Black Moon Draw

It's strangely quiet behind me. I turn, dreading to see what I've done.

Wow. I didn't just fling him away; I threw the Desert Knight a good thirty feet. He's climbing to his feet, surprise and rage on his face. Unfortunately, he's recovering faster than I am, trotting towards us, unfazed by the shock.

I feel sluggish and climb to my feet, wobble, and manage to recover my balance a second before he grabs my arm again.

I catch the flash of steel barely in time to fling myself away. He grabs me around the waist and the knife drops once more. Bracing for hot pain, I wait, only for him to release and shove me away.

I catch myself against a tree and pat my body down, startled I'm not dead or hurt or missing any limbs.

The medallion is gone. Frantically, I search the layers of clothing without finding it and whip around in time to see him throwing it to the ground. The Desert Knight plucks an axe free from his waist.

He's going to crush the key to the Shadow Knight breaking the curse.

"No!" I shout, lunging forward.

Someone else snatches me, and I react instinctively, slamming a heel into the top of his foot and wrenching forward to knock him off balance.

"Witch, desist this now!" the Red Knight hisses.

I jam an elbow into his solar plexus.

He grunts but doesn't let go.

"I cannot . . . protect you, if you attack him!" he says quietly enough for only me to hear.

"I need the medallion!"

"Stop." Lifting me off my feet, he shakes me.

He's not letting me go. Exhausted, horrified, I give up and hang onto his arm and pray the medallion is indestructible.

The axe rises and falls the way it did when the Desert Knight's ancestor claimed the heads of the former Shadow Knight and his queen.

Any hope I have of the medallion withstanding the blow shatters with the Heart of Black Moon Draw. It smashes into a million tiny pieces, like glass.

I can't move, can't breathe.

This world is going to die, and any hope I had of helping save lies in shards.

The Heart and magic of Black Moon Draw are destroyed.

As if the kingdom feels it, the ground beneath our feet rumbles. I cling to the Red Knight. The trembling doesn't last long, and I look from the ground to Westley, who's staring at the sky.

The fog above the mountains is transforming from light to dark gray, the color of thunderclouds. A piercing wind whips by us from the ocean and I twist, observing in dread as the new color of fog races through the skies away from Black Moon Draw and into the rest of the realm.