I scowled as Cedric called me by my surname. His entire body was sheathed in crackling power—and from what I'd seen, it had been for some time.

"How long can you keep that up, Cedric?" I asked him. "I don't care if everyone thinks you're a genius; if you had the attributes to keep that running forever, then you wouldn't have so much trouble dealing with Kara."

"Really?" Kara panted.

"I do not think he meant it like that," Garron commented to the injured girl.

I tried not to be distracted by them.

Cedric didn't respond to my provocations. He didn't give me any more information in exchange for my goading.

"Rylan," Cedric addressed his partner.

"I can manage," the wind-mage responded. "She mangled my arm, but it's cauterized, and I'm not going into shock."

The electric shroud around Cedric funneled rapidly to concentrate into his outstretched hand. That was the only warning we got.

Garron rushed forward and slammed his own palm down into the ground. A sigil flashed where he made contact with the earth.

There was a deafening shattering as Cedric's arc of lightning slammed into the wall of earth that Garron had raised in front of us.

My druidic aura was still running. I couldn't see Cedric or Rylan behind the crumbling earth wall, but I could sense where their life-force filled soulcores were. And I could definitely sense the forest all around them; for one of the first times since entering the Towers, I felt fully connected to my druidic power within the arena.

I poured mana into the ground beneath my feet and sent it spiraling out towards where my aura old me Rylan and Cedric stood. The chunks of the earth wall had all hit the ground a moment later.

Rylan muttered a spell. A sigil flashed beneath his feet, and he stepped forward. He was fast—too fast.

Kara tried to jump away from the wind-mage. She failed. But, just as Rylan was thrusting a dagger towards her midsection, his arm was knocked aside by a limb of the tree behind him. I silently thanked the ancient-feeling winter-oak for heeding my call and my mana.

Rylan was only stumbled. But Garron took the opportunity to shoulder-check him away from the very pale-looking Kara. It pushed the wind mage back further than I'd have expected but didn't seem to do much damage to its target—as if the very muscled Garron had just tried to hit a breeze and not a person.

I trusted my friends to handle Rylan. I didn't know the full capabilities of the wind mage, but I knew Cedric was a looming threat. One I'd dealt with before, however.

I reached into my components bag and grasped for the vine cuttings I'd harvested the night before. With a verbal command in druidic, and a blast of wind magic to guide the cuttings, I tossed them at Cedric.

He cut through the vines as they expanded in front of him, but it didn't matter. My aura was running and I could still manipulate the vines, even if they'd been bisected. All he managed to do was allow me to ensnare him around both the knees and the arms with two sections of plants.

Or so I thought.

Before he could even stumble more than a step, Cedric's aura of lightning re-erupted around himself and burned the vines away. The lightning mage met my gaze as if to say 'it won't work again'.

Cedric charged forward at me, lifting his electricity enshrouded arming sword. I could choose to parry the strike easily enough, but I did not like my chances when it was coated in his mana-disrupting lighting aura.

I backstepped, running through my options, as his sword whooshed past my nose. I saw openings in his stance and attack pattern—plenty of them at that, but his whole body was covered in lightning as well. And I still didn't trust the metal of Mytharis not to conduct it.

I ducked under another of Cedric's strikes and rolled to his blind spot. I raised my hand and launched a wind-scythe at him, feeling my mana deplete more than I was comfortable with.

The cutting edge of my spell tore somewhat into Cedric's thigh as he attempted to dodge it but failed to clear its outer edge. I noticed, however, that the scythe slowed somewhat when it hit the electricity covering him; still, it wasn't fully stopped.

My enemy, his leg bleeding, raised his hand at me but hesitated.

That was his weakness, I realized. When he'd used his lightning blast to destroy Garron's earth wall, or when he'd freed himself from the root I'd ensnared him... Cedric's lightning aura had dissipated and taken a few moments to recharge.

I stepped backwards. I could make this a ranged fight. But I could only get off so many wind scythes before I was out of mana. There was also the issue of dodging one of Cedric's lightning strikes, which I didn't think I could do if he'd already sent it out. I could time his aim, but it'd be risky to try.

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So that's it? I thought to myself. That shroud keeps you from casting other sigils; it counts as one spell, doesn't it? And you're only advanced enough to keep one going at a time. You're not that much of a genius.

Cedric's brow twitched in irritation. He lowered his hand and charged back towards me again with his sword.

My acrobatics proficiency was high enough above his, when combined with my sword proficiency letting me time his moves, that he just couldn't hit me. I sidestepped his blow, ducked beneath another, and rotated around him.

"It's impressive that you can do so much with that spell," I said and jumped back from a wide, somewhat controlled swing of his sword as he rotated as quickly as he could to try to keep me from being behind him. "But it's limited, isn't it?"

I dodged another swing of his sword and met his eyes. "And you know you can't beat me in a swordfight, don't you?"

