Thankful that it was the last night of travel for the four of them, Sheeva snuffed the coals out by shoveling dirt with her foot, then jerked her head up as she heard scuffling in the woods to her left. Hairs stood on end, and adrenaline stabbed its way up her spine as she reached for her blade, trying to be as quiet as possible so as not to disturb the other three. After a long day of travel, they’d agreed to stop for the night even though the temple wasn’t far off.

  The zing from Abraxas as she drew him shot a surge of more adrenaline ripping its way across her skin, and as she crept toward the treeline around their clearing, her breaths became uneven. Focus sharpened, she peered first at the tops of the looming branches for an ambush from above, then trailed down the skirt of the trees when she found no shadows. Boldly, she cast her illumination spell, split it into three small orbs, and shot them forth, scanning for gleams of drawn weapons or glimmers of misty, treacherous eyes. Finding nothing there, she took a few steps backward and searched the brush below, stilling and inhaling a sharp breath as it shook.

  As it shook again, she raised her sword, ready to bring it down upon her foe. Suddenly, out from the bristle jumped a terrifying, monstrous–Rabbit, she realized slowly. Its plump figure stopped at her feet and turned its head to look at her with beady brown eyes and lax ears, all the while pulling a strand of wild spring onion into its mouth to chew and stuff it into its cheek.

  She sighed at herself, lowered the blade, tutted, and shooed away the creature before the desire to turn it into breakfast became too strong.

  “Seriously! Getting worked up over a damn bunny!” She grumbled to herself, sheathing Abraxas and turning back to their campsite. "At least it wasn't trash, this time," she chuckled.

  A voice above her made her bark out a startled cry and leap forward a couple of steps, tearing her sword back out of its holster while looking to the treetops.

  “Yes, getting worked up over nothing. Where’s your head at, Sheeva?” Bartholomew asked, cackling as he hopped down and crouched, almost at her feet.

  “Hey, look, I’m a little bunny rabbit! I hop here, I hop there! I eat carrots; I eat cabbage! I’m a little bunny rabbit!” He snickered, giving his usual raspy cackle as he pretended to hop around. She was sure that if he could grow a snout and twitch it, Bartholomew would have, just to add cream to the top. Sheeva tried to slice at him with Abraxas, further startled when he whipped his tail around to block her strike. It made a screech and even caused sparks to fly with the contact.

  “Watch yourself, girl. I’m not so transparent now.” He growled, standing to his feet and dusting off his claws. Sheeva dropped her head from looking at his eight-foot-tall stance to where his claws had been shortly before, mouth agape in surprise. There were hand–or rather, claw–prints, perfectly imprinted well enough that she could make a mold of them if she desired to.

  “Yes, I see that! It’s…” Terrifying? Intimidating? She wasn’t sure how to describe his state of being and changed her mind, eager to save face around the ta’hal. “It’s about time you showed yourself. You’ve been causing both Tazaro and me to lose sleep this whole trip back. And stop flashing Cassie or whatever it is you’ve been doing!” Sheeva scolded, settling down and sheathing Abraxas once more.

  “She sees me naked?” He asked, seeming to purr from the idea. Sheeva tutted and rolled her eyes.

  “She sees your true form, remember? Apparently, you’ve grown an extra pair of wings and weaved your tail together somehow. Although, we agree that the crown of stone is fitting.” She reminded him, rubbing at her tired eyes and massaging her temples with cold, numb fingers.

  Bartholomew hummed, and Sheeva turned to look at him just as he turned around to look beyond the trees, clenching his fists and stilling his whip-like tail. He inhaled deeply through his nose, and Sheeva had the tugging feeling that he was sniffing at the air as he turned to look at his left, minty-green eyes narrowing in skepticism at the dark surrounding them.

  “Yes...A crown of stone is...fitting.” He growled disdainfully. Sheeva heard scraping and looked at his clawed feet. His “toes” were digging into the dirt as though he were wiggling them, and what she would consider a big toe on a ta’hal lifted and fell, tapping.

  Her eyes widened, and her gut dropped. Perhaps she simply imagined things, disoriented by lack of proper sleep. She cleared her throat for a bit of confidence as she felt a rock begin to wrangle its way down the back of it.

  “What, uh–what are you doing here, anyway?” She asked cautiously, tilting her head toward the thickness of the trees and glancing up at the sky, listening for anything abnormal.

  “I scoured the temple for you two. Had an update. Can’t believe I–Bartholomew stopped and jerked his head fully to the left, whipping his tail up into the air behind him, ready for a strike. “You guys stood me up, don’t’cha know!”

  “You were looking for us in the temple?”

  “Yeah. Come to find out, you weren’t even there. Good thing I’ve found you now.”

  She noted a deeply hidden anxiousness in his voice behind his tease and shuffled her way to his backside, feeling her breath catch in her chest. She could barely whisper to him.

  “Bartholomew?”

  The gravelly “hm?” he sent her way made her throat constrict, and she rested her hand on Abraxas’s handle.

  “It wasn’t you we’ve been seeing, was it?” She asked, more matter-of-factly than questioningly, as she glanced over her shoulder at him. Not breaking his fierce stare into the trees, he nodded, and Sheeva jerked her head to peer into the darkness at their right. She scowled at something in the distance and projected a ball of light at it, relieved that it was simply a low-hanging branch appearing as a masked cowl and hood.

  “Do you...sense anything?” She inquired, half-tempted to charge toward the others and wake them.

  “What am I, an elf?” He growled.

  “Vilg ott, Bartholomew! Just tell me! Do I need to wake the others and get them out of here?” She pleaded.

  Bartholomew took a deep breath to sniff at the air as his nostrils flared. His ears twitched forward, then back as he listened.

  “He’s not here. Not now, anyway–I’d smell him. But, if Cassie’s been seeing that undeserving, stupid-ass crown, he can’t be far.” He seethed, settling and relaxing his tense body. His tail sagged, and his wings drooped as they fell lax. The thick, hardened scales shifted as they rose to no longer protect his bluish skin beneath.

  Sheeva let go of her withheld breath and felt her head drop forward with exhaustion, but only took in her momentary respite for a few seconds before snapping to action, rushing across the dirt clearing towards the others. She stooped to Tazaro’s side and shook him awake, holding a finger to her lips for him to be as silent as possible.

  “What–

  –gear up; we need to leave. Now.” She urged as evenly as she could, though, with the concerned look on his face, she felt he still picked up on the panic in her voice.

  Sheeva didn’t wait for him to answer before hurrying towards Cassie and Hasch’s sleeping rolls, shaking them just as urgently. When they’d scrambled to their feet and out of their bags, Sheeva thrust a knife in Cassie’s hands, grasping them to bring them to life and take hold of the handle.

  “Take this.” She insisted. Cassie stared at it in worry, then jerked her head back up.

  “What? Why?” She asked, amazed to watch Sheeva spring to further action by rapidly yanking the string to her bag shut. Cassie whimpered and jerked her head to the shadowy figure that appeared from the side of the clearing.

  “Bartholomew? You scared the–

  –You weren’t seeing Bartholomew. You saw Zakaraia.” Sheeva corrected, picking the bag up and striding to Hasch, turning to nod at Tazaro when he blurted out an alarmed "What?" She shoved her bag into Hasch's hands roughly.

  “Take this. Tazaro, are you ready?” She asked, pulling her medical kit out of the side of the bag and looping the band around Cassie’s shoulders. The strap made a harsh “zip” sound as she tightened it, and she ordered Cassie to guard it.

  “Yes, I’m ready. Is Zakaraia here?”

