An energy shell ripped through one of the large windows behind Janak, missing him by a whisker as it streaked towards Ruban.

Before Shwaan could retaliate, Kaheen appeared in front of Ruban. Absorbing the full impact of the detonating shell, she staggered back into him.

From the other end of the hall, a sifkren whizzed past Shwaan and caught one of the approaching Aeriels in the throat. The Aeriel’s eyes – black with flecks of silver ­– widened in wordless terror. Light poured from the wound in his throat, where the sifkren had buried itself. Less than a foot away from the windows, he began losing momentum, crashed against the castle walls, and finally plunged into the wooded hills below.

Shwaan turned to see Simani standing near the debris, where the majestic double doors to the great hall had once stood. Half a dozen sifkren sat wedged between her fingers, ready to be unleashed. A few more bodies than before littered the floor around her. The Aeriel that had survived Shwaan’s previous attack thrashed convulsively at her feet, throat slit.

He assumed any other survivors had already fled the scene before Simani’s return.

Shwaan turned back to see no less than twenty Aeriels – all of them vankrai – glide into the hall through the open windows. Others hovered in the air, just outside the castle walls.

The first among them looked vaguely familiar. Shwaan frowned, studying his sharp, fiery features. Silver-flecked eyes, argent hair streaked with black – a vankrai like the rest of them. But there was something about the way he held himself, the way he glared challengingly at Shwaan, a combination of guilt and defiance in his eyes.

The new recruit Kaheen had told him about…

Could this be the vankrai Janak had dispatched earlier that evening, when news of Ruban’s arrival first reached them? But why?

His gaze swept to Janak, who was looking at the newcomers with self-satisfied glee. Clearly, he’d been expecting this.

Shwaan dragged a hand through his matted hair. “You’ve been in contact with Tauheen’s loyalists.”

It wasn’t so much a question as an epiphany.

Janak smirked, wiping bloodstained hands on his gaudy silk tunic. “They wanted revenge for the death of their Queen. I wanted backup. We both wanted Kinoh dead. Enemy of my enemy. You know the drill.” He glanced over at Kaheen, who now stood beside Ruban, her stance vigilant. “You’re not the only one who knows how to play this game, little prince.

“Although, I must say, that was very well played. I never so much as suspected – though I suppose I should have. Your charm is legendary, even among the Exiles. It’s your sister they really hate, isn’t it?” He sighed. “I suppose I should’ve killed you when I had the chance. But you were just so…delightful.” His eyes shone with childlike excitement. “So exquisite. I couldn’t bring myself to do it.”

“It’s never too late to make amends,” one of the newly-arrived vankrai drawled. She stepped forward, holding out a hand. An energy shell began to take shape on her outstretched palm.

Shwaan threw Simani a quick glance over his shoulder.

She nodded, reached into her pocket, and tossed him a tiny rock that nearly knocked him to his knees.

Breathing quickly, Shwaan managed to catch the sif shard Simani had extracted from his throat, less than a week ago. He’d hoped he wouldn’t have to resort to this tonight, but he hadn’t expected Tauheen’s followers to be working with the mafia.

He drew on every shred of energy in his body to forge a tiny shell, just potent enough to carry the sif shard across the room, to its target.

This trick had killed his mother; it wouldn’t fail him against a ragtag set of angry, vengeful vankrai. Granted, he’d had a lot more reinforced sif to work with, when he’d confronted Tauheen.

Still, needs must.

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He released his shell just as the vankrai flung hers, the powerful explosion forcing them to scatter.

Shwaan’s shell caused little damage in itself. However, the reinforced sif ore it’d been carrying struck his attacker square in the chest. It knocked her back into one of her comrades, sending them both sprawling to the floor, sapped of energy.

Simani launched herself headfirst into the fray, nailing both the fallen Aeriels with a sifkren to the throat.

The vankrai that’d led the others to the castle charged at Shwaan with a snarl of fury. Shwaan parried the first few attacks, but was eventually overpowered, still fatigued from having touched the sif ore.

“Why’re you doing this?” The Aeriel straddled him, crushing his throat with both hands as he spoke. “She was your mother. He killed her.” His eyes flew to Ruban, who was busy fending off his own airborne opponents. “You should be on our side.”

Shwaan stared up at his assailant, unable to decide if the situation was ridiculous or pitiable. “On your side, you say? Would that be the side that stood by and watched while I was tortured and humiliated, day in and day out, by your ally?”

