Pallavi POV

  “Rohan,” Aditi called out. “Come quick! George has Sid surrounded. They’re attacking him!”

  Pallavi turned to see Aditi sprinting toward them. It was early, and the area was mostly quiet, save for a few people by the pond and a repair crew fixing the wall damaged the day before.

  “What?” Rohan asked, unable to hide his surprise.

  “George and his team ambushed Sid and Varun. Something about a stolen gun. We need to help them now!”

  Aditi reached Rohan and grabbed his hand, pulling him toward the camp’s exit. She glanced back, locking eyes with Pallavi. “Get Naga and bring more people. They’re fighting just a few paces from the main gate.”

  Did George figure out that it was Sid who stole his gun? Pallavi had assumed Sid left to meet an informant, but now she feared it was a trap. Did someone betray him? She could only pray he held out until help arrived.

  She glanced at Aditi, realizing she barely knew the woman. She knew to take whatever Varun had told her about Aditi with a ‘handful’ of salt. Varun made snap judgments and held onto them; a habit Pallavi remembered all too well from her own rocky start with the team.

  Pallavi scrutinized Aditi’s face, searching for any sign of deceit. She found none; the other woman appeared entirely genuine. Still, she wasn’t willing to follow the woman’s orders. She decided to ignore the suggestion to leave and instead stuck to Sid’s standing order: never split up from Rohan.

  Pallavi splashed through the water, fighting the resistance to reach them quickly. “Wait! I’m coming with you.”

  Aditi scanned the center of the camp nervously before turning around. She didn’t let go of Rohan. “Okay, come with us. But hurry.”

  Pallavi caught up to them as they veered toward the perimeter fence, aiming for the side gate rather than the main exit. “Why go this way? Cutting through the camp is faster, isn’t it?”

  “No. Too many people and obstacles that way,” Aditi said. “Every second we delay puts Sid in more danger.”

  Her tone was frantic, yet Pallavi remained skeptical. She knew Aditi had reasons to hate Sid; after all, Sid had once forced Aditi into choosing Varun’s life over the Kurishingal matriarch.

  They reached the fence, where a crew was already driving new stakes into the ground to replace those destroyed in the previous day’s attack. The sight gave Pallavi pause. Did they work in shifts, or was there another reason for starting repairs so early? It seemed strange to start such heavy repair work so early in the morning.

  “Come help us! My friend is in danger. They’re going to kill him.” Aditi’s plea was desperate and raw. It was so convincing that the workers at the fence dropped their tools and joined them without hesitation.

  Pallavi scanned the new additions to their group and spotted Sunny, the Kurishingal patriarch. Alarm bells rang in her head. Her group’s relationship with the Kurishingals was volatile at best. Seeing him there, answering Aditi’s call, sent an icy wave of dread through her.

  She swept her gaze across the group, realizing with a jolt that the three men had encircled them. They moved like bodyguards, yet the formation felt predatory—they weren’t protecting her and Rohan from external threats; they were boxing them in. One man wore a scarf covering his face. Pallavi swallowed hard, struck by the chilling possibility that it was Tony hiding beneath the mask.

  Pallavi knew Rohan trusted Aditi, and the only way to shake that faith was to force Aditi into a lie. “Did you see Varun? What was he doing? And why were you out there so early in the morning?” She asked, her eyes fixed on the back of Aditi’s head.

  Aditi’s pace faltered. She stopped and turned slowly to face Pallavi.

  Pallavi didn’t wait for Aditi to drop the act or issue a command to her men. She sprang back, putting distance between herself and the masked man. “It’s a trap, Rohan! Attack!”

  Sid’s instructions for facing Tony flashed through her mind. Her first task was to create distance; his aura only affected people close to him, and if she stayed beyond a certain threshold, she remained immune. Once she got out of his range, her second task was even simpler. Run away.

  According to Sid, Tony was the worst possible match-up for a close-range fighter like her. His aura would immobilize her the moment she stepped near him, and she lacked the ranged skills to strike him from a safe distance. Even Varun would fall victim to the same trap. There was no winning here; only escaping.

  Pallavi often wondered about the origin of Sid’s vocabulary; terms like “aura” and “area of effect.” She wasn’t sure if they were common jargon or the product of his imagination. However, watching Varun nod along and ask follow-up questions made her realize the gap lay in her own knowledge. It didn’t matter, though; Sid explained every new term with the patience of a teacher. Those times were among the rare moments she saw genuine joy on his face.

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  “Use your skills,” she called out without breaking her stride, gambling that the command would jolt Rohan from his stupor before they lost the element of surprise. The suddenness of her movement had bought them a momentary vacuum of confusion, stalling the Kurushingal family just long enough for Rohan to exploit his position in the center of their formation. This was the perfect moment to use Iceglass Shatter. Even if all of them had Mana Shield, the sheer chaotic force of the blast would provide enough cover for him to break the encirclement and race back to the safety of the camp with her.

