If only Katerina's horse hadn't run away on them, Natalya would be in the fray right now.
Instead, the two sisters had circled left around the circle, watching as Ludwig helped the others keep the beast distracted while Arthur and the twins worked on breaking the spell. Katerina filled her in on who the others all were, so that Natalya could make sense of who was who.
Eventually, the princesses were trapped at the left side of the circle, unable to go any further. The far side of the clearing had the magic users dueling each other, and attempting to go across might have stray blasts of magic to one side and her beastly brother on the other. Those on horseback were choosing their safe moments to swiftly cross over.
While Ivan was distracted by the ranger named Feliks at the one side of the clearing, his friend Tolys rode across behind Ivan to take position by the Princesses. Just as Tolys reached their side, Ivan's tail whipped just by him and nearly missed. At that moment, Lovino ran out from behind the Princesses and jumped directly at the tail, managing to wrap his arms and legs around it and hang on for dear life.
It was obvious that Ivan could feel Lovino on his tail, as he turned to look back and tried to swing Lovino off of it. In doing so, the tail and Lovino collided with Tolys and made the ranger fall off his horse to the ground. The spooked horse immediately ran off, narrowly escaping Natalya's reach for its reins. As the tail was whipped around the circle, Katerina dove in to help pull Tolys to his feet.
"Thank you, Princess," Tolys acknowledged as he joined them, "My horse ran off, didn't it?"
"They definitely don't like Ivan right now," Natalya answered, "We'll have to find them again later."
Across the clearing just then, the tail slammed Lovino into a tree and made him fall off. Ivan was now facing the girls and nearly approached them next, only for Ludwig and Gilbert to ride between them.
"Over here, you wyrm!" Gilbert shouted as the beast tried to swipe at them instead.
As Ludwig looped across the circle and Ivan followed him, Natalya could see the group that had gathered on the other side. Arthur, Feliks and Feliciano were helping out Lovino, while Basch was just joining them with Mikkel, Berwald and Lukas. After a quick discussion, Feliks and the dwarfs started circling the dwarfs, while Basch and Feliciano helped Lovino stand up.
"Naktakė, go see if Lovino found out anything," Tolys ordered, prompting Natalya to look up and see the raven.
Naktakė immediately flew across the clearing to Arthur, who saw where she was coming from. Natalya watched as Arthur spoke to the bird, making some hand gestures as he did so, before Naktakė flew back to their side of the circle and cawed at Tolys.
"Beast, neck, chain, break," Tolys translated, "Naktakė, what does he mean?"
Natalya glanced away from the bird, just in time to see that Ivan's tail was swinging right at them.
"Duck!"
As she yelled, Natalya dove to the ground in front of her, spinning under the tail in a somersault and landing, her dagger flying ahead of her. As she sat back up, she had a brief moment to glance up and see what was happening. With one fell stroke, Ivan was knocking everyone to the ground, starting with Katerina and Tolys and working his way around the circle with furious power. As the tail came back around, Natalya rolled over flat to the ground to dodge again.
This time, when she recovered her bearings, she could see the full damages done. She had moved about halfway across the clearing between Katerina and Arthur, with the dueling magic users now directly behind her. Everyone had now been knocked to the ground, with the horses running away in fear. Ivan had slowed his spinning pace and now hovered over all of them, now watching them all as if he were choosing his prey.
The beast stopped his circling as he focused on Natalya and approached her. As the beast hovered directly over her, Natalya looked at it in the eyes, and noticed that there seemed to be a flicker of curious recognition.
"Natalya!"
Both she and the beast were distracted from the call of her name to the left. She glanced over to see that Arthur was using the last of his strength to toss her the dagger, which landed just by her left hand. She immediately grabbed it, moved it to her right hand, and looked up. As she looked for the right place to swing the dagger, she finally spotted it.
Around the beast's neck, nearly hidden by the fur, was a necklace. A golden chain, with a crescent moon pendant. The same necklace Erzsébet gave Ivan for their wedding anniversary, which matched her own.
"Break the chain," Natalya muttered as she realized what needed to happen.
Just as the beast bared its teeth and lunged its head towards her, Natalya took her chance. She immediately sat up from her prone position on the ground, dodged the gaping jaws of death, and tucked the blade between the neck and the chain before pulling hard on it.
Time seemed to slow for the moment her dagger slashed through the chain and severed it.
As soon as the chain was cut, the beast was immediately surrounded by an enormous glow of magic, so blinding and bright that she almost couldn't look at it. A loud and terrifying scream came from behind her, so Natalya rolled over to see what was happening with the magicians instead.
