Chapter 710: I’ve Faced Worse Odds

"To the death. Are you sure, Hollowcrown?" Serena asked, wanting to confirm one final time. The mercy was genuine.

Hollowcrown started laughing. "Yes. I am sure. But judging by the fact you are unarmed, I am going to extend the same offer to you."

"I’ve faced worse odds," Serena replied, unbothered. The understatement of the century. She had faced worse odds before breakfast on multiple occasions. She had faced worse odds this week. She was facing worse odds with a dark tether on her soul and her magic at one percent and the one percent wasn’t even the thing she was worried about.

"Sure you have. Alright. I take no joy in this. On your move, girl."

Serena didn’t wait.

WHOOSH.

Two gold blades fabricated in her hands at the same time, both igniting with gold flame before they fully formed.

The fire was dramatic. She may have overdone it by a hair. May have. The qualifier was generous. The floor was warm. The first three rows could feel it. She had absolutely overdone the fire and the overdoing was working exactly as intended.

The gap between how badass it looked and how badass it actually was remained Serena’s most closely guarded secret.

She was already moving towards Hollowcrown with zero hesitation, both blades whipping in a vicious rotation at her sides, slicing the air and leaving light in their wake.

Pure theater. She could feel Dexmon and Gavriel’s surprise through her matebond with each and under any other circumstances, she would have grinned at them both. But at the moment she was about to kill someone and needed to focus.

"Last chance," she called, still moving towards Hollowcrown.

Every set of eyes in the building was locked on her and not a single one of them was blinking. Good. That was the point of this. They would not question her seat again. She would only have to do this once.

Hollowcrown clapped. Slow. Three times. The clapping echoed off the stone.

"Cute trick. Yes, I’ve heard all about this."

He had heard about it. He had not understood it. Hearing and understanding were separated by the distance between a rumor and a reality, and the reality was walking toward him on fire.

Hollowcrown held up a hand. "Alright. You’ve made your point, Lu—"

His hand went to his sword and the sword left his grip mid-sentence, like he had been trying to fake Serena out. A throw. Full force. The steel crossed the distance between them end over end, aimed at her chest.

Cute. She had seen that before in Orosia.

Serena moved at Alpha speed. The sword passed through the space she had occupied a fraction of a second earlier. She didn’t stop, still moving in a blur, so fast that only the Alphas in the room would be able to track it properly.

Good.

She swung.

SHHCK.

His head was removed from his body mid-shift, before his wolf could come. She knew he was mid-shift because his hands had changed into claws at Alpha speed. She clocked it mid-swing.

She also was aware that if she had delayed killing him any longer, both Dexmon and Gavriel were also starting to shift and the fight would have been interrupted.

Serena stopped suddenly, because Alpha speed was something she had control over and the Alphas could track that too.

Hollowcrown’s body stood for a full second, the shift retreating. She dropped both weapons and turned her back on the body while it was still standing. Both blades vanished before either hit the ground.

The head hit the stone first. The body followed.

Both blades vanishing before the head even hit the stone took a level of mastery that most of the Master Mages in this room did not have. They had just watched a woman drop two fabricated weapons and disintegrate them over her shoulder without looking back, and the looking back was what separated a woman who could fabricate from a woman who owned it.

All of this was for show.

Every single element of what just happened had been choreographed by a woman who executed it flawlessly, pun intended.

She had removed a head from a body once this week. She hated it then. She hated it now. But she absolutely gave this man multiple chances to change this into a brawl. If she hesitated to kill him, she would prove his point that she did not deserve to be in that chair. So she didn’t.

The chamber was silent.

The silence was the silence of a room full of the most powerful wolves on the continent processing the fact that a challenge they expected to last minutes had lasted seconds, and the woman who ended it was already walking away with a clean dress and dry eyes and her back to the body like it was an errand she had finished and the next one was waiting.

The dress was still perfect. The hair was still done. Not a drop of blood on her. She looked like she was leaving a dinner party, not a killing floor.

Aeron: I’m not going to lie. I thought she was going to fabricate a cage or something around the wolf to prove a point.

Beta Sharpe and Gamma Knox exchanged one look.

Beta Sharpe: She killed a man in the throne room while you were out. One blade. Made it go poof before it hit the ground. Scared the daylights out of Elder Voss. He hasn’t been the same since.

Gamma Knox: The flame part is new. And she only had one that time.

Aeron: I’m sorry. She what now?

Beta Sharpe: You were absent, Master Mage. A trafficker was brought before her in chains. Alistair Creed. She identified him by three aliases, amended the court record mid-arraignment, and sentenced him to death.

Gamma Knox: Then she walked down the steps, fabricated a gold sword, and took his head off herself because Elder Voss raised a legal objection about who had the authority to carry it out.

Aeron: She removed the legal obstacle by being the one holding the weapon.

Beta Sharpe: Correct.

Aeron: Is that part going to be told to Finnick during or after his coma?

Gamma Knox: During. He’s in a coma, not dead. A much better listener like this.