  “Bartholomew says no. I believe him, but I also don’t want to take the chance that he's not lying in wait. Take the rear; I’ll take the lead.” She ordered. Tazaro nodded, voicing his acceptance with a short: “yes, ma’am.” He ushered Cassie and Hasch to follow Sheeva, lightly but desperately prodding them away from their campsite.

  “What about our camping stuff?” Hasch asked, glancing behind him as the things strewn about quickly began to disappear out of view in the dim morning light.

  “Leave them. We’ll come back or make new ones.”

  That was the last of the conversation between any of them as they hurried towards the protective walls of the temple, splashing across small streams and clambering up the final stretch of mountain, hearts pounding in their chests and nervous sweats dribbling down their backs. Sheeva could not have felt more relieved to see safe, stalwart, promising walls and the empowering drake’s head and managed a “Thank the gods!” between heaving breaths.

  As they paused for breath from their steep, rugged climb, the rapid ascent left their legs wobbly and shaking, and they crouched behind the shade of a shrub, thinking.

  Sheeva looked to the sky once more as it shone brighter in the morning sun’s light, craning her head to glance behind.

  “Anything, Bartholomew?”

  Bartholomew sniffed at the air again and turned his ears, doing his best to hide his tall stature behind the large trunk of a tree.

  “No, nothing, but he might be concealing himself.”

  “How does something that big conceal themselves?” Cassie asked in disbelief.

  “He doesn’t look like that to us, Cassie. He appeared Sferran.” Sheeva muttered, turning to look at the vast chasm between them and the temple. “We’re almost there. Can you guys keep going?” Sheeva asked. Hasch nodded; running around and climbing things like this was a simple task. Cassie winced in pain, but she gave a stern nod.

  “Don’t have a choice, do I?” She asked.

  “Not really.” Sheeva murmured, then looked at the trodden path that people would use to overlook the temple or come and go. The grass lining the path turned golden, scorched by summer’s heat, and the trees had thinned out significantly. They dotted the way wherever there was a space for people to sit and contemplate in solidarity or where she and Tazaro had joined the “kissy-face” bunch when they first started dating. The steep descent towards the river would leave them sitting duck but it was their best shot.

  “Once we get past the river, we should be safe. The veil should–” Sheeva changed her mind about what she had to say, not wanting to give them any more reason to be worried. “Will keep us safe.”

  Creeping silently through the trees, Hasch helped Cassie down from the overlook onto the well-worn dusty path down the mountainside while Sheeva and Tazaro jumped down effortlessly. Again, Sheeva took the lead, feet working as quickly as they could, pausing to look back and ensure she hadn’t left them behind.

  She found they kept on her feet well, but as Cassie barked out a warning to her, her stomach dropped.

  The furious flapping of wings sounded out behind Sheeva, and she gasped, wheeling around just in time for Zakaraia to swoop down and knock her aside with a shove to her sternum. She grunted from the impact of his fist in her gut, then clawed at the dead grass to slow her roll as she began to fall down the side of the mountain.

  Sheeva pushed herself up and scrambled to her feet when she broke her fall, jerking her head around to look for Zakaraia. As Tazaro called out for her to “leap, behind you,” Sheeva tilted her head, and out of the corner of her eye, barely registered Zakaraia gliding along the mountainside toward her in a giant, black-cloaked blur. She braced herself, bore her wings, and crouched.

  Just as Zakaraia attempted to grapple her, she jumped and flipped, managing to jam her boot across his face, thrilled at the “oof!” he grunted out. The contact derailed him and sent him barreling into the ground, skidding to a halt and throwing up a cloud of dust.

  “Good shot, Sheeva!” Hasch barked. As she saw they’d stopped to witness, she shooed them away.

  “Fuck’s sake, Hasch! Don’t stop and stare! Keep going!” She ordered, turning her focus back to Zakaraia as he got to his feet, a frown on his face that disappeared beneath his dirtied cowl, askew on his face to show a nasty, bleeding, dirty scrape that spanned his face.

  “That was rude. Didn’t your mother ever teach you to play nice with the other kids?” He asked, pulling down the cowl to spit out dirt, healing his face with a flick of his hand.

  “No,” She answered, drawing Abraxas. “She taught me how to kick the other kid’s butt!” She retorted, smirking. Tazaro would be proud of her for the quick-witted response, but she only allotted herself a short reprieve before steeling herself and sharpening her focus. Abraxas held steady in her view, and she circled Zakaraia to check on the other’s progression. They’d appeared to have reached the river, with Hasch and Cassie in front and Tazaro still in tow.

  Satisfied that they were out of range, Sheeva didn’t bother with proper fight courtesy and rushed Zakaraia, feet thumping along the grassy path as she thrust her blade towards his face. He drew his blade, too, shoving her speared strike aside and retaliating with a low slice, which she effortlessly hopped over, aided in a lift with a flap of her wings.

  Irritated, he barked out a cry and closed the distance. Expecting Sheeva to flinch and back away, he attempted to drive the hilt of his sword in her gut. Instead of freezing in fear, Sheeva charged forward, knocked aside the handle, grasped it as he passed, and drove her pommel-stone into his gut, hard.

  Brief surprise showed in his red eyes as his breath caught in his chest, and as he coughed and doubled over, Sheeva took a few steps away and turned back to face him.

  “That’s for last time, asshole.”

  “Fair enough. I deserved that. How amusing!” He admitted with a light chuckle, breath easing as his diaphragm relaxed. He stood straight and turned to face her.

  “You’re cockier than last time. Thought for sure you’d be broken and feeble.”

  Sheeva kept her mouth shut though her eyes narrowed slightly in indignation.

  Cocky? No. Confident. The thought bolstered courage in her chest, and she raised Abraxas once more, shifting into a stance, plumage puffing with adrenaline.

  Like a bolt of lightning, Zakaraia lunged forward far faster than he ever moved during their first encounter. Sheeva blocked a strike above her head, bracing the blade with her hand. She twisted and directed the strike toward the ground. With his blade stuck in the dirt, she used the moment to grasp Abraxas with both hands and swing him like a bat down across Zakaraia’s middle.

  Zakaraia used his blade as a support while he rolled out of the way, managing to loosen it from the ground just in time to block another rapid spear that would have connected with his shoulder. It was all he could do to back away as spear after spear narrowly missed his body, and as he bucked a strike aimed for his chest upward toward the sky, Zakaraia swung at her right.

  Effectively, she blocked the strike, stepped forth, and slashed at his middle. Though she missed his flesh, the tip of her blade still cut at the fabric of his robes, exposing his pale stomach.

  “Oh-ho! You have gotten better! You almost got me!” He announced, the impressed look gleaming in his eye. "But, I've learned something from you, too!"

  He struck again, this time at her left, and when she blocked, he pressed his heels into the ground and pushed harder. Like a whip, Zakaraia channeled a burst of energy that knocked Sheeva off the side of the mountain.

  Sheeva caught the air with her wings and swooped toward the sky, then wheeled around and dove for him in her old “fly-and-dive” tactic. With an eye-roll, he readied himself, blocking her strike as she slashed down at his head.

  She flipped over his shoulders and drove her heel into the back of his head, sending him face-first into the ground. She landed, stabbed his left wing and twisted the blade, ripping a gaping hole near the first knuckle of the wing. His scream echoed off the peaks of the valleys, and it almost seemed music to her ears.

  His cry of pain stirred something within, and Sheeva dropped to a knee, driving it into his backside. She pushed her whole weight on him, reveling in his groan of pain, and, driven by the eagerness to hear an even more pronounced, sharp cry of pain and fear, grabbed the second limb of his wing with one hand and braced her other on the knuckle.