The vankrai looked stricken, his hold on Shwaan’s throat slackening slightly. “We had no choice. We had to draw Kinoh out of his hiding, get him alone. We couldn’t allow the queen’s death to go unavenged. You must see that.”

Shwaan took advantage of the momentary distraction to throw the vankrai off him. He took to the air and fired off an energy shell, putting some distance between them. He needed to recuperate, gather his strength. And that wasn’t possible while he was constantly under attack.

“How did you do it?” He landed in front of Janak, keeping enough distance between them to maintain an illusion of safety. “How did you get Tauheen’s faction to ally with the Qawirsin? I know for a fact that they despise the feather mafia and its tactics.”

Killing Janak right now would serve no purpose. The vankrai had their own agenda. They didn’t care if Janak lived or died.

But perhaps Shwaan could use him as a distraction, find a way out of the death trap that was this castle. The man always had loved bragging about his own ingenuity.

And once they were out in the open, he’d have more options to maneuver.

Janak laughed, eyeing Shwaan with a bizarre combination of lust and antipathy. “You really do take me for a fool, don’t you? The moment Simani Vaz was captured, I knew Kinoh would leave no stone unturned to retrieve her. And even before I realized you’d turned Kaheen against me, I wasn’t going to risk underestimating the Hunter who killed the last Aeriel Queen.”

“And so you went to these zealots for help?” Kaheen sneered, fending off two persistent attackers at once. “You realize they want to establish dominion over the earth, and use an enslaved human army to attack Vaan, don’t you?” She fired a shell that blew one of the two vankrai straight through a massive stone wall.

“The earth isn’t my responsibility,” Janak grunted, meeting Shwaan’s eyes. “I have my own dominion to protect. I told them they could have Ruban Kinoh, if they helped me. They could do with him what they pleased – get their revenge however they liked – so long as he was dead by the end of it.

“And so long as I got to keep you.” His eyes bored into Shwaan’s, unblinking and bright. “I wouldn’t have let them kill you, you know.”

Energy crackled around him, and Shwaan clenched his hands into fists. It took every shred of self-control he had, not to blow the man’s head off as he spoke. “Let me guess. You made a deal with Tauheen’s faction, and they sent one of their number to keep an eye on you. To stay at the castle and make sure you weren’t planning to double-cross them. And report back to the others when Ruban finally showed up.” He smiled at Janak, his tone sympathetic. “And you decided to induct him into the gang as a ‘new recruit’.

“Not a bad plan, save for the fact that they’ll get rid of you the moment they’re through with us. Or did you not realize that?” Shwaan paused for effect. “Now they have Ruban, you’re less than useless to them.”

Janak snarled, enraged.

A vankrai standing close to him hurled a huge, fiery shell at Shwaan.

Pushing him out of the way, Ruban flung his sifblade at the Aeriel. It punctured her eye and sent her toppling over the window ledge. Her startled scream rang through the hall as she plunged into the darkness beyond, illuminated only by the light spilling from her death wound.

“What next?” asked Ruban, dropping into a practiced fighting stance.

His left hand was stiff, held close to his body. The cloth covering the shoulder and upper arm was stained and rigid with dried blood.

Shwaan closed his eyes, trying to rein in his thoughts. They couldn’t go on like this. They’d start dropping from exhaustion any minute now, even if they managed to avoid all the shells and bullets ricocheting around the hall.

“We need to get out into the open.” He leaned closer to Ruban, dropping his voice until it was barely more than a whisper. “It’ll allow me to use fire-shells without frying you and Simani in the process. That’s pretty much the only advantage we have here, and we can’t afford not to use it.”

“You really want to drag this out into the hills?” Ruban asked through gritted teeth, pulling another sifblade from a sheath at his ankle. “Give the vankrai more space to hunt us down and pick us off, one by one?”

“It’s a risk.” Shwaan straightened, holding out a hand as he absorbed the ambient energy in the castle. Would it be enough to clear a path for them all? “But there might still be a way out of this, if we can get free of these damned walls.” The shell took shape in his hand, pulsating with energy. Shehzaa’s words rang in his ears. If he was wrong about this, he’d get them all killed. “Do you trust me?”

Ruban’s body relaxed, even as his grip on the sifblade tightened slightly. “Always.”