EMMA

  Emma's protector dropped to the ground with a blood-curdling shriek of pain that unfortunately sounded more human than any other noise Emma had heard a dragonborn make.

  The shaft of the black-feathered arrow thrummed in the ground in front of Emma's face when the sky lit with heat lightning.

  There were more flashes, Sariel was doing something. Hooting cheers erupted from the opposite cliff. Someone was throwing fire, or something that flashed orange. Another streak of violet failed to claim her, detonating to her right instead.

  Emma ignored it all, frozen as Mahira struggled.

  The leg was still standing, boot planted in less than an inch of mud, even after Mahira's tail knocked it askew. The dragonborn was rolling her back against the very rock Emma had almost died peeking over, cradling a palmful of flame.

  Her head was very visible, the giant's neck and curled horns stretching above the ledge.

  The stump of Mahira's leg was still gushing, and Emma almost crawled out of the divot she had curled up inside. Almost took stock of what she had that could be used as a tourniquet. Almost reached for the broken leather patch in her pocket, still useless.

  "Stay back, null." Mahira groaned, freezing her. "Nothing you can do now."

  So instead, Emma hid her eyes moments before Mahira slapped the embers in her hand against the open wound, plugged her ears against the whining hiss of cauterizing flesh, and tried not to inhale through her nose.

  She could still smell it, even hidden in the dark with no sensation but the thrum of pounding rain bouncing off the coat of mud layered over her back. The earthy stench creeping into her nose was laced with a hint of sulfur.

  The screams seemed louder this time.

  By the time Emma was brave enough to look up, when the sizzling sound had stopped drowning out the gale around them, the Venatrix was panting instead of screaming. The dragonborn's head lolled, with her eyes glazed over.

  The Warlord was saying something, waving a sword off to the left and splitting bolts of acrid plasma left and right, but Emma was looking at Mahira.

  Emma's voice was shaking. It wasn't rain dripping down her face. Saliva welled in her throat, and she fought the urge to vomit while she got the words out.

  "Why?" She asked again, knowing what she was asking this time. "Why do this for me? Why not let me help?"

  A weak chuffing sound emanated from the Venatrix's throat.

  "Why not let you die instead, you mean?" The huntress asked with the tip of her snout clogged by leather. "Because it was my duty. To see the bet. Through."

  Mahira was biting at the rawhide straps on her arm, loosening the shield. By the elbow they were loose already, but the ones at her wrist weren't coming off.

  Cold was starting to seep into Emma, the wet ground leaching away her energy while she sat here, watching a titan die for reasons that didn't make sense.

  Emma tried to blink away her confusion, certain she had misunderstood.

  "You made a bet?" She asked. "When? With who?"

  Had Calen bet Mahira nuclear secrets for Emma's safety, atop the cliff? Something else?

  But the Venatrix was waggling her head side to side weakly.

  "No, not me. The gods did. You're an Arrival," Mahira panted out, tearing into the troublesome binding on her wrist with pointed teeth. "Mine believe you're worth saving, that anyone might break the stalemate. His believe you're worth eating, or worthy of eating them back."

  Emma didn't have to ask whose gods 'his' meant. Or have time to wonder how true the story was, as Mahira continued.

  "So once a year, somewhere in the universe, they all save something that would be lost, and let the mortals and Immortals on the ground figure it out."

  The Venatrix was babbling, and the Warlord was strutting closer.

  Too close. He was batting aside a barrage of plasma, one bolt at a time as he re-closed the distance. There was no more hurried desperation or irregular, swinging dance with the weapon, just a leisurely stride forwards while he maneuvered the weapon within Sariel's angle of attack. One grin stretched above his jaw, the other below, silver flashing in reptilian eyes and a dangling Seraph feather alike.

  "He's coming. We have to go. We have to move." Emma pleaded across the bloodstained mud.

  Mahira bent her remaining knee, levering her leg up, and Emma almost thought she might do something miraculous. Launch herself skyward, take flight and escape without the weight of the shield.

  Instead, the slab of silver flopped facedown in the mud below a clawed boot.

  "Not we. I'm sorry." The Venatrix threw back her chin and gave a weak chuckle. "Tell Isha too. Tell her that, and tell her everything I know of you. She'll help save you, for faith alone."