  “This is for my wing, too, oui vilgek eteud.” She hissed darkly, blinded and egged on by sedition. However, before she could jerk and break it, something whipped against her head and collided with it, stunning her. Thankfully, the passive shield she kept in place took the brunt force, but the blow was still enough to cause her to fall off him and stagger to the side.

  She gained her footing and attempted to knock him back down as he pushed himself to his knees, but as the tail whipped at the air above her head, she backed off again.

  “How rude; kicking a man when he’s down.”

  “You’re one to talk! You smeared my blood on my face and prodded my broken nose!” She shot. He only snickered at the fact and brushed off his shoulders in mockery as he stood to his feet. Angling his wing towards his face to examine it, he tutted at the state of it, and with another simple wave of his hand, healed the shredded thing.

  Sheeva scowled at the loss of her effort as the leathery hole and tears mended themselves with a sizzle as the ends sutured together.

  “You’re a little sadistic, aren’t you?” Zakaraia sneered, red-eyes conveying his anger with narrowed lids.

  Sheeva hardened her stare and raised her sword, attempting to deflect the statement as physically as possible, already feeling it worm its way into her head. She focused on the cheek-to-cheek sneer of his thin lips and shuddered as she recalled the way his tongue felt as it licked the shell of her ear.

  “You really were just going to break my wing. Just...snap, and leave me flightless. Don’t you know it’s not nice to stoop to other people’s levels?” He asked with a stern and earnest expression on his face that easily goaded Sheeva into thinking of a response. She blinked, registering that it was a tactic to get her to let her guard down, but the nagging worm had already inched and wriggled its way further in.

  “You even tried to kick me while I was down. What, were you going to choke me out, too?” He questioned, wiping a trickle of blood from his chin.

  Sheeva coughed as her throat dried up, and a frog crawled down it, aiding in the crumble of her previously fierce demeanor. As the unsettling realization that she was a sadist to have easily destroyed his wing and almost as easily broken his bone in cold blood fully set in, Abraxas lowered to point to the ground to silently express her shame.

  “Gotta say, surprised you’re hiding out here.” He stated, looking around, gaze fixing on the temple across the way. He hummed at it for a moment in thought, a confused curl in his eyebrows. Upon seeming to recognize the location, his eyes narrowed, and his lips curled into a sneer. “I thought you would have understood that when I make a threat, I follow through with it.”

  “That’s the Malfa Temple, isn’t it? I thought I destroyed that fifty years ago.”

  Sheeva blinked, horrified as the news registered, then dashed to place herself between him and her home. She snapped to defense and adjusted her hold on Abraxas, pressing the cold pommel-stone into her cheek to give her a boost of assurance.

  “Don’t you dare!” She barked, voice taut from rage.

  Zakaraia cackled and raised his sword, too, arcing and stilling his tail as though it were a scorpion’s and brandishing the new, unfamiliar blade. He zipped forward, and she blocked the strike aimed for her side from his sword, then pushed herself away as the bladed tail whipped down toward her head.

  Sheeva managed to calm herself some as she realized it was like fighting the purple-scythe nightshade plant, aptly named for the hardened thorns that formed the shape of a scythe at the end of their long, green-and-purple shaded tendrils. Unlike its pot-bellied relative that preferred to lull to sleep, the particular plant chose to kill and had modified thorns that ground and mashed its food into crumbled meat that it would suck into its “stomach” and dissolve over time. They’d made quick work of the demonized plant after methodically severing the creature’s lashing whips.

  Sheeva popped the cork to her water-pouch in improvisation and launched it into the air towards his face. Instinctively, Zakaraia struck it, cleaving it in two as easily as though it were softened butter, splaying water over the ground. Sheeva formed some blue-tinted sigils in the air and slapped her hand through the middle of it as she knelt to touch the start of the trail.

  Icicles shot up from the puddle and beelined for him. One nailed his foot to the ground before he had the chance to jump away, and he hunkered down, raising his arms to cover his face and shielding his body with interlaced, tessellate-scale wings while he used his tail to deflect as many of the spears as possible. Some shattered into tiny pieces that nicked his gloved hands. Those that the tail missed embedded themselves in his forearms and shins, quickly becoming murky with black blood.

  After the spell ceased, Zakaraia stood, a cocky grin on his face.

  “That was actually impressive!” He said, tearing an icicle out of his shoulder and examining the shimmer as the rising sun reflected off the now melting thing. In what Sheeva considered an attempt to frighten her, he took a bite of it, then hucked the remains over his shoulder. She watched it flip over and over as it fell toward the chasm below.

  He broke the icicle pinning his foot down with his sword, and as he was distracted by lifting his hole-ridden foot out of the rest, Sheeva dashed forward. With a rigorous, desperate flap of her wings, she jumped, caught the air, and dove for added speed. The surprise on his face was appealing, and she lashed out at him. He blocked and attempted to roll out of the way, but stopped short, hit the ground, and jerked his head back to look at his tail. It was pinned by a fast-melting icicle.

  Sheeva relished in his fear as his eyes followed her blade as she swung Abraxas like an axe and chopped at his scaly tail.

  Zakaraia’s howl echoed through the trees, sending a flock of Red-Breasted Robins into the skies. Sheeva landed a few feet away and twisted around just in time for him to spring forward in retaliation with a low, uppercut-swing of his sword. She blocked again and shoved him aside with force, sidestepped towards his backside, and hacked at his tail, feeling the vibrating zing as Abraxas met bone, causing Zakaraia to let out another screeching howl.

  The spear pinning his tail to the ground had melted to the point that it no longer held a formidable hold on his extra, almost useless limb. Angered, Zakaraia yanked his precious tail out of the ground.

  Sheeva didn’t want to lend him the opportunity to heal, and she chucked a rock at him, nailing him square on the temple. Childish, but it worked as it stunned him long enough for her to close the distance again. She grabbed his bladed tail, stepped on the opposite side of the gash, and twisted with all her might.

  With a sickening squelch, Sheeva successfully ripped the tail from his body, stumbling back a couple of steps from the sudden pop off of his tail. She took a knee, stunned by physical exertion and honest-to-gods amazement at her heroic feat. Simultaneously horrified, awed, and disgusted with herself, she threw the twitching thing aside and turned back to face him, almost blurting out a flabbergasted “I didn’t know I could do that.”

  He cried out in anguish at his tail, then looked at her, paused, and began to laugh.

  The cackling, chest-heaving, throat-tearing laughter made Sheeva immediately alarmed. A long-time recurring nightmare of him regenerating into multiple Zakaraias resurfaced, and she ripped her eyes from the confusing scene to glance at the now stilled severed limb. It had not begun to reform, or grow, or scuttle across the ground towards her like a creepy, severed hand.

  Heart pounding in her chest from the unknown perceived imminent danger, she looked back at Zakaraia. He wiped at his teary eyes with a gloved, bloody hand, turned his back on her, and snapped his fingers.

  Sheeva watched, almost losing the contents of her stomach as the phantom-wagging, bleeding stub bubbled and blistered. From the colorless cartilage grew a white, pristine vertebra, followed by connective tissues, more cartilage, and the next vertebra in the tail’s sequence: twenty-eight…twenty-nine…thirty vertebrae, she guessed, finished by a modified thirty-first that formed the bladed-end of ta’hal tails. Surrounding bands of cherry-red muscles tied to tendons and joining bones formed around the newly-grown skeletal tail, encapsulated in a shimmering, oily sheath, only to be quickly covered by green, thick, protective scales that settled and locked into place as they finished growing. With a flourishing flick, the tail was completely regenerated.

