Fire-blind and deafened by her crackling skin, Trivia yet stood. Her spear fell to ashes, and her fingers followed, burning brightest at the tips like candles welcoming the new dead. She smothered the finger-wicks in her raised fists. The soles of her feet pressed the scorching asphaltum, gauging her foe's every earthshaking step. Only devoured by the flames, not consigned to them, Trivia yet fought.

Twice she sidestepped the Shape of the Fire's charge and struck it in passing, but the pervasive agony slowed her reactions. Her inability to follow up emboldened the creature for another attempt. It shoulder-barged her to the ground and pinned her beneath its bulk. The writhing vines in its belly trapped her arms while the creature clasped its fists together and brought them down like an executioner's axe.

The first blow shattered the asphaltum beneath her. With each blow that followed, her head sank further into a deepening crater. Her neck strained to its breaking point, but the concussive assault extinguished the flames wreathing her head, restoring her vision. When the creature readied its next attack, she wound its stomach-vines around her forearms. The vines squirmed with a life of their own, desperate to free themselves. With a fierce cry, she tore them out by the roots and threw them aside. Still they coiled and danced, spurting the creature's vile yellow lifeblood into the air.

The Shape of a Fire answered her battle cry with its own. She caught it by the wrists and trapped its arms against her chest, preventing it from striking her. While she struggled to escape from beneath its bulk, it yanked her hand towards its maw, closing its lips halfway down her forearm. She tried with all of her might to free her hand; all too easily, she pulled back a splintered stump. Veteran combatant or no, the loss of a limb overwhelmed her with pain and fear for a moment, but her foe squandered it on swallowing.

The uneven bite had left Trivia with a jagged wooden stake below her elbow. She jammed her forearm into the creature's eye and out the back of its head. It rolled off of her, howling and covering the hole in its face. Fresh vines writhed from its belly, and when it lowered its hands its eye, whole once more, glowed brightly.

Trivia emitted a fragrance not meant for polite company and dove into the drainage ditch. The water quelled the flames wreathing her body, but induced a new kind of pain when they touched her raw, damaged bark. The pain worsened; at a glance from the Shape of the Fire, the water bubbled and frothed. She escaped the ditch, concealing herself in the giant reed, just before the water's surface caught fire.

As the giant reed, too, burned, she darted across the road to the side with the column of wooden crosses. Her injuries were severe, her panoply had been destroyed, and her enemy healed much faster than she did, but she still had the advantage of her mind, and of her experience. Linnaeus had not been her only peer.

The other side of the road was now an inferno, and her foe swept its gaze across the giant reed on her side as well. As the heat rose, a shower of sparks erupted from the wires connected to the wooden cross above her. The magic of men sought a new home, and she could guide it. Recalling the strategems of Lanius Ludovico, known as the Butcher to his friends, she placed her palm against the wooden cross. It took little prompting to remember that it had once lived and remained part of the Green. At her request, the transom reshaped into a thick point. The burning wires attached to cross danced like the vines she had torn free of her enemy's belly, spilling magic instead of blood.

Trivia left her hiding place and returned to the road. The creature turned to her, eyes glowing. She stood at her namesake, a three-way crossroads, with fire in every direction but one. But retreat was not in her nature; nor was it in the Shape of the Fire's. Some part of it had once been an ape. It could burn her to death with a glance, in her weakened state, but perhaps not if she reminded it of an older behavior.

She pounded her fist on the asphaltum, bared her teeth, and beat her chest. The creature's eyes dimmed, and it rose on its hind legs to make itself look bigger. She raised what was left of her arms to do the same. "Come on!" she roared.

The creature charged forward to smash her with its fists once more. She seized its leg, tucking her good arm into the crook of the other, and swung it in a great circle, redirecting its momentum skyward. Her aim was good; the sharpened transom transfixed her foe, and the sparking wires draped over its chest. Its limbs spasmed wildly, like it had been forced to dance by cruel magic. Men's magic was cruel, after all, and the Shape of the Fire's creators had protected it only against that of the Green.

She waited to be sure it would not regenerate. It soon tired of dancing and fell limp. Oily smoke rose from its body. The metal box on top of the cross exploded, and her fallen foe burned, leaving no trace behind. She sifted the ashes of her spear to find Linnaeus's feather, scorched but intact, and threw it skyward, letting the hot air above the flames carry it as far as it wished to go. Once clear of the inferno, she knocked her fist all over her body. Her armor fell off in carbonized chunks, showing singed skin underneath. Her preparations had served her well.

The Shape of the Fire was destroyed. Frazer was unprotected. All that remained was to collect him and take him to the grove. Frazer would die, Linnaeus would be avenged, and the forest would be saved. But it did not feel like victory, and not because of her hand; that would grow back in time.

Ray awaited her in the grove.

Trivia followed the road back to the field unit instead of cutting through the woods.