Sous crashed through the shattered doorway and kept rolling down the wide marble stairs that led from the palace into the ruined courtyard.
Zhiliary exploded after her, monstrous body smashing aside the last standing pillars, stone exploding into dust and razor fragments that sliced the air. They hit the open terrace together, dawn light turning every drop of blood into molten ruby.
There were no walls nor no ceiling. Only broken statues, dead fountains, and the vast sky bleeding from blue to black to brutal red.
Zhiliary landed on all fours, claws gouging trenches through flagstones. Pus bubbled from every seal scar, sizzling where it touched stone. Her spine cracked again, vertebrae popping outward like breaking knuckles as she forced herself taller, fifteen feet of twisted meat and fury.
Sous skidded across the terrace on her back, her shoes carving bloody streaks, then flipped upright, blades already lengthening into blue-white scythes that dripped molten particles.
Zhiliary charged.
Sous sprinted straight at her.
CLASH! CLANK!
They collided in the center of the courtyard with a sound like worlds breaking. Claws met blades in an explosion of sparks and shredded flesh.
Zhiliary's talons carved four furrows across Sous's chest, peeling clothes and skin in wet ribbons. Sous answered by driving both bladed arms upward, serrated edges sawing through the Alpha's forearm until bone splintered and black marrow sprayed in thick ropes.
Zhiliary roared, jaws unhinging impossibly wide, and snapped for Sous's head. Sous ducked, felt teeth shear the air above her scalp, then spun inside the bite and rammed her blades into the soft underside of Zhiliary's jaw.
Metal punched through rotten flesh, burst out the top of the skull in a fountain of yellow pus and brain matter. Zhiliary wrenched backward, ripping the blades free in a geyser of filth that painted Sous from crown to boots.
Sous staggered, coughing blood, but Zhiliary was already healing, wounds writhing shut like hungry mouths. The Alpha whipped her ruined arm sideways.
The blow caught Sous across the ribs, lifted her off her feet, and hurled her thirty feet through the air. She slammed into a marble fountain, stone cracking under the impact, water long dried now replaced by her own blood pouring into the basin.
Zhiliary bounded after her, each landing shaking the ground, claws shredding stone to powder. Sous rolled aside as the Alpha's fist pulverized the fountain into gravel. She came up inside Zhiliary's guard, blades flashing in brutal arcs.
One carved a canyon across the Alpha's belly, spilling coils of blackened intestine that steamed on the cold stone. The other hacked deep into Zhiliary's thigh, severing tendons thick as ship cables. The leg buckled, but the flesh knit faster than steel could cut.
Sous ducked a backhand that would have taken her head off, felt the wind tear her hair loose, then leapt, and buried both blades to the elbows in Zhiliary's chest. Blue particles flared white-hot.
She twisted, carving downward, splitting sternum and ribs in a wet explosion of bone shards and lung tissue. Zhiliary's roar became a gurgling scream as black blood jetted twenty feet into the air.
The Alpha seized Sous around the waist with one mangled claw, claws punching through armor into her back, and hurled her straight upward.
Sous flew, blood trailing behind her like a comet tail, then crashed through the branches of a long-dead pixie willow. Wood exploded around her; she hit the ground hard enough to crack the terrace stones beneath her body.
Zhiliary was already there, dragging one ruined leg, jaws dripping, seals pulsing crimson. She dropped her full weight onto Sous, claws pinning shoulders, fangs descending for the killing bite.
Sous met her halfway.
Both bladed forearms punched upward through Zhiliary's descending throat. Metal burst out the back of the Alpha's neck in a crimson geyser.
Sous kept pushing, sawing sideways until the head tore half off, hanging by strips of sinew and skin. Black blood poured over her like tar.
Zhiliary's body convulsed, claws raking blindly, carving fresh trenches across Sous's ribs and thighs. Sous twisted the blades deeper, felt vertebrae snap, then wrenched them free in twin fountains of gore.
The Alpha collapsed sideways, monstrous bulk shaking the terrace, limbs twitching, seals flickering like dying embers. Sous rolled clear, coughing blood, blades retracting into normal arms that trembled with exhaustion.
She rose slowly, slipping in the lake of blood and filth that now covered half the courtyard. Dawn painted everything red: sky, stone, flesh, steel.
Zhiliary's remaining eye fixed on her, milky and hateful, jaws working soundlessly. Sous walked forward, picked up one severed claw the size of a longsword, and drove it down through the Alpha's skull until stone cracked beneath.
Only then did the seals finally go dark.
Sous stood over the corpse, chest heaving, blood pouring from a dozen mortal wounds that refused to close fast enough. She looked toward the broken palace doors where distant voices shouted her name.
Then she dropped to her knees in the slaughter, closed her eyes, and let the morning sun burn the battlefield clean.
The terrace went still except for the wet drip of blood from broken statues. Sous turned away, one step, two, toward the voices calling from the palace. Then the corpse behind her twitched.
But...
The blood began to swirl around Zhiliary and that horrible sound of bones being put together ranged in Sous' ears.
Snap, pop!
A wet pop. Then another. Bone shards knitted with obscene sucking sounds. The severed head rolled upright, dangling neck tendons writhing like blind worms, reattaching with wet clicks.
Zhiliary's remaining eye ignited yellow, the milky one clearing to burning gold. Seals that had gone dark flared again, brighter, angrier, carving fresh brands across the ruined flesh. Black veins bulged beneath the patchy fur, pumping something thicker than blood.
Sous spun as the corpse surged upright in one impossible motion. The claw she had buried in its skull snapped off at the wrist and clattered away. Zhiliary's jaws stretched wider than before, splitting skin to the ears, revealing a second row of teeth pushing out like shark growth.
The torso inflated, ribs cracking outward to make room for new organs that pulsed visibly beneath translucent skin. Pus turned to molten tar, bubbling from every wound sealing with a hiss of steam.
Zhiliary took one shambling step, dragging the ruined leg that instantly straightened, bone grinding into place. The air stank of sulfur and hot iron. She opened her maw and vomited a torrent of black blood that ate into the marble like acid.
Sous's blades flared back to life, weaker now, flickering. Zhiliary's broken laugh gurgled out, wet and triumphant, as the monster rose taller than ever, ready for another round.