  She stole a glance behind her, wondering if the limb she’d severed simply transported back onto his body. It hadn’t moved and continued to lay still, though less plump and meaty due to drained blood that spoiled the ground.

  “Well. I can honestly say I didn’t expect to see morbid fascination on your ugly face.”

  Sheeva closed her mouth, only now aware it had been hanging open as she processed her gross mesmerization.

  “I…I don’t know what to...” She stammered.

  “If you desire to try, budding sadist, hack me into pieces. Please!” He goaded, grasping his blade and chopping off his fingers for show. She watched them fall and bounce on the ground, shuddering in disgust when she saw they still twitched. Jerking back to look at the stubs, they grew back in an instant with a burning sizzle that emitted the stench of cauterized, branded flesh. “You’ll be at this all day!”

  Sheeva gasped in fear of his apparent immortality, then steeled herself, voicing the same mantra she’d recounted time and time again during nightmares.

  “If you can bleed, you can die!”

  “You can’t kill me; I’m a fucking ta’hal! I am eternal! I am as water, as air–like death and life itself!”

  Sheeva refused to listen to the taunting voice discouraging her previous mantra and raised Abraxas again.

  “Let’s see if you're eternal when you don’t have a head!” She yelled, charging for him. He tutted and rolled his eyes, whipping his tail around her head as she passed. He flicked it and struck the back of her head. Sheeva’s shield deflected the blow, then shattered, and as he flicked his tail again, he swept her feet out from underneath her.

  Zakaraia stepped on Abraxas with one foot, on her outstretched hand with the other, and squatted to lean over her. Sheeva struggled against his pin but froze, letting out a shriek as he speared the ground with his tail, narrowly missing her head. She could feel the chill emitted from the thing against her cheek. Zakaraia pulled her head up by her hair to look at the chasm below, and they watched as three figures began to scramble across the stone bridge linking the two banks of the rolling river.

  “Look at that," He taunted slowly with a rumbling purr to his voice that made Sheeva's stomach churn. "The posh, the blowhard, and the dumbass have all reached the river.” He stated, tilting his head as he examined the valley below.

  Unable to guard well enough, Sheeva’s eyes betrayed her as they widened to show her horror at the prospect of him hurting the others, and she snapped to reality, trying desperately to look up at him.

  “Fight me. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? Leave them alone!" She commanded as strongly as she could.

  “Oh?” He looked down at her, an amused smirk on his face. “Is that fear I hear?" He laughed.

  She groaned in despair as she felt the tendrils of energy thread through her brain, and, though she tried to shake it free, felt him read her memories to his leisure. As grey snakes wriggled into her eyesight, she squeezed them shut and shuddered from the violation–somehow, it was worse than the prod of his skinny tongue into her ear canal.

  "I wonder who I’ll strip you of first. Your best friend? The man you call brother?” He gave a mock gasp. “Your passionate lover?”

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  "Don't touch them!" Sheeva struggled.

  "Haven't you learned enough, by now? When I threaten someone, I follow through, unlike you. Now, tell me: who should I drag to the sands of Fidelia's River?"

  Sheeva tried to shake him off, but as he put his full weight on her, she cried out at the crushing pin of her torso. She coughed for breath, suffocating under the weight of his being.

  "Regardless, I will strip you of something, today, and for the rest of your life, I'll shame you, and gut you, and beat you until you have nothing left but a bitter, wasted life."

  Sheeva squeezed her eyes shut, unwilling to hear any more, and she tightened her hold on Abraxas’s hilt. As soon as he moved, she’d strike with everything she had and distract him for as long as she could until the other three made it to the steps.

  All they had to do was make it beyond the veil.

  Blinded by emotion and desperation, Sheeva growled and formed her sigils for a mannequin, managing to form a sizeable one that delivered a punch to throw Zakaraia off her. She pushed herself up and scrambled to her feet in a hurry, pouncing on him to pop him in the face with a left jab followed quickly by a fierce right hook that collided with his chin.

  Frustrated, he gave a big flap of his wings and took off to get some distance, but Sheeva followed. He dove, and she chased with Abraxas at the ready, hot on his heels as he bolted for the three figures now at the base of the steps.

  Sheeva cried out a warning to Tazaro, and one of the figures stopped. As Zakaraia and Sheeva neared the three racing up the steep steps, Sheeva watched as Tazaro waved Cassie and Hasch off, bore his wings, and took off to intercept, tearing Tyrj and Laerso from their scabbards as he charged into the fight.

  Tyrj blocked the blade while Laerso countered the tail, managing to slow Zakaraia’s descent upon the other two, though Tazaro wasn’t entirely sure who the masked man’s actual target was. Determined orange eyes locked onto leering red.

  “Oh-ho!” He chuffed. “You've got some fight in you, boy! You’re no longer a pansy!”

  Zakaraia flapped hard enough to push Tazaro back, and before Tazaro lost his bracing counter, he twisted, throwing Zakaraia towards the river. Thrown off-balance, Zakaraia shot toward the ground, catching air with his wings, then stabilizing. Sheeva dropped a heel into his back, assisting his plummet.

  An abrupt stop caused Sheeva to buckle, and Zakaraia shouted out an “oof!” of pain. She jumped up and gained some distance to see what had broken their fall.

  A blue, crackling barrier fizzled and snapped with an electric cloud, and they watched as their attacker got to his feet, appearing just as confused as they were.

  “Wow. It...it works.” Sheeva muttered, amazed. Tazaro blinked and gave her a skeptic look.

  “You didn’t think it would?” He asked, momentarily surprised at her level of risk. Sheeva grew sheepish and uttered an apology.

  “It was a last-ditch effort. I, I assumed so–because of Llyud.” She admitted. Tazaro hummed in an attempt to dismiss the jeopardization. Besides, how were they to have known?

  Tazaro whipped his head back at rapid movement, and, in the blink of an eye, Zakaraia had appeared in front of him. Blocking an overhead strike with back-held Tyrj, Tazaro sucked in a nervous breath as he understood just how fast their foe could really move. It wasn’t as fast as a bolt of lightning, but the man was not slow, either. Tazaro felt a shred of hope as he noticed that Zakaraia was steady enough that he could witness the tail flail behind freely for a brief second. The deathly thing made a fwith sound as Zakaraia directed the off-white, sharp bone towards Tazaro’s gut.

  Tazaro knocked it aside with Laerso but left himself open, not accounting for the third appendage, and grunted as a punch brushed off his passive shield. It rippled a dull ache through his abdomen, but if he hadn’t had his protection, Tazaro wondered if it would have snapped his ribs like toothpicks. Discouraged by the brief thought, Tazaro pushed Zakaraia away again, just in time for Sheeva to zoom by and attempt to behead the man. Tazaro even heard the distinct zing of metal against bone.

  The attempt was ineffective as Tazaro realized the bladed tail had blocked the stab-in-the-back strike. He blinked as Zakaraia flashed in front of him again before delivering a knee into his stomach. As Tazaro doubled over, Zakaraia grabbed his hair, turned his head to bash his elbow into his temple, then launched Tazaro into the sky.

  A familiar pair of strong arms wrapped around his frame to catch and steady him as he tumbled in the air. As he heard Sheeva call out a command for a protection spell with a loud, stern “Bereich!” he felt the wave of energy ripple across his skin as she blocked whatever else Zakaraia had thrown their way.

  He watched the blueish, interlocked, beehive pattern glimmer, then fade as their strength gave out.

  Collecting himself, Tazaro noticed his bolstered courage and felt the impressed, thankful grin on his face. It filled him with power and clarity, and he wriggled out of her grasp to face their foe.

