Deviating from the original plot

Chapter ninety-four

"A strike through the heart should soften you up," the emperor drawled as the mages lowered their blades and charged toward her.

She dodged the first attacker and drove her heel sharply into his ribs, sending him crashing into the wall. Another mage seized the opening and plunged his blade into her lower back.

Victoria gasped, a sharp hiss tearing from her throat as pain flared down her spine. She spun just in time to catch the next strike on her forearm. The blade sliced across her skin, hot and burning, but she didn't falter.

Gritting her teeth, she caught the attacker's wrist with her good hand, twisted sharply, and wrenched the weapon free. In the same motion, she drove her elbow into the side of his neck, dropping him to his knees. Victoria snatched up his fallen dagger and plunged it into him without hesitation.

The moment the blade sank in, his wound crackled and hissed-the metal smeared with her blood reacting violently against his corrupted magic. He collapsed, unmoving.

Victoria drew a shaky breath. As the pain throbbed through her back and arm, her wounds pulled together, sealing rapidly until only smeared blood on her torn clothes remained.

She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and lifted the dagger again, her voice steady and cold.

"Who's next?"

Two more black mages charged at her from opposite sides. Victoria pivoted quickly, using the first attacker's momentum against him-she stepped aside and slammed her heel into his knee, forcing him down. Before he could recover, she drove the dagger across his throat in one clean, practised motion.

The second swung his weapon downward, but Victoria ducked under the arc of the blade. She rose sharply, ramming her shoulder into his chest and knocking the air out of him. With her free hand, she grabbed his cloak, yanked him forward, and stabbed him in the abdomen. The dagger sizzled again, eating away at the corrupted magic inside him until he crumpled.

More footsteps echoed.

The rest of the black mages circled from the far ends of the chamber, their movements synchronised, their eyes dead and hollow.

"Still standing?" one taunted.

Victoria rolled her shoulders, ignoring the ache in her body.

They rushed her all at once.

Victoria slid low, sweeping one attacker's legs out from under him. She flipped the dagger into a reverse grip, slashed across another's chest, and borrowed his spear mid-fall, spinning it in her hands before planting the butt into a third mage's jaw with a crack.

Magic bolts began flying from the back line. Victoria darted behind a fallen body, using it as a temporary shield. The spell struck the corpse, sending up a plume of black smoke.

She moved again-fast, precise, relentless.

One after another, the mages fell, until only two remained.

They hesitated now. Even under the emperor's control, fear flickered in their hollow eyes.

Victoria stepped forward, dagger glinting under the dome's pale light.

"You should have run."

She surged forward. A quick feint to the left, a sharp twist of her hips-and the first mage's weapon flew out of his grasp. She ended him in a heartbeat.

Meanwhile, in the dungeons, Evelyn, Celeste, and Cassius sat trapped, their weapons confiscated. The stone walls seemed to close in on them.

"Victoria is facing that monster all by herself..." Celeste muttered, pacing restlessly across the damp floor.