Pirin darted to the left, trying to slip around to the other side of Ethelvaed, but the man flung his hand out, launching a bar of wind at Pirin. Pirin broke it down, but the distraction allowed Ethelvaed to close the distance. He struck out with an open palm. Pale green Essence fortified his limb.

The blow hit Pirin in the chest and flung him back across the room, but Pirin slipped his mask on and manipulated the wind to keep himself from falling down or smashing into the far wall.

“I’m just trying to leave,” Pirin said. “So I’ll be outta your hair soon en—”

He ducked under a blazing arc of horse Essence, then kicked the empty dagger pedestal at Ethelvaed. The man slashed it in half with his sword, mustering Reign on the edge of his sword.

You could try making a predictive model of him! Gray suggested again. That was fun last time!

“I’d need your eyes while I did it,” Pirin said, ducking away from one of Ethelvaed’s wild swipes. “And you can’t see him right now.”

That is…that is correct!

Pirin was expecting a “but”, but it never came. He sprang toward the door. Ethelvaed shot into his way again, knocking him aside. Pirin sprang back to his feet immediately, dodging a sword swipe. He blocked the next swipe with a hurried twirl of his sword, strengthening the blade with manifested gnatsnapper Essence. Ethelvaed was aiming right for his head.

This wasn’t like on Dulfer’s Reach. They weren’t just going to capture him. Ethelvaed was going for the kill, and he was a Blaze. Eventually, he’d succeed.

Even if Pirin ran, Ethelvaed would keep chasing him. Sooner than later, Pirin would need a predictive model of the man, even if he couldn’t use it right now.

Pirin used his spiritual sight on Ethelvaed, hoping that it’d tell him something new and help his mind when it came time to make the model.

Ethelvaed’s spirit was glass.

His core shone as bright as the sun, and the runebond tattoos still glimmered in Pirin’s vision, but his channels looked glassy and frayed. It was like projecting his consciousness down, except now, he pushed it into another person.

So, he knew when the channels felt different. Something had strained Ethelvaed’s channels and core, and Pirin suspected he knew what it was—forced advancements. The man had pushed himself through the Catch stage without a proper Familiar revelation, and he’d forced himself to the peak of Flare without understanding his purpose or choosing one that resonated with him.

Pirin had no way of capitalizing on it yet, but it was the perfect information to have when forming his predictive model.

Now he needed to leave before the man killed him.

He thrust his hands out, launching a Winged Fist from both of them. It was just enough to occupy Ethelvaed while Pirin took his mask off and fired a Shattered Palm into the floor. The deck shattered and snapped, and beneath it, the outer hull cracked. A column of water gushed into the room between Pirin and Ethelvaed.

Ethelvaed blocked the door, but Pirin was realizing…he didn’t need doors anymore.

He activated his Fracturenet and plowed through the wall beside the door. The wood crumpled beneath his elbows, and he sprinted out into the cargo hold of the ship. He’d already done enough damage to render the ship useless—it wouldn’t sink, but it wouldn’t be able to chase them until it made repairs.

But just for good measure…

The ship’s mast was a titantree trunk nearly five feet thick at its base, and it ran all the way down through the hull of the ship. Pirin kept the Fracturenet fortification active, then jumped. He smashed through the deck above, destroying some of the mast’s support. He jumped twice more, each time breaking through a new deck until he arrived on the main deck, right outside the superstructure.

A guard was waiting for him. The man swung his sword, but Pirin ducked away and pushed the man into a wall hard enough to knock him out.

The mast creaked and groaned. A few of the rope stays snapped, and a puff of splinters shot out of the mast’s base. With a creak and a groan, it fell to the side, smashing through the bulwark and splashing into the ocean. The entire vessel rocked, and Pirin spread his legs to keep his balance.

Did you do that? Gray asked. She was circling around above, keeping away from the archers and their arrows.

“Kinda!”

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I like when ships’ masts fall! Can you do it again?

“Can you put the mast back up?”

…No.

“I’m sure there’ll be plenty of other ships to watch…fall apart soon enough,” he said. “Care to give me a lift?”

Only if you jump up a bit. I’ll meet you halfway!

image [https://static.wixstatic.com/media/f3a882_5e221995337243e6a7d4250b55d3aeea~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_280,h_232,al_c,lg_1,q_85,enc_auto/embercore%20sigil.png]

Myraden blocked Khara’s sword swipes as she retreated down the hallway. She used her spear to keep distance between them, and Khara’s sword didn’t have enough reach to do any harm—for now.

Khara pushed the spear to the side, then down, then back into the opposite wall. Myraden manifested Essence into the spear’s haft, and with the strength of her enhanced body and the Tundra Veins, the wooden walls weren’t an issue. If the spearhead ever lodged in the titanwood, she ripped it out with brute force.