  Zakaraia stared back at them, seeming surprised about something.

  “You have so much more to lose now than you did then! How thrilling!” Zakaraia taunted with an evil grin.

  Tazaro didn’t look at Sheeva, aware that Zakaraia was trying to get under their skin, but the jab still prodded at his worries like a thorn in his side.

  “That tail is disturbing. We should get rid of it.” Tazaro suggested, giving a smile, hoping to break himself free of his worries.

  “I did. It grew back.” Sheeva answered, raising Abraxas.

  “It did what?” He blurted in shock, cut off from an answer by a fireball that shot by his face. He could feel the heat of it warm his body and heard the roar of it as it passed. Instead of looking up to follow it, he looked down towards their attacker, who was now readying another spell.

  Unwilling to witness whatever hellacious battery Zakaraia was about to unleash upon the both of them, Tazaro dove, tucking his wings as close to his body as possible. He barely heard Sheeva’s panicked outcry of “wait,” and, judging by the sound of it, he was in for trouble.

  Tazaro registered Zakaria’s eyes slowly opening, an orange glow behind them, and squeezed his eyes shut in hopes that it would work to prevent the infamous, near-deadly attack. Tazaro felt a warmth spread through his body and ripple his skin with goosebumps as he fortified his passive shield. As he heard an icy command of the spell’s release with the words “Tysyacha Lezviy,” he sucked in a breath and speared Laerso in the space where he felt Zakaria’s body still existed.

  He was sure he felt his blade catch something, but only briefly before his guts seemed to twist and pull, as though diving towards the earth at Mach-five speed. His face burned, and as he opened his eyes in shock at a disturbing sensation of a ticklish tingle, he saw a warbled, out-of-focus view of a sneer amid a pale face.

  Just as quickly as he’d entered the bizarre alternate dimension, he left it, finally able to turn his head to witness the side of the mountain he was about to crash into. He spread his wings as fast as he could and flapped hard, raising his arms to brace as he collided with the loamy soil, bounced, and tumbled down the side before driving Laerso into the ground to stop his fall.

  While Zakaraia had his back turned, Sheeva dived and readied Abraxas for an all-out, panic-driven, reckless strike as she wielded him with both hands, enraged and frustrated with the circumstance. With a mighty bellow, she swung. Zakaraia blocked her efforts with both his tail and his blade.

  Zakaraia caught Sheeva by the collar as she managed to break past his tail and shove aside his blade. He scowled, knocked the hilt of his sword against her head to bust her shield, then wheeled around and chucked her towards the ground.

  Disoriented, she barely had the wits about her to spread her wings to slow her fall before barreling into the stone steps, just ahead of the other two trying to run up them to safety.

  Copies of Hasch and Cassie spun in her vision as they stopped to help her to her feet, giving her an encouraging shake. She gave a thankful smile before realizing that they’d stopped. Stubbornly, she pushed them towards the peak of the steps.

  “Don’t worry about me. Keep–urk–going.” She urged. She took a knee to further stabilize herself, able to pick up the scurry of footsteps as they followed her order.

  As soon as she could open her eyes without vomiting from vertigo, Sheeva searched, frightened, for Tazaro’s chestnut hair or pacifying, protective frame, hoping he hadn’t been shredded to pieces like she had. Horror and dismay strangled her gut when she couldn’t locate him amid spinning, blurry vision of rocky cliffs and twig-thin pines dotting the grassy mountainside. She swallowed the lump in her throat, trying to quell the thrash of her heart amid her chest, constricted by agonizing pain.

  “Tazaro?” She called out in a voice that quavered as she choked with terror. She listened hard past the pounding of blood in her ears. When no answer rose from the other side of the cliff, she crawled to it, knocking over a stack of flat rocks that she had aligned out of boredom of walking stairs in her childhood.

  Peering over the side of it, she saw the flat rocks she’d knocked over tumble, bounce, and clack their way to the river below but saw no Tazaro, whether clinging for safety on the craggy face or lying on any of the overhangs towards the bottom.

  An airy, heavy, evil cackle snared and demanded her attention, and she snapped her head around to stare the owner down. Zakaraia was a fuzzy and black swirl of shadows, but she no longer saw doubles or triples after a few seconds. Large, leathery, scaled wings kept him hovered beyond the veil, and Sheeva’s face heated, enraged.

  “One down, two to go!” Zakaraia taunted gleefully as though it were a twisted game.

  Sheeva watched as he held his blade with both hands, handle tucked by his jaw, and as he dove for her, she struggled with the will to move.

  Sun reflected off the blade and into her eyes. Before narrowing them, she watched his tail steady itself by his opposite shoulder and wondered if he would attempt to box her into a pinned state.

  She pushed herself to her feet, searching desperately for Abraxas, locating him sprawled on the steps aways down from where she’d initially landed. She tripped over her feet as she ran to gather her weapon, staggering and falling to her hands and knees beside the formed steel.

  Snatching up the handle, she rolled around onto her backside, ready to run him through, preparing to lasso him down with tree roots or possibly pull him into the ground if that was what it took to prevent him from reaching the last two. Red eyes stared down red, and Sheeva traced the sigil for the spell in the air, waiting.

  A strange, reverberating twang sounded out as the veil rippled, causing Zakaraia to stop and Sheeva’s head to shake in shock. With a magnificent flash, he was bucked away by force, coupled with a ray of brilliant light that stunned him momentarily. Sheeva followed him with her eyes, unbelieving what she saw, unaware that her mouth hung open. She blinked in surprise as, after Zakaraia righted himself, he tried to pierce past the veil again and netted the same retaliatory response, complete with the echoing twang.

  She continued to stare, settling somewhat as he struck with his steel, again with his tail, and again with his blade, growing more and more vehement with each deflected strike. As he cursed and threw his entire weight on the thing, the veil pushed back, almost flicking him into the air and away from the temple. She watched him flip head-over-heels towards the steep mountain across from the steps and let loose a sigh of relief.

  Feeling safe with the veil’s presence and show of strength, Sheeva figured she had a few moments until Zakaraia would bother to try again and picked herself up and scurried down the steps to the river, scanning the ragged side of the drop-off for any sign of Tazaro. She was somewhere around the eleventh marker by the looks of the sun-bleached strip of what used to be green cloth.

  Her legs shook, and she cried out as she slipped up on a step, managing to catch herself on the etched stone lantern post, grunting as her shoulder bashed into it. Furiously, she wiped the tears pricking at the corners of her eyes with her sleeve and pushed herself to continue.

  As she reached the black strip for the seventh marker and still hadn’t seen a sign of Tazaro, her gut dropped into her feet, and she desperately cried out for him again. Ketzetails bobbed and waved in the wind for an answer, and she grimaced before continuing on her way.

  A deafening boom sounded out above her, causing her to bark out a startled noise, skid to a stop, and cover her ears as it clapped back and forth along the valley. She looked up just in time to witness a massive fireball as giant as a behemoth collide with the veil. She shielded her face with her arms and looked away as the projectile came closer before slowing to a halt by the amoebic wall, feeling the air around her become hot as though she were standing next to a fire. She could hear the sizzle of the spell before it was launched back into the air like a trebuchet. Sheeva watched it fly into the cosmos, leaving behind a burned hole in clouds in its wake. She shuddered, wondering how much the veil could withstand before shattering from a magical attack of such magnitude.

  The smell of smoke brought her attention to the ground around her, finding that the already dry grass had caught fire, spreading fast and crawling up poor saplings eeking out their meager living on the small patches of soil on the mountain’s steep face. The river below seemed to have boiled, emitting thick, billowing patches of steam into the sky.

