Navarro's caravan escaped the causeway in slow, grinding increments. Panicked horses ignored commands as drivers whipped them mercilessly, fighting to maintain control over animals that wanted nothing more than to escape danger. Iron wheels groaned over wooden boards turned wet by swamp water and rain, while hooves struck sparks against the slick, muddy wood.

Ember's attack blazed brighter as she accelerated to speeds that blurred her movements into a golden streak. She darted between hydra heads like a firefly teasing predators.

Flame spears scored deep furrows in armored scales, drawing streams of black blood and terrible roars—but the wounds closed as fast as she could carve them.

A head struck from her blind spot, jaws clamping down on her left arm, teeth punching through the reinforced leather and cutting into her flesh. Ember screamed as the hydra lifted her from the bridge, shaking her like a terrier with a rat.

Pain exploded through her limb as muscle tore and bones cracked under the crushing pressure of jaws built to crush stone and iron. The world swam with agony, turning everything into flashes of light and color as the hydra flung her about.

She forced her flames to respond, pouring everything she had into the hydra's mouth and throat. Superheated air expanded in the confined space, creating pressures that should have forced the creature to release her. Instead, it bit down harder, severing her arm just below the elbow.

She dropped to the causeway, her severed limb disappearing down the hydra's gullet while blood fountained from the stump where her forearm used to be. The shock of sudden amputation left her gasping, her vision graying at the edges as her body tried to process the trauma.

Distantly, someone shouted her name.

Ember forced herself back to her feet. Blood loss left her dizzy and disoriented, but she had no time to waste on something as trivial as pain. Her fire responded instinctively, cauterizing the wound to stop the worst of the bleeding while she limped away from the oncoming hydra.

Its heads converged on her position, sensing weakness. She rolled aside, using her remaining arm to push herself away from snapping jaws, but her movements had lost their fluid grace.

Blood loss and shock were slowing her down at exactly the wrong moment.

A tail whip caught her across the ribs, lifting her from the bridge and sending her crashing into the causeway's wooden railings.

The impact drove the air from her lungs while splinters bit into her back. The taste of blood filled her mouth, thick and metallic, and she felt the grinding sensation of broken ribs shifting against each other.

The hydra pressed its advantage, three heads striking simultaneously from different angles. Ember managed to avoid two of them, but the third caught her leg in its jaws, teeth punching through bone as easily as paper.

This time she was ready for the pain.

Instead of fighting it, she used it, converting agony into rage and rage into fire. Her flames erupted from every pore, turning her into a golden inferno.

The hydra released her leg—or what remained of it—and retreated across the causeway. Its flesh blackened where she'd struck it, but that damage would repair soon enough.

Ember hit the causeway, now missing her right leg below the knee. She pushed herself upright with her remaining arm, balancing precariously on her intact leg while golden fire wreathed her form like living armor.

She stared down at the bleeding stump where her leg used to be, then smiled grimly.

If the hydra wanted to take her pieces, she'd make new ones.

After cauterizing the wound, she focused her fire downward, shaping flames into a solid construct that extended from her severed limb. The prosthetic leg wasn't flesh—it was pure thermal energy given form, golden fire that supported her weight while radiating heat that turned the wooden boards beneath her feet into charcoal.

She glanced over her shoulder—the caravan's wagons were within feet of the causeway's far end, Navarro frantically shouting for their retreat.

But retreat wasn't enough.

She wasn't letting this monster terrorize people again.

"Is that all you've got?" she snarled at the hydra, spitting blood while testing her balance on her makeshift limb.

The creature's heads weaved through the air, suddenly cautious. Its regeneration seemed to have slowed, and several wounds oozed steaming fluids, but Ember had no idea how much punishment it could take, or how long its regeneration would take to be overwhelmed.

Too long.

She had to try something different. Something reckless.

The hydra struck again, all five heads moving in perfect coordination.