Erzsébet was surrounded in what looked like magical flames, as if they were consuming her soul, and she was shrieking in agonizing pain. Princess Madeline stood to the side, watching this happen, while Alfred continued keeping Francis busy. As Natalya could see the magic starting to deform Erzsébet's face, Francis found his moment to break away from Alfred's fight and cast a spell in Erzsébet's direction. The blue blast hit the woman and made her vanish in mid-air.
In response to Francis making Erzsébet disappear, Madeline cast her own blast of magic towards the ground at Francis's feet, making him freeze in place. Almost a second later, Alfred's blast of fire magic hit the sorcerer's torso and set him on fire.
Not wanting to watch that closely, Natalya looked back to see what had become of the beast. While it was still surrounded in a glowing light, the brightness had diminished as the form had shrunk into approximately that of a human again. The glow subsided and revealed the human left in the place of the beast, who immediately looked at her in recognition.
"Natalya?" he asked, "Is that you?"
"Ivan!" she called out.
She immediately climbed to her feet, her brother reaching down to grab her hands and help pull her up. Before she could even firmly stand, he was pulling her into his arms for a deep, long-overdue bear hug. Overcome with emotion, Natalya allowed herself to sob in joy against his chest. A few moments later, she felt another set of arms circle the two of them, accompanied by her sister's much louder joyful sobbing.
"Your Majesty, look out!"
Ivan suddenly swiftly stepped back, pulling the sisters with him and prompting Natalya to stop sobbing and look back. Being completely engulfed in flames had not stopped Francis from stumbling painfully towards the reunited siblings. She could see that the flames were starting to sear his flesh, but he was not dying yet from the severe burning.
Natalya felt her brother's arm drop from being draped around her, before she saw the dagger floating in the air beside her. She quickly realized that she had dropped it after slicing through the necklace, and now Ivan was using his own birth spell to levitate it. A moment later, the dagger was pointed at Francis, before shooting forward and stabbing him in the chest.
The man froze for the moment before stumbling back in shock, the knife buried deep in past the flames, but he still would not succumb.
"Why won't he die already?" Katerina wailed in fear.
"There are three elements to his death," Princess Madeline answered calmly, having circled around behind Francis to Natalya's side, "And it appears that my part will be the final blow."
"And will you do it, Your Highness?" Francis jeered as he turned to look at her, "The murderous Ice Princess, with two deaths on her hands. Whether I die or live, you get to live with the guilt for the rest of your life."
"You and your actions have haunted me all these years," Madeline condemned, a look in her eyes that Natalya could only describe as a cold fury, "You will not haunt me anymore."
With that said, she summoned a blast of ice magic and cast it in his direction. It lodged into the handle of Ivan's dagger, nestling there for a moment to illuminate the handle, before shooting through the blade into Francis's heart.
The man immediately froze in shock and pain, and Natalya could finally see the flames consume his flesh. Feeling squeamish at the site, Natalya glanced away for a minute to avoid watching, before turning back to observe. His body was collapsing into a pile of thick blash ash on the ground, revealing that the only part of his body not doing so was the heart, frozen and stabbed with the dagger.
"It's done, Maddie," Alfred reassured as he came to his sister's side and patted her shoulder, "He's gone for good."
Ivan let go of his sisters and approached the pile of ashes. After making sure the ashes had settled finally, he stepped down on the heart to crush it, leaning down and pulling his dagger out of it as he did so. As he rose again, Natalya saw him flinch as he held the knife.
"That is quite the powerful ice magic, Your Highness," Ivan addressed, holding it out to Madeline, "Would you be so kind as to remove it?"
"Of course, Your Majesty," Madeline complied.
She reached out to touch the blade of the knife, and Natalya could see a small glow of white magic around it as the magic was removed.
"Thank you," Ivan remarked before glancing around their surroundings, "I didn't accidentally kill anyone, did I?"
"I don't think so," Katerina replied, "Lovino got knocked around worse than anyone else."
As Katerina spoke, Natalya finally spun around to see what had become of everyone. The dwarfs were spread out checking on them all, Tolys and a few others were laying on the ground while others were sitting or stumbling to their feet. Just beside her, Feliciano was checking on an unconscious Arthur while Feliks approached them.
"No deaths to report on our side," Feliks reported, "Francis was the only one to die here tonight. Lovino's back at the dwarfs' cottage, he'll recover just fine with rest and healing."
"That's a relief," Alfred commented, "What about Arthur, can you sense if he's still here?"
"He's definitely alive," Feliks confirmed, "Feliciano is checking to see if his mind is still connected to our world."
"He's still with us," Feliciano announced, "His spell is still active, he'll return to consciousness in this realm."
"His mind is connected to this realm?" Ivan asked, "What does that mean?"
"There's a lot to explain, Your Majesty," Alfred answered, "Not just about Arthur, but also about everything you've missed the last few years. It would be best for us all to regroup in Tark first, there will be time there to tell you everything."
"Of course, that only makes sense," Ivan agreed.