As the [Lucent Taper] lit in the darkness, Noble released the container from her arms.
Its brown surface glistened momentarily before falling away from the floating candle.
Shutting her eyes, Noble used her sorcery to enhance the candle in the oppressive darkness.
She spoke the Names of light and getting brighter with what was left of her voice. The words came out as little more than a croak, but she meant them with all of her being.
The candle shone with incandescent radiance, pushing back the darkness and shadows until only brightness remained around Noble.
The fiendish plant soaked in the light, growing still over the sudden change.
The package fell into the center of the bloom, bypassing the teeth of the abomination entirely.
Just before it passed into the wide chasm of the creature's stemlike throat, a whip cracked the air and with it, the fragile outer shell of the precious parcel.
The broken gift and its contents slid down into the flower before the light faded.
Is that all you have? One final drink for me to wash down your bones?
Noble gasped. Her lungs were on the verge of collapsing from the noxious air and the cracked ribs in her chest.
'Stay…concious.'
Dismissing the candle, Noble hid in the darkness.
But the plant didn't need eyes to see her. It only needed arms to grab her.
They twisted in the air around her, braiding to make a cage once more.
The blossom would not make the same mistake twice.
Don't you realize that this is the end? Isn't the pain overwhelming? Give in to sleep! Give in to…
The thought abruptly stopped.
The black vines shivered.
Treachery!
Noble smiled.
The flower had expected her final projectile to be the same as all the others—a container of mildly irritating beetle juice.
Even the cracking glass had not given it pause.
Which is exactly what Noble had hoped when she broke the bottle over its mouth.
Instead of another waterskin, the package was a bottle. Using Sarai's magical fire, it had been hastily formed from the palace's stained glass window and filled with bubbling black liquid.
The pink and green glass of the original masterpiece swirled together under the baker's blaze to form a shade of brown.
The color was what had inspired Noble to use the waterskins as a distraction.
The misdirection had worked. It wasn't until the Counsel's poison was deep in the flower's roots that the creature realized something was wrong. By then it was too late.
The earth shook violently, sending shards of obsidian rock tumbling down from the canyon walls.
The black bloom was dying, but not fast enough.
Beyond Noble's desire to have the task completed, she was very short on air. The vines around her were tightly packed, making a hasty escape impossible.
'Think!' Noble could feel uncontrolled rage mixed with agonizing pain coming from her victim.
She focused, searching for any sign of weakness. Just when she had given up hope, something moved out of the large mouth. It was long and thin, like the pistil of a lily.
The creature knew it was close to the end, so it was going to release a seed!
'No, you don't!'
Pulling the whip from around her body, Noble lowered herself to the level of the stalk. The smell of rotting vegetation mixed with sulfur was too much. Noble was forced to hold her breath.
Twisted her wrist, she unrolled the long whip.
Noble hadn't asked for this Memory on a whim. It was one of the few objects Nickel had let the professor study in great detail.
The [Willbreaker] was a high-tier weapon with more than one insidious enchantment.
However, only one of them interested her just now. Since Nickel had temporarily transferred ownership, she could fully make use of the powerful weapon.
Flicking her arm, the Queen activated [Reckoning]. The wind around her shifted, following the lash in its wicked arc.
With the crack, an obliterating current sliced through the air, sharper than any blade. Following up with a reverse motion, a second snap almost immediately followed the first.
That was all the energy she had before she was forced to drop her arm.
The two cuts by the Willbreaker crossed the pistil with enough obliterating force to carve a new cavern in onyx rock.
Instead, they dissected the fragile tube, cracking the row of teeth just beyond the base for good measure.
Blood poured into the mouth of the creature and began to fill the opening. A gurgling sound caused the blood to bubble, but Noble couldn't see. She was too busy trying to remain lucid.
The Queen had been holding her breath for too long–she needed air!
In response to the sudden blood loss, the braided vine began to uncoil the cage it had formed.
Feeling a draft, Noble instinctively raced toward the hole.
And not a moment too soon.
She felt the heat of the open air and took in what breath she could.
Noble screamed in pain. Her battered armor was pressing into her sides, aggravating the injuries to her chest. She continued upward, trying to cleanse her lungs.
Another sound joined painful screams, the final hiss of the flower collapsing before its blood spilled out over the ground.
Below her, the snaking vines suddenly lost their tension, crashing to the ground in a useless heap.
[You have slain a Fallen Terror, Bloom of Doubt.]
[You have received a Memory.]
Noble lost some of her composure with the news.
She...she had done it!
Sure the Bloom of Doubt had been starved for hundreds, maybe even thousands of years, but still, she had defeated it with a final use of Ender's poison and the assistance of Nickel's weapon.
The menace was dead.
That didn't mean her job was over.
In fact, the most important part of her plan was just beginning.
'I'll be up in a few,' Noble sent a message upward, hoping it would reach the top.
Taking a deep breath, the Queen checked on her fire charm before dipping down once more. If not for the little trinket, being in the deep would be unbearable.
Summoning her candle, Noble was both disgusted and relieved by what she saw.
The flower had folded back over its stem, peeling like a banana. The rotten flesh was melting away and turning into bubbling black liquid, just like the victims before it.
The only reason the stem remained upright was the Soul Shards contained within. They were still intact, for now.
And Noble needed to keep it that way.
Circulating what was left of her essence, Noble went to work. She used the Willbreaker's [Reckoning] enchantment to cut away the weakened flesh and release the precious shards.
It was tedious work, but Noble needed to work as precisely as she did expediently.
'One, two, three, four...'
The freed shards floated around Noble's body, reflecting the hovering candle's light.
Noble frowned. She needed to work faster. The shards were resistant to the poison but not immune. The bottom one in particular was in danger of succumbing to the rot before she could retrieve it.
Cracking in the ground accompanied the next crack of the whip. When the fifth Soul Shard was released from its host, the rest of the stem collapsed along with the final shard.
The Queen's heart sank. Then it filled with dread as the earth continued to rumble.
She took her loot and raced upward. There was not a moment to lose.
Hot gas shot up from the ground and filled the air with more noxious fumes.
The plant-eating poison was also a consumer of earth. It had finally worked its way through the Bloom's roots and deep into the obsidian stone.
And to the molten lava underneath.
Noble's eyes opened wide.
"Blazing Be–"