Aven stabbed, but the felin slipped to the side. Shadows twisted around her body, creating a shimmering aura that made it impossible to tell exactly where she was. A blur of motion warned of an attack, but again Aven’s voidclaw met only air and shadow. Aven jerked back, claw meeting blade for a quick clash before the felin danced back.

  “I thought your mind could see better than this,” Teja taunted, sliding from side to side. Her shadows pulsed, making her movements hard to read.

  Irritation surged, and Aven shoved that into another part of his mind to join the anger and rage roiling in that mental prison. Focus on the battle. But with one part of his mind occupied with quarantining the feelings threatening to consume him, he only had room for ordinary focus, not the clarity of the Battle Mind’s full strength.

  Teja lunged - no, a feint. Only a shadow lunged, the real felin coming just behind. Aven stabbed right past, through the shadowy form to stab through Teja’s shoulder. Dammit, only cloth. The felin danced away again, the movement a sharper jerk, a hint of panic in the playful golden eyes.

  “A bit slow today,” Teja said, alarm melting back into the taunts. “Tired? Did we catch you sleeping?”

  Aven’s head throbbed. The rage threatened to spill over. After hours training with Logash, pushing the Battle Mind this hard strained at the limits of his abilities. Every ache in his body pounded in the domain’s slowed time. And the background part of his mind was too full to shove bodily aches there as well.

  Her techniques were...annoyingly similar to his own. Her shadows were only visual illusions, not solid as the void mist. Rare as voitouched were, Aven had never given thought what it might be like to fight himself.

  “No words now? I’m trying to have a conversation here.” Teja’s next attack was almost lazy, shadowy form darting just close enough to make him flinch before backing away. “You talked big on the day of the festival. Such a stirring speech. Such moving promises.”

  How had the felin heard that? The Vulgares weren’t present for that part of the festival...

  Unless she was. Unless she’d been in Hellfrost without them knowing. Watching like a shadow, just waiting to strike.

  “The woman you swore to protect is right behind you.” Teja ran her tongue along the inward curve of her blade. “If you don’t stop me, I’m going to cut out her squinty little eyes. I’ll make her crawl blind to Sergrud to beg for mercy before we kill her.” The shadows pulsed with each word, making her position flicker and shift, impossible to pin down.

  The image seared into Aven’s mind, cruel words painting a bloody picture vivid enough to churn his stomach. The dam broke. All the rage and grief spilled forth from that corner of his mind. Instead of consuming him, it sharpened, forged into a blade of purpose beyond what the Battle Mind could muster. In the rage came clarity, and in that clarity the rage focused.

  “Should have kept your mouth shut,” Aven said.

  He stepped forward, and with the full strength of the Battle Mind, he saw every curl of the shadows. He saw their pulses, their fluctuations, the way they twisted. Saw the pattern and the possibilities. Teja darted in, shadows flickering. Aven’s claw moved, edges sharpening to sabre blades. The claw cut the shadows, cut through them deep into her arm. Teja jumped back again, jerked away before the blades could do more than leave bloody furrows down the arm. She didn’t dance this time, eyes narrow, no taunts.

  He pressed the attack, lunging forward to cut through shadowy images and force the felin back. No more playfulness in her strikes, only grim determination.

  Then a shift. In a second as Teja darted beyond his reach, her arm flashed out, and a blade disappeared from her hand into shadows. Headed past Aven.

  Just as he’d seen. It was easy to snatch the blade from the air before it could fly past and threaten Aelia. No matter that he couldn’t see the real weapon, the shadow showed the blade’s shape. His mind could track its arc and speed.

  The blade’s edge cut the palm of Aven’s voidhand as he caught it, but he barely noticed the pain. An arcsteel blade, or something similar to burn the voidhand like that. Less sharp than the burn of the arcsteel manacles Hellfrost used. Teja took the chance to retreat, back into the corridor, into a sliver of moonlight creeping in where the worn shutters didn’t quite close the corridor window properly. Moonlight met shadow, and Aven saw the felin clearer than before.

  Golden eyes gleamed back at Aven above the felin’s smile, “That’s more like it. I expected as much from a voidtouched.”

  Aven stepped past Dashul’s corpse, ready to finish the job.

  Dashul groaned.

  Aven looked down, shocked by the sound. No blood streaming out from his body. Just faint wisps of shadows swirling around his neck. The arrow through his chest was very real, though, the man clutching at it and fearing to move. Unable to speak. Apparently unconscious. But alive.

  A trick? Why? Just to provoke him?

  Doubt crept in like a winter wind. Rage cooled to uncertainty.