He barred his teeth and stepped forward, only to be tripped up by a root wrapping around his leg by my command. He could burn away vines without needing to recharge his aura, but not hard wood—he'd already shown me that much.

Cedric stumbled and fell to the ground. I raised my arm, ready to release another wind-scythe before he could free himself.

But he didn't try to free himself. His aura crackled as he prepared to launch another bolt of lightning at me.

I rolled out of the way as the lightning soared past me, only to be hit by a blast of air that sent me rolling shoulder-first across the ground in a much less controlled manner than before.

My eyes barely caught the sight of Rylan guiding across the forest floor, as if weightless, to dodge coordinated attacks from both Garron and Kara. His working hand was raised in a wind sign towards me. He then used another blast of air to push Kara's whipping flame strings away from himself.

By the time I was getting back to my feet, Cedric's body flashed with another burst of lightning. He stood up, now freed from the burned and shattered root I'd snared him with. But his body was no longer protected.

I charged forward at him. To my surprise, he raised his hand up, and another sigil appeared in front of his fingers—fingers which were forming the same sign he'd used to strike me with a spell during our duel.

I rolled to the side again. Cedric tracked my movements this time, and I just barely avoided being struck by a blast of lighting that exploded near my foot.

Cedric summoned another sigil, moments after casting the first. He had so much more mana than me, it was ridiculous.

Mile, now!

My companion, who had been quietly observing the battlefield and sending me pertinent information through our bond, lunged out of the bushes and flew towards Cedric's leg. The dog bit down hard, and Cedric jerked, his sigil fizzling out. Mile was getting big and very rapidly at that; he was already at least on the heavier end of twenty-eight pounds.

But I wasn't just letting Mile do all the work. My hand was already in my component pouch. I tossed a handful of red-eye spores, guided by a burst of wind, directly towards Cedric's face.

For his part, Cedric slashed down with his sword towards Mile, but it was an awkward angle to swing at and the dog was already detaching himself from our opponent. Mile landed to the side of the lightning mage and dodged back a few feet.

The red-eye spores slammed into Cedric's face and he made a sound of agitated surprise. His eyes and nose would be swollen shut in seconds. But not yet.

Mile! Get out of there!

The dog growled at Cedric, who was already summoning another sigil that flashed over his heart. His lightning cloak reemerged as his eyes shone azure and his hair crackled with static once more.

Don't touch him!

Mile headed my telepathic commands and backstepped. Cedric scanned the battlefield, his vibrantly glowing eyes already half-hooded by his swelling, irritated eyelids.

I was running out of mana. I needed to end this quickly. Which meant I needed to disable Cedric's lightning cloak again so I could... kill him with Mytharis. Or that I had to risk draining my reserves completely by finishing him off with a wind-scythe.

I closed in on Cedric.

And I heard Kara scream.

My eyes shot towards where I'd last seen her, Garron, and Rylan doing battle. And I saw her die as the wind-mage finished cutting her throat from one end to another with his dagger.

It seemed that Kara had been mid-pirouette; her flame strings dissolved from her fingers as she hit the ground. And Rylan spun away from her, still as light as air, as her blood leapt from the edges of his weapon.

Garron slammed his hand onto the ground. A sigil flashed, and an earth wall erupted between Rylan and Kara. The tall earth mage ran to Kara, and Rylan took the opportunity to almost fly across the ground towards Cedric.

Cedric.

I'd taken my eyes off of him. But Mile hadn't. The dog sent a telepathic warning to me, an image of Cedric channeling another lightning blast at him.

Mile was prepared to jump away. The dog didn't have to move, however, as, at the last moment, Cedric redirected the already launching bolt my way.

I had no time left to dodge. I also didn't have enough, or even the mana left, to charge a ward strong enough to block the electric arc.

The bolt hit me dead in the chest before I'd even fully realized any of these things.

My mana-circuits screamed as the lightning magic disrupted them. My druidic aura dissipated as I lost any semblance of control over my own mystical energy. My muscles jerked, and I nearly fell to the ground.

I could see colors I shouldn't. My fingers were locked in a spasming death grip on Mytharis.

Mile's anger ripped into my confused mind as I felt his teeth, as if they were my own, tear into Cedric's armpit.

I stepped towards them, my kneecap bounced as a twitching tendon yanked at it.

Cedric fell to the ground as Mile bit into him, but his eyes still met mine as he slashed the dog away with his sword.

A sigil flashed in front of Cedric's other hand. He was actively scowling at me now as he released another spell.

I couldn't dodge it either.

I only saw white and blue as my ear drums exploded.

My heart wasn't beating. It felt like it'd been torn apart. And I couldn't use magic to try to heal it.

I couldn't even close my eyes to wince against the agony. The feeling of my back impacting the ground was distant to me.

And yet, a moment later, I saw nothing. My muscles kept jerking. I didn't feel them anymore.

And then I died. I couldn't tell you exactly when it became a true death.