  Frantic now, Sheeva continued to clamber her way down the steps in search of Tazaro, panting from exertion and coughing from pillowing fumes. Her eyes stung, and her throat burned, and as she grabbed a handkerchief from her pocket to cover her mouth, she wrestled it free from whatever clutched selfishly at it in her pocket.

  Pressing the cloth to her nose and mouth, Sheeva pressed on past the third marker: a stack of rocks with a faded yellow fabric now riddled with holes from rising embers.

  “Tazaro!” She called out again, answered by roaring flames.

  Another shaking boom sounded out above her, and she looked, watching as a centralized blizzard threatened to pierce through. Like the fireball, the attempt was rejected, gracing Sheeva’s red-hot face with a blast of chilly air, but she blinked when dots of rain blessed her cheeks. As a downpour of sleet soaked her through, her eyes widened, recalling how mud would still filter through in the early stages of the barrier spell they’d developed and understood that the veil was weakening. Perhaps it wasn’t as sturdy as she initially thought, and it helped to further chill her to the bone.

  Not wanting to witness what else Zakaraia would lob at them, she finished her descent, leaping the final set of stairs and landing her jump skillfully on the wooden docks, scanning the wreckage.

  The roof had burned to charred rubble and caved in, and Sheeva hoped the blacksmith and his family were not trapped inside. As she approached the door, she heard children’s screams for their parents inside, and Sheeva sprang to assist. She readied a stance and kicked the door with all her might to shatter the smoldering thing into splinters. Rusted iron hinges squeaked as they swung wildly like double doors as they fought to hold onto what little door was left.

  The two children, sheltered from harm by their father’s broad frame and their mother’s loving arms, emerged, and Sheeva commanded them to hurry towards the temple. She took off to continue her search for Tazaro before they had the opportunity to thank her.

  A heavy, dull, tok-tok-tok sounded out as her feet stomped on the wooden docks while she searched the pebbled banks upstream, wide eyes following even more wreckage. The water mill was unhinged from its tracks and had rolled off to the side and fallen over, orange embers glowing as they fought to stay lit after the rapid, blink-and-miss-it dousing sleet. Sheeva scoured up one side of the river and down the other, then tore her eyes to the other side of the docks as she leaned over the rail.

  She called for him again, feeling discouraged when there was still no answer, but a spot of hope shot through her chest from her gut as a hunched, winged figure appeared by a small pocket of water lapping along the temple-side bank. Hoisting herself up onto the rail, she spread her wings and pushed herself off, gliding closer.

  Bartholomew came into view, appearing drenched. His dark brown hair flung small rivulets of water as he turned to look at the intruder before instantly covering Tazaro’s frame like a loyal soba protecting its owner from harm. He’d even snarled, baring sharp, yellowed fangs as his ears flattened back against his head and teal eyes narrowed. His scales, usually relaxed, shifted and interweaved to close and deflect, and his tail pointed at her, daring her to approach.

  “Bartholomew, it’s just me!” She pleaded.

  He didn’t listen, and his stern expression hardened. Sheeva backed away as he crawled towards her on all fours, pushing his bladed tail in her face. If she were any closer, the thing would have nicked her nose.

  “How do I know that it’s not you, Zakaraia, you traitor?” He growled, voice gravelly and filled with pure, uncontested hate.

  She blurted out a “what?” and looked up, wondering how Bartholomew could have mistaken her for the attacker still in the sky above them, then snapped her head back down to him.

  “Bartholomew, it’s me! It’s Sheeva.”

  When he continued to advance, she wondered if he had somehow lost his mind and if a ta’hal could become...feral. Sheeva raised her arms, further stunned when he hissed at her and craned her head to look back at Tazaro, thinking of something Zakaraia wouldn’t possibly know. Then again, anything that had happened after the fight at the abandoned fortress was fair game.

  “You told me my mother’s name, remember? It’s Marina Keplov.”

  Bartholomew hesitated briefly, then scowled even more.

  “He already knows that.” He growled.

  Sheeva dropped her hands, taken aback by the information.

  “What? How? You didn’t tell me that until after–

  –he’s the one that turned Belias in, Sheeva. Because of him, I was jailed, and my best friend was executed. I promised to watch over you to make up for it, and I even failed in that when that bastard sealed me in crystal!” Bartholomew roared, then snapped his mouth shut, a guilty look on his face.

  “You...did?” She asked softly, touched by his confession.

  He didn’t answer but settled and let out a tense breath as he stood back on two feet, crossing his arms and avoiding her face. He turned his back on her and stepped to Tazaro’s side, staggering slightly as the pebbles shifted awkwardly beneath his feet.

  “You should check on Tazaro. I don’t have the tenderness you Sferrans do anymore. I’d crush his bones.” He announced, bringing Sheeva out of her shock and surprise.

  Brought to light, Sheeva hastened to Tazaro’s side and dropped to her knees, thankful for the softened pebbles that gave way as she sunk into them. Pressing her fingers to his neck, she felt relieved at the throb of a steady heartbeat, and as she held her hand above his mouth and nose, she further sighed at a wisp of breath. She trailed the scanning sigils in the air and tapped his forehead. At the sight of a symbol notifying her of liquid in his lungs, she formed some more seals, turned his head aside, and slapped her hand to his chest, running it up along his sternum towards his throat.

  The water drowning him followed, and he coughed as the stuff shot from his throat and out his nose. Sheeva helped roll him to his side as he heaved, gagged, and coughed hoarsely to expel the rest from his lungs. Tenderly, she held his hair back as he hurled, rubbing and patting his back for comfort.

  “Hey. Hey, it’s ok.” She soothed, trying to resist the urge to pull him into her arms and hug him for dear life.

  He lied back down, and she shifted him to rest on her thighs, the concerned look on her face fading into a peaceful one. Tazaro blinked up at her sluggishly, trying to determine his whereabouts and what had happened to cause him to be drenched, drowning, and lying on the rocky banks of the river. As it registered, his eyes widened, and he scrambled to sit up.

  “Shit, that attack, Sheeva, I, I thought–oh my gods!” He blabbered. She felt his tremble and pulled him up against her torso, hugging him tightly around his middle.

  However, there was little time for comfort and reunion as another boom ripped through the valley. The trio looked up at the now cloudy sky, and Sheeva and Tazaro’s eyes widened as a massive, swirling, dark tornado began to spiral down towards them. Sheeva leaned herself over Tazaro’s recovering frame, and when she felt Bartholomew’s towering self cover the two of them, formed the seals for her tree-root binding spell and drove her palm through, tying the three of them down with thick, muddy, rich-smelling roots.

  Tazaro watched through squinted eyes and a small space beyond the roots tethering them to the earth as the tip of the tornado drilled its way toward them, dangerously close to where they hunkered down. Trees were ripped out of the ground effortlessly, sucked up into the funnel, and flung at high speeds in varying directions. He watched as a rather large one shot into the side of their tower and stuck there like an arrow. The ancient, tessellated stone crumbled to bits and fell, bouncing and tumbling off the mountain as they rolled. As one of them smashed into the bridge, he squeezed his eyes shut and held his breath as the wave of water crashed over them, soaking them all through.

  When the water cleared from around his eyes, he opened them just in time to witness the tornado be flung into space, like something loaded onto a spring and rapidly released.

  Sheeva snapped her fingers to dispel the roots, and as they all sat up and looked, Tazaro cast a drying spell on the three of them.

  “What is he trying to do to the veil?” Tazaro asked, growing ever more concerned at the dark clouds beginning to swirl into place above Zakaraia’s head.