  “What do you want?” Aven stared between the struggling Dashul and Teja.

  The felin regarded him for a long moment. Her posture relaxed, “To make the Empire bleed.”

  “You were a prisoner here,” Aven said.

  A slow nod, “Of a different sort from you, but I’ve felt the Empire’s chains the same.”

  Revenge, Aven could understand. Even projecting all his own anger onto Yvris and Erdrak, Aven couldn’t say he was fully satisfied. If it weren’t for the fact that he needed the Empire’s authority to keep on living, he might have sought the same.

  Yet, leaving Dashul alive...something more was going on.

  “What’s your game?” Aven asked.

  Teja just smiled and flourished her blade. “Come and play.”

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  With the rage over Dashul’s false death cooled, the Battle Mind focused in full clarity, Aven could see the traps. See the way the shadows curled, how they obscured the cat’s movements.

  “You can’t win, you know,” Aven said. “Whatever tricks you have, I can see through them. I can see exactly how you’re going to strike.”

  Teja slammed herself against the shutter, bursting it open to bring cold air rushing into the corridor.

  “If that was true,” Teja leaped onto the windowsill, “you wouldn’t be defending Etrani right now.”

  She leapt out the window. Three stories above only rock. Aven rushed to look. The felin was racing down the walls, scaling them like a squirrel up a tree. She glanced back up, perching for a moment on the sheer stone face of the wall. A golden eye shimmered then darkened in a wink before she raced downwards, swallowed up by the darkness. What in the hells? Was this all a distraction? But from what?

  “Aven,” Tanya’s voice pulled him back to reality. The minari stood in the doorway, kneeling over Dashul’s body with Etrani behind her.

  Etrani was safe, for now. The keep wasn’t.

  “I’m...” Dashul rose with a groan, spitting out rope-like strands of shadow from his mouth. A confused look in his eyes. “I’m fine-“ he winced, clutching the arrow in his chest, “...I’ll live, captain. Don’t...don’t worry about me...”

  Just what should Aven be worrying about? If the target wasn’t Etrani, if Teja just came here to distract him, then...

  “Esharah,” the answer clicked, and Etrani’s eyes widened with realization.

  The dezar had tried to draw the attackers away from Etrani, not realizing she was the target the whole time. Without Esharah, they’d be vulnerable to anything the Vulgares’ Mindspeaker could do.

  Unless this was a double feint, drawing him away so Teja could get to Etrani again...

  “Go,” Etrani said. “If more Vulgares are here, you need to drive them out. Go. That’s an order.”

  Another glance at Dashul. The arrow looked like it had missed the heart, but a wound like that needed proper attention. Aven would have to trust Tanya to care for it.

  “Get back inside, lock the door, don’t open it for anyone but me,” Aven said.

  “Understood,” Etrani gave a quick nod. She paused, a flash of something behind those dark eyes. Worry. Fear. For him, or for her, he wasn’t certain. “Please don’t die. I need you.”

  Aven nodded and sprinted for the west wing.

  * * *

  Aven heard Janaya’s shrieks even before seeing the carnage.

  Hellfire scorched the blackstone walls of the west wing hall and turned corpses unrecognizable. Aven could only hope the four immolated bodies were all Vulgares. The corridor stank of burnt meat. Aven shoved all that aside as he raced for the door where Janaya’s threats screamed out.

  “Damn you! I’ll burn you! I swear you’ll burn!”

  Aven burst through the door to see a room soaked with Janaya’s blood. The screaming warrior was pinned to the wall, impaled fully by a spear through her abdomen, the blade going right through her body into the blackstone wall. Janaya clutched at the spear, feet dangling in the air as she tried to find leverage to rip out the weapon. Iskir stood by, hesitating, looking as if he was unsure whether he should help, or if trying to help would just get him burnt.

  “Janaya, don’t! Don’t pull on it!” Aven shouted.

  The soldier turned her bloodshot eyes to Aven and shrieked in wordless agony and anger, hands clutching tighter on the spear. Hellfire flared around her hands, flames scorching the spear shaft and the surrounding stone. Blood poured out from stab wounds along her body, even as hellfire scorched them shut. Gods. Janaya had claimed that no matter what the guards tried, they couldn’t kill her. Was it even a blessing for someone to survive all that?

  “Where are they?” Aven asked, dreading the answer. “Janaya, where’s Esharah?”

  “We were too late,” Iskir grunted.

  “That bastard-” Janaya coughed and retched, blood spilling from her mouth, “-bastard took her!”

  “Sergrud?”