  A satisfied grin told Emma who Isha was.

  "Warden's not here yet," The Warlord rumbled, planting a wide-toed foot on the rubble behind Mahira and hefting the sword. "And you're about to get her daughter killed."

  Mahira's eyes widened at the second part of the statement, clearing for a fraction of a second, and flicking to Emma.

  The huntress gave one last kick with her remaining leg, sending the shining silver shield to skid through the mud.

  The sword came down, but Emma was looking at the sky reflected in the metal before her.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  If she didn't look, maybe it would be quick. If she didn't run, there wouldn't be a chase. She couldn't be toyed with if she didn't act like a toy.

  If she didn't pick up the shield, he wouldn't have to come take it from her.

  Blood still splattered across her view, but it slipped away, same as the rain and mud that had washed over the beveled edge of the heavy slab of steel.

  Light flashed too, angry plasma screaming through the air from Emma's left and splitting again, half of it eaten by gemstones, half of it deflecting off to the right with the first scream from the sword.

  The second scream, right afterwards, sent anger thrumming through Emma's numbed extremities.

  She tore her gaze up and away from the clouds, because the second scream was Calen's voice.

  She had forgotten about Calen.

  And now he was close by, and hurt, and oh god the smell—

  Laughter echoed. The sword was already raised again, dripping blood in the rain.

  "She was right though. Warden will be here soon," The silver-eyed monster wasn't even looking at Emma, busy eyeing something to her right, while the sounds of battle still drifted through the rain. "I might only get one of you for dessert. Such an important decision."

  The words boomed, assaulting Emma's mind. Refusing to be ignored. Another bolt of plasma was casually deflected, backwards this time. Vertically slit pupils panned, passing over her, drifting right to lock on someone else.

  Emma was powerless here. Overlooked, forgotten.

  Useless.

  "So tell me, little priestess, should I take the Seraph-cooked meal—"

  Emma's elbow slid loosely into the still-tied rawhide strap while the monster monologued.

  "—the Warden's daughter, or the null the Venatrix died for?"

  The question hung in the air like static, demanding an answer as Emma climbed to her feet, but he still wasn't even looking at her, still focused off to the side. Talking to someone else.

  Calen's scream had petered out, too low to hear over the wind and the driving, pounding rain. He might be dead.

  For the first time, Emma might be alone. Actually alone, on a completely different planet from anyone she had ever known.

  She knew whose fault it was.

  Mirri's throat had also buzzed with mana, when she had forced her words into Emma's brain. Emma did the same now, gathering 'mana' up through her lungs and torso after one last shuddering inhale to calm herself.

  "Eat your own tail if you're hungry."

  The words tore themselves from Emma's throat without any thought behind them.

  They were loud. Louder than she had intended, louder than any noise Emma's voice could make, even screaming.

  Too loud, for a threat she had no way to execute on.

  Too calm, for the fear that gripped her.

  They still pealed, clear as a bell, across the pass.

  It was too late to take them back.

  Yellow eyes flecked with silver snapped to her as the words echoed and faded, leaving only thunder to boom through the rain.

  Emma flinched at the unmistakable chuffing laughter she got in response, raising the impossibly heavy slab of silvery metal anyway.

  The chewed-through rawhide was wet and rough and wrapped too tight around her fist, but she ignored the discomfort, ignored the strain on her body, ignored the bruises and aches she had collected.

  She ignored her screaming instincts to run from the predator in front of her, to bolt and hope she got lucky. Running had done nothing except give the trap time to close.

  The Venatrix had shoved her the shield for a reason, told her to find Isha. She must be able to use it to protect herself, that had to be her way out of this.

  Unless she was supposed to run with it, but it was too late for that.

  She would be dead before she finished turning away.

  "For Ouroborous, then, morsel." The reply echoed too, falling on Emma's shoulders like a weight.

  A long snout dipped a hair, the wickedly amused grin becoming something more serious, and that was her only warning before the now-familiar shriek of impact.

  The first swing took Emma off her feet so suddenly that her eyes had trouble understanding what angle she was seeing the ground from, until the heavy weight on her arm dragged her into a spin, rotating the lightly flowing gully towards her face as the rest of her crashed down.

