Each time he overcommitted I gave him a little more of my flank and a little more of the forest's geography.
He was hungry for the throne, for the Faceless Imposter, for whatever stitched his madness together; baiting it out of him was as easy as waving a bone.
He swallowed it.
"Say his name!" I shouted, my voice cutting through the roar of the wind. "Call your king! Tell him you're coming to steal his crown!"
That did it.
Freedman—no, the thing that used to be Freedman—lurched, his shadowed form twisting violently.
He wasn't just angry now.
He was coming apart. The countless whispers inside him—Velra's fading memories, the parasite's hunger, the fragments of every life he had stolen—were devouring each other.
His entire body convulsed, dark tendrils writhing like snakes in boiling tar.
"Perfect," I muttered under my breath. "Now it's Amelia's turn. Don't disappoint me."
"Lady Amelia! Now is the time!" I shouted.