  Sheeva shuffled herself loose from their pile and stood, reaching for Abraxas. Tazaro stood as well, instinctively reaching for Tyrj and Laerso, but as his right hand grasped at the air, he remembered that he’d lost the shorter blade somewhere in all the excitement.

  “He’s trying to break it,” Sheeva answered, trying to mentally prepare herself for whatever was next. “I don’t think it’s going to last much–

  Sheeva stopped as blinding flashes of rapid lightning strikes struck the barrier. As Zakaraia dove with his blade at his side to slash at the gray wall while stabbing at it with his tail, the veil wobbled like a well-beaten custard before it lysed with a final, deafening boom.

  The trees that still stood among the peaks wavered, bowing with the wind, then snapping in half from the sheer force of it when they could yield no longer. The river split and sputtered wildly, spraying everything along the banks with cold, murky water. What little foundation remained of the blacksmith’s house broke, and the wooden docks crumbled, sending dust and ash into the air or dense logs floating down the river as the water collected back into its bend.

  It struck Sheeva to the core, and she stared, mouth agape. Their second-to-last line of defense had literally shattered before their eyes. The only thing left for them was to fight, and even that had proved impossible since the man simply healed himself, threw nasty spells, and got under their skin at every possible moment.

  “He did it.” She uttered. “He, he actually did it.” She repeated, legs wobbling as she took a step back, still fixed in fear at the sky.

  “It’s gone. It’s all gone.” She continued, barely feeling the slip of Abraxas from her numb fingertips. As her shoulders drooped, she slouched, and her knees gave way to send her to the ground. Tazaro turned and caught her, kneeling as he tried to shake her to reality.

  “No, it’s not gone. The temple’s still standing.” He assured. He paused and blinked, then glanced over his shoulder behind him to double-check. As he saw the steeple, he nodded to himself. “Yeah, see? There’s your favorite place to perch, you, uh, bird, you.” He added with a chuckle and a forced smile.

  “Besides, we’re still here, aren’t we?”

  Sheeva only dropped her gaze, a forlorn, dour scowl plastered on her face. She wasn’t hearing him, it seemed, and he frowned, wondering what else to say or do. As the thought of casting her bemusing spell on her surfaced, he readied it, beginning to trail the shiny, pink sigil. Just as he’d gotten halfway through, Bartholomew spoke, breaking his concentration, and the spell fizzled into the air.

  “Stay here. Help Sheeva get her shit together. I’m going up there.” Bartholomew ordered. Tazaro jerked his head up in surprise and watched as Bartholomew snaked a hand behind his back and withdrew a stone wheel from gods-knew-where, then tapped his shoulder to reach into his body and retrieve a massive claymore made of what Tazaro guessed was limestone by its immaculate shimmering specks. He clicked his tongue, and the stone wheel turned to a rich, sturdy metal material Tazaro did not recognize, and Bartholomew pressed the thing into his chest.

  Tazaro’s eyes lit up, amazed as the wheel expanded and unfolded to cover Bartholomew’s chest, shoulders, waist, and thighs. Even a pair of well-decorated vambraces and shin guards appeared, contrasting in a heroic way against the dark blue of his scales and tattered, favored green pants. When Bartholomew’s clawed hands held the claymore and swung it around his head, the stone turned to a blade so clean that he could see their reflection on it. It bore an inscription written in a language he couldn’t read.

  Bartholomew spread his wings with a mighty roar and took off, far faster than either of them could, even when flapping as hard as possible.

  “Holy shit!” Tazaro blurted, watching in awe as the two ta’hal began to fight.

  “Did he just…” Sheeva asked, managing to sit up. Tazaro broke away from the rapid strikes and counters to look at Sheeva, who seemed to have collected herself with an excited, impressed look on her face. He couldn’t blame her; watching a beast as big and menacing as Bartholomew don a set of badass armor and whip around a claymore like it was nothing was all the encouragement he needed to get back into the fray.

  “Hey, welcome back!” He greeted with a smile. She gave a sheepish look, ashamed, and sat up to push herself out of his hold.

  “I...I’m sorry. Seeing the barrier destroyed made me think it was...everything was over.” She admitted, searching for Abraxas. She found him, slightly covered by pebbles and getting wet by lapping water on the riverbank.

  “Well...it’s not. You good? After watching our supernatural friend charge into battle like that, I feel like I could tackle a hundred bearogs.” He stated, getting to his feet and wiping away the water trickling down his face from his still sopping hair. “Although, all I have to work with weapon-wise is Tyrj. Think he’s vulnerable to nets?” Tazaro asked.

  Sheeva stared at Tazaro for a moment, taking in his empowered state, and felt the smile creep to her face. Forget a hundred bearogs. She could slaughter a behemoth.

  “I can only hope so. Do you have water? I used mine up earlier for icicle spears.”

  He checked his side, where his canteen clacked against his hip. He popped the cork and stooped to fill it in the stream.

  “Mandrake fight? I dunno if this is enough water for that.”

  Sheeva huffed and looked back at the two clashing hit-for-hit in the air.

  “If it’s not, then I’ll use his blood if I have to. He seems to have enough.”

  Impressed with her choice of words, Tazaro tipped his canteen in recognition and took a drink before plugging it with the stopper and handing it to her.

  “Yes, ma’am!” He agreed, then looked back up to the fight.

  “I’ll help Bartholomew make an opening, and that should give you the time you need to cast your net.” She suggested, spreading her wings and leaping to assist in their fight. Tazaro followed, wielding Tyrj in his left hand and twisting together a net with his right.

  Bartholomew and Zakaraia’s fight moved above the temple plaza, and Sheeva dove, aiming to strike. Zakaraia’s back was turned, locked into an even stance with Bartholomew: falchion to claymore, tail-blade to tail-blade. She attempted to run him through, but as she thrust Abraxas forth, Zakaraia grabbed a baselard from the depths of his chest and blocked her strike.

  Pinned between Bartholomew and Sheeva, he looked from one to the other, then shot himself backward with a mighty flap and shove-off with his blades, sneering as though proud of himself for escaping their flank attack. He formed a sigil, pointed at Bartholomew, closed his hand to a fist, and launched Bartholomew off to the side. They could hear the screaming as Bartholomew flew over the wall and disappeared into the valley below.

  However, his victory was short-lived as Tazaro dove in close and snared Zakaraia in a net that enclosed around his body, collapsing his wings and binding his tail against his back. Tazaro jerked his hand back to tighten the slack, causing Zakaraia to groan in pain as the net dug into his body.

  Glancing at the ground, he saw that Sheeva had already landed and was pouring the water from the canteen. Wanting to buy her time, Tazaro landed, dragging the restricted bag with him and slamming it down into the plaza, then lashed it up and slammed him down again while Sheeva got her spell ready.

  The crackling of ice sounded in his ears, and he caught glances with her before whipping Zakaraia across the plaza towards the thick spear of ice that Sheeva directed to hurtle towards the ball, but as Tazaro felt the line give way and fall loose, he jerked his head back in shock. Zakaraia had twisted his way out of the threaded net and hopped over as the icicle sailed beneath him.

  Zakaraia threw out a clawed hand and stopped the icicle in place, snapped his fingers, and they watched as the giant thing spliced into many projectiles. As though conducting a concerto, Zakaraia waved his hands and formed two groups of spears, one headed for Tazaro and the other for Sheeva.

  “Mannequin, now!” Sheeva called out, and without hesitation, Tazaro formed the sigil and stomped. A muddie took the hit, and before the thing could burst and spray mud all over him, Tazaro waved his hand to cast their barrier spell, thankful for Sheeva’s quick thinking and their willingness to “fuck around and find out.”