  The ground impacted her again, and then the weight of her 'weapon' arrived, to properly sandwich her with the dirt. Over the shining beveled edge of the Venatrix's shield, a blur of gray scales was already torquing something up, up into the sky to swing overhead.

  A gentle buzzing vibrated against her forearm as she rolled, but Emma could feel space, an emptiness 'above' the power. The shield was charged with mana now, but it wasn't 'full', and she hadn't done it.

  Trying to force power through her fingers felt like using an eyedropper to fill a glass, she couldn't even tell if the item was accepting the mana. Maybe a trickle. It was nothing like using the leather patches.

  Emma still got the slab of steel over her head in time to catch the sword. Warm blood dripped out of her ear as the impossible, screaming weight of death crashed down atop the barrier, driving her back into the soft embankment with all the inertia of inevitability.

  She could feel the gouge being carved out of her protection as the sword slid away, hear the screaming intensify.

  The sound cut off for a moment as a blast of plasma ripped rain from the sky before being deflected again, but Emma could move again.

  Around the shield, she caught sight of a sweeping hand going low, grabbing for her ankles.

  Scrambling away was half-reflex, squirming her way up the opposite side of the narrow gully she had been forced into her only option unless she wanted to be plucked from the ground.

  The shield was lighter now, maybe from the adrenaline pounding her pulse in her ears. It felt like it had more of a buzz to it, too. Half full, maybe.

  Emma put her free hand up to brace the metal, and maybe feed it mana faster, and because of it, she didn't die within the next second.

  She had barely stood, only just brought the top of the shield up, level with her eyes, when the clifftop shone with an indigo pinprick. With two hands moving the weight, she got it the rest of the way up just in time.

  Splinters spalled across her shins, deflected downwards as the projectile shattered. The buzz of mana against her arm doubled in intensity.

  The force of the impact still rocked her back, but it was only a stumble. Emma came out of it with bent knees, catching sight of the incoming sword.

  The assault hadn't paused for the shot, Emma just hadn't been able to see the danger closing the gap.

  She ducked behind her shelter again, closing her eyes and setting her feet as she braced herself for the impact, hoping she was right about how her weapon worked.

  If she was, all she needed to do was catch one more attack, and they would be thrown away from each other, forcefully. The Venatrix had only ever tossed the Warlord's weapon away when the slab of metal was charged, and now it was.

  A moment passed.

  Nothing was happening.

  Emma could still hear the rain, but none of it struck her near-bare scalp. No one was squelching through mud, there was no gong of metal or screeching sword blaring in her ears.

  She opened her eyes to see the black pit at the back of a bottomless maw.

  Flinching back, the backs of triangular sawteeth came into view, and a rippled wall of pink flesh, steadily advancing around her head. The roof of a mouth.

  Emma's head was inside the Warlord's jaws. He hadn't struck her at all.

  She was being toyed with, before she died.

  A flare of orange threw spiked shadows across her view as Emma blindly threw her arm forwards, hoping against hope she was right about the shield, and fast enough to matter. Praying that the mouth wasn't already closing around the back of her skull.

  For an instant, she felt her shove connect to something soft, and despaired when nothing happened.

  Then her nose cracked with a blessed ringing of metal.

  The shield slammed itself against Emma's torso and bounced up to her face after her head careened backwards, spinning away from the jaws of death. Her left arm stretched painfully, trying to tear itself from her shoulder with the heavy weight that had saved her life.

  Dirt pummeled her back hard enough that most of her ribs buzzed, and she felt one of them crack. Again.

  Her head cracked too, backwards against the ground, sending another wave of mana buzzing through her skull.

  Emma couldn't sit up, straining against her left shoulder but finding no purchase. Her right hand found gravel, clawing into the dirt but failing to lift her.

  Straining her neck to look up did nothing except drive phantom nails into her temples, forcing her head back down. Her side screamed with every attempt to inhale. Emma failed to fight the fog of exhaustion clouding her mind and deadening her limbs.

  A lightning bolt split the sky as she closed her eyes.

  Even through the stench of coppery blood, ozone was the last thing Emma tasted before she woke back up.

  Potential energy is the measure of energy stored in an object or system due to its position or configuration. The term was coined by physicist Willian Rankine in 1853, but is heavily linked to Aristotle's concept of potentiality.