This time, Ember was ready. Her fire-leg provided thrust as she launched herself upward, thermal propulsion carrying her above the creature's reach in a golden streak that left fire hanging in the air behind her.

At the apex of her jump, she reversed direction and dove, accelerating like a falling comet as she plunged toward one of the head's waiting jaws.

Foolishness might be in her nature, but headfirst charges weren't.

She hit the hydra's neck, her flames carving through flesh and bone in a shower of viscera. The head sailed free of its body, severed and tumbling through the air for a brief, comical moment before landing with a dull thud on the causeway's wood.

Ember landed in a crouch, her injured limbs protesting beneath the exertion. She rose slowly, shaking her head to clear the vertigo brought on by pain and fatigue.

The hydra's body twitched, the stump of its neck steaming and blackened from her assault.

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Then it began to grow back.

Not just healing—the severed neck was extending from the stump, a new head forming at its tip like a grotesque flower blooming in fast-forward. The other heads writhed and hissed in obvious pain, but the new appendage showed no signs of slowing. Moments later, the hydra had fully regenerated its missing head and turned its five angry gazes on Ember.

"Okay," she said, breathing heavily as golden flames burned around her. "What the hell am I gonna do with you?"

The beast hunched defensively, watching her with too many angry eyes. The snaking necks seemed hesitant, almost nervous, as though reassessing whether she was worth the effort.

She grinned, bloody teeth flashing in a madwoman's smile.

"If you're waiting for me to die," she said, her flames roaring, "get in fucking line."

The hydra roared with all five heads and rushed forward in a torrent of scales and teeth.

"Ember!"

Elena's voice cut through the creature's roar as the archer came running down the causeway toward her, her bow drawn and arrow nocked. She'd returned, defying Marcus's orders to abandon the fight.

"Elena, no!" Gareth's voice followed as he charged behind the younger woman. "You mad girl!"

"Couldn't leave you to die alone," Elena called, loosing an arrow that took one of the hydra's heads in the eye.

The beast screamed and reared back, giving Ember a chance to scramble away as its weight shook the causeway. She staggered backward, somehow managing to balance on her injured leg, but collapsed when her false appendage gave out beneath her weight.

Thomas appeared next, his staff blazing with combat magic.

"Sorry we're late," he said, sending a bolt of lightning that struck the hydra's body. "Had to convince Marcus that cowardice wasn't a family virtue."

Alessio materialized from nowhere, daggers already flashing as he struck at the creature's vulnerable spots. His blades opened new wounds in armored flesh, spilling oily blood across the causeway. The hydra recoiled and struck at him with fangs and claws, but the rogue vanished mid-strike and reappeared a dozen paces away, unscathed.

The Iron Hawks had returned. Not all of them—Marcus was nowhere to be seen—but enough to matter. Enough to give her one last chance.

Gareth reached her first, dropping to one knee as he looked down at Ember's injured limbs.

"Your arm..." he started.

Ember grunted. "My leg, too. Hydra got hungry."

Gareth swore, pulling a healing potion from his pouch and handing it to her. "I don't think any magic can regrow that."

She drank the potion, coughed, and handed the empty vial back to him. "Didn't think so. Thanks for coming back."

He patted her back before charging forward to join the fight, his axe and shield carving arcs through the air to intercept a snapping hydra head. Elena provided covering fire, pinning the creature down in a flurry of well-aimed arrows that scored small wounds and distracted the hydra.

"Ember!" Alessio called, leaping over snapping jaws. "Going to need some fire here!"

"Got plenty!" she snarled, her flames reigniting from her own indignant fury.

Their help wasn't going to be enough.

And she was sure they knew that.

The hydra's regeneration kept pace with their attacks, healing faster than they could damage it. What they needed was something decisive—a single, devastating blow to end the fight.

There was only one way Ember could do that.

"Keep it distracted," she ordered, her flames building with every heartbeat, as though sensing the grand finale that was approaching. "I have an idea."

