, I feel Elara's consciousness slam into the Lance's corrupted spirit. Two fragments of the same shattered soul, finally meeting.
"I remember you now," Elara gasps. "You're my rage. The anger I felt when Morgana betrayed me. The fury I couldn't express because I was too shocked, too hurt. You're the piece of me that wanted REVENGE."
"AND I'M GLORIOUS!" the Lance-spirit shrieks. "I'm what you should have been! Strong! Angry! Willing to DESTROY!"
"You're what I COULD have become if I let the darkness win. But I won't. I WON'T!"
Elara pulls.
She's trying to absorb the Lance's fragment back into herself. Trying to make herself whole again.
But the corrupted piece fights back viciously.
The battle happens in seconds, but through our bond, I experience every moment. Feel Elara struggling against her own worst impulses. Feel the Lance trying to corrupt her, turn her evil.
"Elara!" I scream. "Don't let it take you!"
My energy drains rapidly. Maintaining her manifestation AND fighting the Lance's influence is killing me.
Black spots dance in my vision. My legs shake.
But I don't let go of the sword. Won't let go.
Nyx appears beside me. "Darian, stop! This will kill you both!"
"I don't care!" I shout back.
And I mean it. In just a few days, this sword—this woman—has become more important to me than revenge. More important than my throne.
More important than my own life.
"Darian, you idiot," Elara's voice is weak in my mind. "Why are you so ready to die for me?"
"Because you're the first person in six months who didn't betray me. Because you understand what it's like to lose everything. Because—" I force the thought out even though it terrifies me.—because I can't lose you too."
Through our bond, she feels the truth. Feels that I'm falling for her. For a ghost. For a sword.
For the impossible.
Her manifestation solidifies. Just a little. Just enough.
"Then I won't let you die," she promises.
She makes a choice.
Instead of absorbing the Lance-fragment, she DESTROYS it.
Uses her own consciousness like a weapon. Shatters the corrupted piece of her soul into a million fragments that dissolve into nothing.
The Lance of Sorrow screams as its spirit dies. The weapon falls from the possessed body's hands and crumbles to rust.
The body collapses.
Elara's manifestation flickers and vanishes. She slams back into the sword so hard I stagger.
"Elara? ELARA!"
"I'm here," she whispers weakly. "Just... tired. So tired."
I rush to the collapsed body. It's breathing. Alive.
Nyx checks for a pulse. "She'll survive. The possession broke when the Lance's spirit died."
Relief floods through me. We saved her. Saved Elara's original body.
But at what cost?
"I destroyed part of myself," Elara murmurs in my mind. "That rage, that anger—it was still ME. And now it's gone forever."
"Are you okay?"
I don't know. I feel... lighter? But also emptier. Like I'm missing something I can never get back."
Before I can respond, the body on the ground opens its eyes.
They're clear now. Fully human. The possession is gone.
"What..." Elara Mercer croaks. "What happened? Where am I?"
"You're safe," Nyx tells her gently. "The possession is broken. You're free."
Elara Mercer sits up slowly. Looks around at the camp. At the soldiers. At me.
At the sword in my hand.
"I felt something," she whispers. "When that thing was inside me. Another person. Someone who felt... familiar. Like looking in a mirror."
"She felt me," Elara realizes. "During the possession, she felt my consciousness."
Elara Mercer stares at the Blade of Remembrance. "There's someone in that sword. Someone who sounds like me. Thinks like me. Someone who—"
She stops. Her eyes go wide with impossible understanding.
"That's me, isn't it? The real me. And I'm just..."
"A placeholder," I finish softly. "I'm sorry."
Elara Mercer looks at her hands. At her body. At the life she thought was her own.
"I'm not even real," she breathes.
"You ARE real!" Elara shouts from the sword. "You have thoughts! Feelings! Memories! You're a PERSON!"
But Elara Mercer can't hear her.
She stands on shaking legs. "I need... I need to think. To understand. I'm sorry, I have to—"
She runs. Just takes off into the forest before anyone can stop her.
"Should we follow her?" Garrett asks.
"No," I say quietly. "Let her go. She deserves space to process this."
"I destroyed part of myself and traumatized my other self in the same day," Elara says miserably. "I'm doing great."
"You saved her life. You saved all of us."
"At what cost?"
Before I can answer, a soldier runs up.
"My lord! A messenger bird just arrived from the capital. From... from Lady Celeste."
My blood goes cold. "What does it say?"
The soldier hands me a note. I read it aloud:
"Dear Darian and dear OTHER me. I know you destroyed the Lance. I felt it die. That's fine—I never liked that fragment anyway. Too angry, not enough SMART. But now I have something better. The Bow of Truth has bonded with me. And unlike you two amateurs, I know EXACTLY how to use it. See you at the coronation. Try not to die before I can kill you myself. Love and murders, Celeste."
Silence.
"She has the Bow," Elara whispers."The fragment that contains my intelligence. My strategic thinking. My ability to plan."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning Celeste just got dangerously smart. And she knows everything about how these weapons work."
I look at the sword. At my exhausted, traumatized, magnificent partner trapped inside.
"Then we'd better get smarter too."
"How?"
"By doing what she doesn't expect. By collecting the other weapons before she does."
"There are still three left. The Axe in the north. The Dagger with Lucian. And the Shield—which nobody can find."
"Then we split up. Garrett takes a team north for the Axe. I take a team to the capital for the Dagger. And—"
"And I find the Shield," Nyx interrupts. "I'm the best tracker we have."
It's risky. Splitting our already small force three ways.
But it's our only chance.
"Darian?" Elara asks. "When this is over—when we've collected all the fragments—what happens to me?"
"What do you mean?"
"If I absorb all seven pieces of my soul, I'll be whole again. Complete. But I'll also be impossibly powerful. Too powerful. What if I become a monster?"
I grip the sword tighter. "Then I'll be there to remind you who you really are. We're in this together, remember?"
"Together," she echoes softly.
But neither of us mentions the elephant in the room:
We're bonded so deeply now that separating us is impossible.
Which means when this is over, we have two choices:
Find a way to transfer Elara to her original body and hope our souls survive the separation.
Or stay bonded forever, slowly merging until there's no Darian and no Elara.
Just something new. Something neither of us can predict.
And I realize I don't know which option terrifies me more.