  As the mud cleared, Tazaro barely had time to block Zakaraia’s falchion as it speared towards his face, and as he felt the scaly tail wrap around his throat, his eyes widened, panicked. He reached for Laerso, forgetting that he didn’t have his second blade with him. With one hand busied fending off the falchion inching closer to his face and the other trying to keep the tail-blade from puncturing his eyeball, Tazaro pulled a dishonorable move by attempting to kick the bastard in the groin. Amazingly enough, it was ineffective as his steel-toed boot also clashed against metal.

  Zakaraia gave him an unamused look and opened his mouth to say something. As soon as Tazaro felt the tail loosen in the moment of distraction and the slight give of the falchion, he twisted Tyrj, caught the thin blade of the falchion in its wrist guard, and directed the sharp steel down and across the ta’hal’s tail, helping to further loosen the thing from around his neck.

  He ripped the falchion from Zakaraia’s lessened grasp and drove it into the thing’s shoulder, raising Tyrj to finish the job of severing the tail still wrapped around his neck.

  “Here!” Sheeva called from the right, rushing to them and bringing Abraxas down across the tail. Tazaro stumbled back and clawed at the thing around his neck, grateful for a breath of fresh, clean air. He gorged his lungs on the stuff, coughing as his head rushed with an inflow of oxygen-rich blood.

  Enraged, Zakaraia howled, and his claws shredded his gloves and shoes as they appeared, then fixed his attentions on Sheeva, not waiting for his extra limb to regenerate as he slashed at her, knocking her to one side and then the other, then eventually off her feet as he delivered a kick to her chest. She hit the ground hard and scooted backward as he approached, though sluggish as his feet shuffled across the bricks.

  He snapped his fingers, and Sheeva’s eyes widened as roots sprung from the ground to tie her down. With a wave of his hand, Abraxas flung to his hands, and as he raised the sword to stab her with it, he cackled.

  “This should look familiar. Didn’t Llyud do this to you all those years ago and strip you of your beloved Rose?” He stated. Not that he needed to remind Sheeva; mere circumstance had already thrown her reeling into memory. Her chest ached, recalling the fear that strangled her gut, seeming ten-fold as she worried about what Tazaro would do. Frantic, she looked as well as her restricted head would turn and saw him getting to his feet, swords in hand.

  Don’t you dare, Tazaro! Don’t you dare! She pleaded, tearing her eyes back to Zakaraia. He hadn’t noticed–or seemed to be flat-out ignoring–Tazaro getting ready to go on the defensive.

  As she struggled against her bindings, they did not relent, and she watched, wide-eyed as he raised the sword above his head and the sun’s gleam reflected off of it. Unwilling to watch, she squeezed her eyes shut and waited for the sharp blow.

  But, the lethal strike never hit, and her stomach churned in knots as she opened her eyes to look.

  Despite her silent pleas and previous promise, Tazaro had stepped in, blocking the strike. She felt a twinge of hope when she realized he hadn’t been run through, but as Sheeva saw a pooling of blood on his chest, her panic hit in full, and she cried out in anguish, fearing some other form of lethal strike. Sheeva furiously squirmed against her bindings to no avail, quickly worn out by prior fighting.

  As Tazaro stabbed Tyrj and Zakaraia’s falchion deep into his gut in a last-ditch effort, Zakaraia howled and drove his palm into Tazaro’s chin, knocking him away and stumbling to his feet. Before Zakaraia could advance on Tazaro instead, Bartholomew dove in, and with a swift swipe of his tail, severed Zakaraia’s hand from his body.

  Tazaro watched as the thing fell to the ground and shriveled, turning into something wrinkly, grey, and shrunken, like a mummified pygmy head.

  The roots binding Sheeva loosened their grip as Zakaraia lost his focus, and she crawled out of them as quickly as possible, hurrying to Tazaro’s side to cast a frantically scrawled healing spell. He groaned and hissed, scrunching his face in pain as she pressed her hand to the wound and, with a bright green flash, healed the gash as well as she could. In her moment of mixed panic, fury, confusion, relief, and joy, Sheeva did not have the control she should have, and as she poured all effort into the spell, she watched her eyelids droop closed.

  Tazaro righted her, giving her a shake, and when she didn’t come to, looked toward Bartholomew and Zakaraia to see where they were. On the opposite side of the plaza, he watched as Zakaraia countered Bartholomew’s claymore with Abraxas and the tail-blade with a brand new one, but as Zakaraia tried to throw a punch at Bartholomew’s face with a stump, Tazaro blinked and looked at the still shriveled hand on the ground by his feet.

  It didn’t appear that his hand was going to grow back, still oozing black blood.

  As Bartholomew whipped at Zakaraia’s head, Zakaraia backed off instead of blocking, and the tail-blade sliced off a chunk of his now pointy ear. A bright, blue glow formed, and it didn’t seem that this body part would grow back, either.

  Tazaro’s mouth popped open, and he hurried to find the severed tail, trying to ignore how gross it was to hold the fleshy, still-warm end of it. He charged into the fight, beelining for the tail that kept infamously growing back.

  He swung for the tail but missed and tried again. The blade was sharper than he thought as the blade sliced through a leathery, scaled wing. Zakaraia howled again and turned, backhanding Tazaro to get him away as he stabbed him in the leg. Tazaro’s backside hit the plaza, and he gasped for air as the wind was knocked out of him.

  A tall figure dressed in what looked like ceremonial robes walked to the middle of the courtyard, holding a glass crystal ball that shone a stunning green, and Tazaro slowly recognized the Master of Malfa Temple as he calmly stopped in the plaza. A peaceful wave washed over Tazaro, and he watched as Aglis began to chant something that could have only made sense to the wise old man.

  A pulsing shockwave rippled across the ground, and Tazaro felt his fears at ease. Zakaraia was forced back a few feet, shielding his eyes from the blinding light. He crouched and dug his claws into the stone, attempting to keep himself from being thrown out as another pulse wave knocked him further towards the grand steps.

  With a bellowing roar, Zakaraia tried to pounce towards Aglis, but Bartholomew stopped him by grabbing his tail and flinging him across the way.

  A rapid, rippling, earth-shaking burst of waves launched Zakaraia into the sky. Zakaraia attempted to dive for them, but a shield slapped him across the face before he could get anywhere near any of them. He tried twice more before hovering for a moment, weighing his options. Zakaraia turned tail and flew away, seeming to fly off-kilter with what Tazaro hoped was permanent damage to his wing.

  A thunderous, crackling, skittering sound brought his attention to the ground, and Tazaro watched as a new, protective veil began to weave itself around their mountain in a brilliant array of colors, like those he’d never seen before, and a broad smile donned his face as he lost himself, mesmerized. As the final stretch meshed together at the top, Tazaro blinked as the veil flashed once more, as though solidifying itself into existence.

  He closed his eyes and shielded his face as dust picked up, then opened them cautiously as the gust of wind died down.

  There was the sky, appearing blue and cloudless, sunny and inviting, as though no threat had even been there in the first place.

  “Wow! That was so coo–

  Tazaro stopped mid-sentence, staring in shock at what was now an alabaster stone statue of Aglis, dressed in clean robes and long hair in a ponytail, holding a glass crystal ball and smiling down at something.

  Tazaro closed his mouth and dropped his head, feeling a crushing mix of guilt and gloom, finding he couldn’t even raise his head to look at the statue. His face burned, and his eyes welled, and he had the wherewithal to cast a muffling spell before tucking his knees to his chest and weeping into them.