I made my mouth move through the pain. “Yes.”

I understood.

“This is a demonstration of my power.”

“It’s a demonstration of your fear.” I called on my magic and poured my pain into it. I shaped and molded my power as only an innkeeper could. “You feared my parents. You tried to kill them and failed, so you defiled their inn in your impotent rage. You used its suffering to convince yourself that you won. And now you fear me. You have gone through all this trouble to give me a warning, because deep down you are afraid. You’re right to be afraid.”

He sighed. “So be it.”

The man smashed his white broom into the floor. Corruption burst from him in twisted dark currents and bit into the walls, burrowing into the inn, forcing it to comply. The wooden floor moved like a churning sea, speeding toward me.

I sank all my magic into the floor under me. It burst through the currents and eddies of Magnolia Green’s lifeblood, colliding with the corruption squirming through them. My power shot through the fading inn, rushing through its branches, its roots, all the way to its injured core.

Our magics collided. The bond reignited in a blinding burst of power. The patina of corruption that permeated the inn, sliding over its branches and smothering its roots, burned away in an instant, opening a clear bath between me and the core.

Magnolia Green was mine.

The corrupted innkeeper screamed. His polluted currents slammed into me, battering the inn, hammering at my defenses, each blow sending an agonizing jolt through us both.

I held my hand out, and my broom landed in it.

“It won’t help you!” he snarled.

My power wound through the broom in a tight spiral, ready to be unleashed. My body buckled, struggling to channel all that power, and I had to force the words out.

“This inn cradled me as I took my first breath. No matter how hard you try, it will never be yours.”

I planted the broom into the floor.

Magic tore out of me like a magic hurricane and smashed into the corrupted innkeeper.

The corruption flailed around me, burning and raging. It was pure hate. Hate and anger, a torrent of it streaming from him. There was so much of it, more than any being could contain, and I could not understand how it didn’t tear him apart. Every lash of it frayed my soul. There was blood in my mouth. My chest hurt, every breath a conscious fight against the anvil sitting on my ribs.

I gripped him with my magic and squeezed.

We tore at each other, he with his corruption and I with my innkeeper magic. The dome quaked. I felt the rotting walls collapsing behind me. The substance of the inn disintegrated, as it sacrificed more and more of its power to feed my attack.