Finally, the fire died down. Finally, she could breath air that wasn't smoke and heat. She rose on unsteady legs, weaving, calling something else in she'd hidden away, something she never expected to need again.
Her lip curled. She was calling on too much of the succubus she'd once been, the succubus she'd thought well banished, but she had...to do...this. Tonight, while she was this dark. Tonight, while the land was quiet. Her lip curled, staring at the vessel, at the slow, liquid flames rising and falling inside.
For every request, a sacrifice.
She stabbed two talons on each hand deep into her wrists and held them over the fire in the vessel, watching as her blood fell, hissed, sank, subsumed within the slow-moving flames. Rising up again red, not yellow.
Accepted.
She leaned in, breathing in the offering, the flames returning to gold. Tasting ash and copper on her tongue. Falling into pattern. Sweep left, scream, coat a tentacle with clinging flame. Watch it burn.
One more breath. No time, no will, just action. Sweep right, scream again, coat another tentacle, until it burned away.
Around the room, protrusion after protrusion. Lips cracked and seared. Again and again.
For every sacrifice, an action.
She breathed in the last of the offering, rising, rising. The splintered daggers spinning at her back, faster and faster. She stared into the heart of the rift, could dimly make out the first shoals of the steps she'd taken to retrieve Athena. No more. No MORE.
Another scream, her vocal cords stripping, anguished tone, tasting fresh blood on the back of her tongue. Needed. No other choice. She sent the first gout of flame deep into the odd mirror universe on the other side.
The last of her energy. The last of her will. One last, fiery scream, ending in savage, wet coughing, spattering the crawling liquid fire on the surface with bright red. One...last...push...
And finally, at last, she watched the rift burn.
(Continued in part LXXVI.)
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