The pitcher of ice water struck Mara before she could protect her face.

The final battle on the slopes of Dragontooth was fought not with armies, but between absolute light and absolute darkness.

Vane charged across the field like a wild beast, his black talons slashing through stone and steel alike. Two royal knights who tried to intercept him were swiped aside like ragdolls.

Julian lunged forward with a low strike, his blade slicing across Vane’s twisted leg. The monster roared in fury, backhanding Julian with enough force to shatter his steel pauldron and send him tumbling fifty feet across the gravel, his sword flying from his hand.

"Julian!" Mara cried out.

Seeing the man who had protected her lying bruised and bleeding on the stone sparked something deep inside Mara's core—not panic, but an absolute, unyielding resolve.

She walked slowly toward the monstrous Duke.

With every step she took, the ground beneath her bare feet sprouted green grass and white lilies, burning away the black rot that Vane’s shadow magic had left behind.

"You took my mother’s life," Mara said, her voice echoing with the unified power of a thousand ancestors. "You stole seventeen years of my father’s joy. You forced me to live in darkness."

Vane lunged at her, his black talons aimed at her throat. "Die, rat!"

Mara didn't dodge. She reached out with both hands, grabbing the monster’s wrists with her bare skin.

The moment her skin touched his corrupted flesh, a blinding pillar of golden solar light shot upward into the stormy dark sky, piercing through the black clouds and illuminating the entire valley for fifty miles around.

Vane shrieked in agony as the divine light poured through his veins, burning away the dark alchemical poison inside him. The black smoke dissolved into sweet-smelling incense, and his oversized, mutated body shrank back down to its frail, human form.

The monstrous power was gone. Duke Vane fell to his knees in the dirt, gasping for breath, his dark magic completely cleansed and destroyed by the purity of the Sunfire crest.

He looked up at Mara, his eyes normal once more, filled with absolute defeat and overwhelming shame.

"It... it was real..." Vane whispered weakly, before collapsing unconscious onto the grass.

Behind them, the heavy iron gates of Castle Dragontooth slowly creaked open. The remaining mercenary guards threw down their weapons, and Lady Celeste walked out with her hands raised in total surrender, weeping bitterly as she knelt in the mud.

Mara didn't look at Celeste. She turned and ran straight to where Julian was pushing himself up from the ground.

"Julian!" she called out, kneeling beside him and placing her warm, glowing hands over the dented armor on his shoulder.

A gentle golden heat seeped through his chest, instantly dulling his pain and mending his broken collarbone. Julian breathed out a sigh of relief, looking up into Mara’s glowing, amber eyes.