"You have half your limbs missing," Gareth pointed out while deflecting a head strike with his shield. "Maybe let us handle this."

"This is A-rank," Elena added, releasing her sixth arrow in as many seconds. The hydra recoiled beneath the barrage, hissing and spitting acidic blood. "You can't take it alone."

"Don't worry." Ember grinned, staggering upright on her one remaining leg and the fake one she'd constructed from thermal energy. "This one's on me."

She'd been fighting smart, trying to conserve energy and find clever solutions. But some problems couldn't be solved with clever. Some problems required you to throw everything you had at them and hope it was sufficient.

If that wasn't enough, she'd throw more. And if that still wasn't enough, she'd throw more. And more, until it was or she burned herself out trying.

The Iron Hawks threw themselves into battle with desperate courage. Elena's arrows found their mark with each shot, targeting eyes and soft spots beneath the jaw, forcing heads to flinch away from their intended strikes.

Gareth planted himself at the causeway's center, his massive frame becoming an immovable obstacle. His axe slashed and cut while his shield turned aside snapping jaws. He never faltered, never retreated, never gave ground.

Thomas unleashed his full arsenal of combat magic, staff blazing like a captured star. Concussion blasts hammered the creature's central mass while binding spells wrapped around necks, slowing their movements enough for the others to exploit openings. Lightning arced between his fingers, dancing along the hydra's scales to burn exposed flesh whenever he found an opening.

Alessio became a blur of shadows and steel, appearing and vanishing around the hydra's massive form. His daggers carved through thick hide, tracing black lines where acidic blood hissed and smoked with each cut.

"Whatever you're planning," Thomas shouted over the din of battle, "do it now!"

Ember had no idea if she was ready, if she had enough energy stored up to do what she intended. She only knew that she had to try.

Her flames erupted in a column of golden fire that reached toward the sky like a beacon, bright enough to be seen for miles. The temperature around her spiked beyond anything she'd ever generated, hot enough to turn sand to glass and stone to slag. Her fire-leg became a pillar of incandescent energy that turned the wooden planks beneath her into ash.

The hydra's heads snapped toward her, sensing the sudden change. All five heads tried to converge on her position, but the Iron Hawks weren't finished.

"Not today!" Gareth roared, his shield slamming into the nearest head with enough force to send it reeling. Elena's arrows pinned another head's eyes, blinding it just as it struck. Thomas's magic created a barrier that deflected two more heads, while Alessio's daggers found the nerve clusters that controlled their movement.

"Go!" Elena screamed, firing arrow after arrow to keep the heads at bay. "Finish it!"

If the hydra's regeneration was too efficient for them to handle using attrition, she'd give it something so big it would burn out all of them.

Ember accelerated through the gap the Iron Hawks had created. "Fall back! Get far away!"

She closed on the monster in a streak of fire that carved a trench through the causeway's planks. Wood blackened in her wake, reduced to cinders from the heat of her passage. The hydra roared and charged forward, abandoning its pursuit of the Iron Hawks to turn its full fury on her.

This time, Ember didn't slow for it—she only accelerated.

With one hand, Ember struck. Her fist plunged through armored scales, searing flesh and boiling blood as it carved through the creature's body. The fire pouring off her in waves sent ripples of heat distortion through the air and vaporized the nearby swamp water.

And then she let herself burn.

She pulled everything—every spark of power, every fragment of flame, every connection to the fire that made her who she was. Her body became a conduit for forces that human flesh was never meant to channel.

Ember smiled through bloody lips as she felt her awareness burn away. She closed her eyes and let the darkness take her, satisfied that when her sister-selves brought her back tomorrow, she'd at least have a good story to share.

The explosion, when it came, was visible from miles away.

A pillar of flame erupted from the bog, reaching toward the sky like a signal beacon that lit up the marsh like a second sun. The hydra's death shriek echoed across the wetlands as its entire body burst into conflagration.

The last thing Ember heard was Elena crying.

The last thing she felt was peace.

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