  She hoped he’d use Iceglass Shatter. Despite it being one of his most neglected skills. While she could fight seamlessly alongside Varun, advancing and retreating in tandem, and could rely on Sid’s uncanny ability to synchronize his rhythm with any teammate; she had no such rapport with Rohan. He was the only teammate with whom she struggled.

  Unfortunately, what she feared came to pass. Pallavi glanced back to see a sphere of light hovering above Rohan’s palm, ready to fire. But he was too slow. The masked man lunged, seizing Rohan’s wrist and wrenching it aside. The spell discharged wildly, flying off into the distance where it could do no harm.

  The best move for the masked man would’ve been to deflect the Mana Web towards her; a maneuver her absent teammates would’ve executed without fail. Instead, he wasted the chance to take out both of them. The masked man grounded Rohan with a simple leg sweep, not even bothering to use both hands; the sudden motion caused his scarf to slip, unveiling Tony’s cold visage.

  She weighed her options. The ambush suggested a coordinated assault; if Tony was here, George was likely targeting Sid and Varun at that very moment. While she trusted her teammates to defeat—or at least escape—George, she refused to rely on optimism alone. Prudence was the safer path. She needed to retreat to the camp and rally support against Tony, relying on the witnesses who had seen Aditi lure them out to corroborate her story.

  She risked a glance back at Rohan. Engaging Tony directly was suicide, but his men were foolish to think a physical hold would stop Rohan’s skills. A point-blank blast of ice shards could still turn the tide. She opened her mouth to scream the command, but the words died in her throat; her thoughts turning viscous, thick as honey, and her limbs slowed to an agonizing crawl.

  Her heart plummeted as a wave of unnatural dread washed over her—a sensation she had experienced only once before, on the day she first met Tony. This time, the crushing weight was far more intense. Desperate, she poured every ounce of strength into escaping his radius. Before she knew it, the pressure vanished; her thoughts clarified and her limbs lightened. She had breached the edge of his aura. But her relief was short-lived. A sphere of white light hurtled toward her, expanding on impact to bind her in place.

  Three men charged from the direction of the camp, intending to intercept her path and sever her only line of retreat. The oldest of the trio had his hand still raised in follow-through, revealing himself as the source of the Mana Web that now constrained her, while the youngest member of the group broke into a sprint, as he rushed to reach her before she could break free.

  Pallavi refused to be captured again. She was still reeling from the trauma of being drugged, stripped of all agency, and saved only by chance. She couldn’t bear to be at the mercy of her enemies again.

  She could shatter the Mana Web at will, but she waited for the precise moment to make her move. Tony hadn’t budged, confident that his skills had neutralized her. She let him keep that belief. That assumption gave her the element of surprise; her only remaining advantage, given that her other ‘ally’ was reduced to nothing more than a cushion for Tony’s knees.

  She held her ground, forcing herself to wait until they were within striking range. Then she would unleash her ambush. The plan was to take out one man and sprint through the gap before the others could react. The web-caster wasn’t a threat to her; she would target the youngster in the lead, hoping against hope that he didn’t have Mana Shield.

  Pallavi burst free from the webbing the instant the youngster reached her. Before he could react, she launched a Power Strike at his temple. No defensive light flickered into existence to save him. Her fist slammed home. A sharp crack echoed through the air as his head snapped back at an unnatural angle, the back of his skull colliding with his spine.

  Pallavi suppressed a surge of nausea. She wanted to incapacitate the man, not to kill him. But in the heat of the moment, she failed to check her momentum; the explosive force required to shatter the magical webbing had bled directly into her Power Strike, turning a tactical blow into a lethal one.

  The sheer brutality of the attack froze the other two men for a split second. As they cried out in alarm, Pallavi used their hesitation to dodge sideways and dash toward the gate.

  “You bitch!” A furious roar erupted from behind her. She made it only a few steps before her mind fogged over, her thoughts slowing to a crawl as Tony’s aura reclaimed her.

  Tony was upon her faster than she could process. Without Varun’s agility, Pallavi knew her chances of outrunning him were nonexistent. She spun around to face him, but his fist was already there, burying itself in her gut. The blow hit with the force of a battering ram, sending her skidding backward across the ground. She choked as she felt hairline fractures spread through her Chitin Reinforcement; one more strike to the same spot would shatter her defenses completely.

  She drew her dagger from her belt and dropped into a defensive crouch. I couldn’t get out of range in time, Sid, she thought grimly. I really hope your Plan B works better than Plan A did.

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