  Incoherent howls confirmed Aven’s fears. Rage and pain stripped away anything coherent in Janaya’s voice.

  Aven dashed back down the stairs. Sergrud wasn’t a felin like Teja. Couldn’t just jump out a window, especially if taking Esharah was the goal. Had to be the main gate. Unless whatever route they came in could also serve as a way out...

  No. Too many unknowns there. Main gate was the only choice, the only option Aven had. The Battle Mind cleared all thoughts away except one. Save Esharah. Nothing else mattered.

  Aven’s lungs burned by the time he made it to the front courtyard, and his chest burned. The gate was closed, but the walls were a slaughter. Sergrud was at the top, two other Vulgares with him and another half dozen strewn along the stairs, courtyard, and ramparts as corpses. The guards pressed in, but one of the Vulgares, the tattooed man Aven had faced at Notholm, threw himself at them like a berserker, heedless of spears as he hacked with twin short axes.

  Sergrud stood behind him, Esharah’s prone form thrown over one shoulder while his spear stabbed into a guard’s chest.

  “Sergrud!” Aven roared, lunging for the stairs.

  The Vulgares’ leader glanced Aven’s way, then kicked the guard off his spear with casual contempt. He leapt over the battlements. The tattooed man followed closely behind, howling with laughter. The last of the Vulgares hesitated. Long enough that Akra’s blast of light seared through his chest.

  “Captain!” Akra approached, leading the rest of the guards posted on the wall, one hand on her swollen abdomen and a grimace on her face. “How did-”

  “Get the soldiers in the keep!” Aven said. “Make sure there’s no more Vulgares. Etrani is safe. I’m going after Sergrud.”

  “Wha-”

  Aven didn’t wait for Akra’s questions. He hurled himself over the wall, voidclaw gripping the edge as he descended. Sergrud was at the bottom already, racing towards the mountain path, tattooed Vulgares at his heels. With the voidclaws extended from both arms, it was only about an eight-foot drop down into a snowdrift.

  Hells. More ice than snow there. Pain could wait. Shove the pain aside. Sergrud was already running.

  Aven ran, whole being focused on catching them.

  “Sergrud!” Aven roared. “Turn and fight, you coward!”

  No reply. The fleeing man turned, and Aven swore there was a smirk on his face before he sprinted on.

  The distance widened. Too fast. No chance to catch up at this rate. Aven shoved aside the hopeless despair, shoved aside the burning in his legs and lungs and kept pushing. Work, dammit. This body wasn’t just flesh and blood. He’d forged it from the void itself. He had the power; he would make it work. Aven wrenched the power of the void from his soul, forcing it into his legs. Even as he felt the muscles in his legs tear, void spilled from the well of power inside him to fill the gaps.

  Aven ran. He couldn’t close the gap. It didn’t widen further.

  The mountain path headed towards the quarries. Exactly where Logash had led his troops.

  Sergrud’s speed slowed as they approached, taking in the two dozen soldiers watching the night. Looking in the wrong direction.

  Aven pulled all the air he could into protesting lungs, screaming out a warning into the night. Someone heard, a soldier turning, and then the whole formation wheeling to meet Sergrud in full formation. Shields snapped up, spears bristling out.

  Logash stepped out to the front of the formation, standing tall beneath the moonlight. Sergrud shouted something and tossed Esharah’s body to the tattooed companion, racing towards Logash with spear ready.

  Thunder cracked through the night as Logash invoked his runes. With all Aven’s energy focused on running, there was no room left for the Battle Mind to track the movements. There was no point in trying to see. Logash and Sergrud were both too fast. Man and ogre rushed forward to meet each other.

  The crash of vis powers roared out, shaking Aven to his soul. He kept running. Had to catch them.

  Logash fell back, spear through his stomach, Sergrud driving him back like a wild boar in full charge. Sergrud smashed Logash right into the shield wall, breaking through the formation as soldiers flew back. Both Vulgares broke through. Sergrud left the spear in Logash’s body, streaking off into the night.

  Aven stumbled.

  The distance grew.

  No. Faster. Harder. He had to catch them.

  His body didn’t listen. When he poured the void into his screaming legs, there was none left.

  Muscles failed. Aven fell to the dirt. His lungs burned, unable to pull enough air into the void in his chest. None of the soldiers chased after Sergrud, all their attention on their fallen comrades.

  He tried to shout, tried to scream for them to go after the disappearing Sergrud. The words didn’t come, only strangled gasps.

  Esharah’s form grew distant, disappearing into the forest. Howling laughter still seemed to echo through the night.

  * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

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