It took more effort than she was used to, and she hadn’t yet harnessed Reign, but neither had Khara. She couldn’t go slashing and swinging through walls all the time, or she’d wear herself out, but she could manage it for a few seconds.

“It’s you or me, antlerhead,” Khara snarled. “I’ll throw your skull at your king’s feet, and he’ll suffer as I have, before I take his life too.” She shouted incoherently and spun, ignoring the walls and slashing through them. Boar Essence glimmered on her blade, a dedicated manifestation technique and a ranged technique. She batted Myraden’s spear down, and Myraden ducked with it so the boar technique blasted past overhead.

She raised her spear up in a flash, slashing the spearhead up through Khara’s thigh. It wasn’t a deep cut, but it was a cut nonetheless.

But Khara was a Blaze, and Myraden wasn’t. Khara took the hit and ignored it, and, moving with the speed and power her runebond afforded her, jumped within Myraden’s range. She thrust her sword at down Myraden’s chest, and Myraden only had the wit to leap back. The blade grazed past her gut, leaving a thin slash and nothing more.

Myraden spun away as fast as she could, turning her head so she could keep her eyes on her opponent as long as possible. “How did you find us?”

“I stayed with the Hand. I learned his ways. He made me stronger than you could ever imagine!”

Myraden pushed a sword swipe into the wall beside her. Their weapons bound together, and, both enhanced with Essence, they tore through the wall. Khara pushed, and Myraden didn’t have the strength to resist. She stepped back, using most of her force and attention to keep their weapons together.

They reached the end of the hallway. Khara pulled her sword to the side and punched Myraden in the chest, flinging her out through a door and onto a flak-catapult platform. Crews worked to place packets of gravel into the catapult’s basket. They spun little wheels to rotate the two catapults on the platform, then fired them into the sky.

One catapult fired a burst of small stones and rock at Gray, and the other launched its payload at the nearby Featherflight. Myraden lost sight of the stones in the bright, late afternoon light, but nothing hit its target, whether by the intervention of a wizard or not.

Khara blasted a pulse of boar Essence out her fist, uncaring and indiscriminate. It caught Myraden and flung her straight through one of the flak catapults. She focussed her Tundra Veins into her back, protecting herself. A rib still cracked, and the splinters and wood shards left a hundred tiny cuts, but she’d live. She fell over the edge of the platform and landed on the main deck of the ship.

“Myraden!” Pirin yelled. “Jump! I have the dagger!”

He and Gray swooped down along the side of the ship, dipping below the effective range of the remaining flak catapults. Gray’s wingbeats stirred up a wake of water, and she was zipping past like an arrow. If Myraden didn’t time it perfectly, she’d be in the sea.

“You can’t run forever, Leursyn!” Khara yelled from the catapult platform. “One day, you’ll have to face the past!”

Myraden sprinted to the railing of the main deck and vaulted over, then jumped. The air whooshed around her, and she prepared to hit the water.

Gray flashed past, and Myraden reached out. Her fingers snagged the saddle. She pulled herself up to a sitting position, and she barely fit behind Pirin. She didn’t have any reins or feathers to hold onto, so she wrapped her arms around Pirin’s gut.

“Can Gray carry us both?” Myraden yelled over the whistling wind. Most birds could only carry one pilot, but Myraden had never ridden before. She didn’t know a lot about birds, and she had never wanted to.

“With our after reforging our bodies? She can carry a whole lot more if she wanted to, now!”

Then Pirin and Gray pulled up into a climb. Myraden’s stomach dropped, and she let out an instinctive yelp. It was so fast, and every second, Gray changed direction to avoid a projectile of some sort. Myraden wanted to pinch Pirin and pull his ear for not giving her any warning, but she was too busy holding on for her life.

When they finally levelled out, the Featherflight was only a few seconds away. Myraden shut her eyes and pressed her head against Pirin’s back, just willing the flight to be done. When the air stopped whistling around her and she heard Gray’s talons clicking on the wooden cargo platform of the airship, she opened her eyes.

“Sorry,” Pirin began. “Could you…uh, let go a little? I can’t breathe.”

Only then did she realize how tight she had been holding him. She loosened her grip and let her arms fall.

“Is it that much different from flying in an airship?” he asked, panting.

“It is very different!” Myraden slipped off the saddle, her legs still wobbling. “Thank the Eane I have Kythen…”

She stumbled across the cargo platform to where Kythen lay, still curled up on his bedding, then sat down next to him and leaned on him. She matched his slow, rhythmic breaths, and her heartbeat slowed too.

“Good news, though?” Pirin said. “I got the dagger!”

“Just…” Myraden held up a finger. “Just give me a minute…then we can talk.”