Now what? The question popped up in D’Argen’s mind even as his hands shook where he gripped Thar’s robes as tight as he could. Vah’mor had just—

No. They had—

But—

D’Argen’s entire body started shaking. One of the arms wrapped around his back felt like a band of metal, keeping him upright. Keeping him supported. He could not feel his legs. The hand at the back of his head, the one he used as an excuse to hide his face, felt like a comfort. A heavy one.

The hand from his head disappeared and then returned to wrap so tight around his waist that it hurt. But it also kept him from falling when he realized his legs were not supporting him.

The hold surrounding him was both comforting and worrisome. It was too tight. It was too strong. It was too warm.

D’Argen dared to pull his head back and though he was looking at Thar, it was not Thar looking back at him. D’Argen flinched and the grip around him loosened. He barely found his feet as he stumbled back a few steps and then tripped over his sword. He landed heavily in the same spot where Vah’mor had disappeared. The thought had him back on his feet so fast it could have been his mahee that shot him up.

Thar—no—the thing wearing Thar’s face was staring at him with cold eyes. His arms were still outstretched as if waiting for D’Argen to return to that warm embrace.

It was tempting.

Not enough. D’Argen quickly picked up his sword and then dared a look around. The others were still there and they were all staring at him with varying degrees of shock or anger. Or the emotionless stares with pure black eyes like Thar.

Except one pair of eyes in the crowd.

Asa’s eyes were just a shade off silver. Just a shade too wrong.

D’Argen’s fist tightened around his sword. When Asa moved forward, gently nudging Sa’ab aside with a hand on her shoulder – they were too tall. Asa barely reached D’Argen’s chest. Now, their silver eyes were level with his shoulders. Another two steps and they met his chin.

The others spread out slowly, forming a circle around Asa and D’Argen. Thar was at the edges of that circle. The castle walls behind him remained the same. The world was the same. Killing Vah’mor was not what would get him out of his place.

D’Argen looked down at the sword in his hand. He could turn it on himself. He could. He had to. That was—

A bellow of rage had him raising the sword in a defensive move and stepping back at the same time.

Vah’mor’s bladed glaive bounced off the silver of D’Argen’s sword.

D’Argen stumbled a few steps back from the force and shock. Asa’s light hair was almost black, their silver eyes glistening a shade wrong, their features sharpening and thinning out. The wooden staff they had used earlier was a black metal glaive with black blades at either end of it and silver etchings in it all.

When Asa charged with another bellow, their voice changed as well. D’Argen blocked the downward strike and the glaive’s blade locked at the guard right over his fingers. Vah’mor snarled at him from across their crossed weapons. D’Argen pushed with all his might, disengaging them. He immediately slashed at the air in front of him, knowing he would hit nothing but it would keep Vah’mor from charging again so fast.

With the next step back, D’Argen raised his sword just in time to turn away Vah’mor’s blade from a stab. It left an opening. D’Argen stepped into it. The shaft came back around and he raised his defending arm just in time for it to bounce off his bracer. It still hurt and left him off balance, but his own stab with the sword was true. The tip of it sank through Vah’mor’s armour as if they were not wearing anything at all.

Vah’mor stepped back. D’Argen followed, readying for another stab. He switched his sword to his other hand to defend from the glaive’s blade on the opposite side even as he stabbed again. Vah’mor kept backing up, needing more room for their longer range, but D’Argen stayed right within that small space that was hard to defend in. He was able to move faster with his shorter weapon and had decided against dodging at all, using his bracers to catch either the blade or the staff of the glaive.

When Vah’mor should have hit the circle of bystanders, they parted like a wave. They did not say anything and their weapons remained lowered.

Vah’mor was not moving as fast. They either did not have D’Argen’s mahee, or they—

D’Argen urged Lilian’s winds to blow right past him and Thar’s ice to form under Vah’mor’s feet. Vah’mor fell back hard on the ice. D’Argen followed. He grabbed the glaive’s shaft with his free hand and yanked hard, pulling it out of their hands. When he threw it off to the side, it clanged and slid as if there was marble under it, then it sank under the grass like before. When he stabbed down into Vah’mor’s body it—

It shimmered.

Heat waves and black smoke. Vah’mor gasped and then coughed out a spurt of blood. When the flakes landed on their face, D’Argen was staring at Asa. He yanked his blade out and stumbled back a few steps. Asa sank into the grass, its blank tendrils collecting their body.

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Again.

D’Argen could not even think about what had just happened. Vah’mor never fought so sloppily. They knew exactly how to get their longer reach and how to keep someone from entering the tight space where their blades would not be effective. They knew how to fight with dagger and glaive at the same time. They knew how to weave and stab and—

D’Argen’s mahee opened without his consent as it ate the sound around him. He ducked just in time to avoid the blade that would have cut his head off. He turned while crouched, sword and bracers ready to defend—

Vah’mor stabbed at him with their glaive though they were still wearing Sa’ab’s shimmering robes. D’Argen was unable to parry so he fell to the side to avoid the stab. Vah’mor followed with another and another, forcing D’Argen to remain low to the ground without secure footing. Then they spun the glaive around their body and brought it high above.

D’Argen used that time to collect his feet under him but did not move. When the blade came down, he threw himself right at Vah’mor. His shoulder hit their stomach hard and the groan of pain felt like his own as it vibrated through him. His sword was a step behind, sliding through flesh and cutting gold and cloth apart. The weight over his shoulder increased but he heard the loud clang of the glaive hitting marble again. When he stepped to the side and shrugged the weight off his shoulders, Sa’ab’s still form fell on the grass. It consumed her like it had consumed Asa earlier.

Once the last spec of gold disappeared, D’Argen readied his sword in front of him. He scanned the circle of friends and loved ones, waiting to see which one of them would turn on him next. None of them moved. They looked like the statues in the hall, save for the slight breeze that played with long hair and light cloth.

It took him a moment to realize that two were not in the circle. Thar was still standing there, his sword out and held to the side, a perfect line parallel to the ground. The massive blade was so steady it looked like it weighed nothing at all. D’Argen had never crossed blades with that sword. He knew it was lighter than it looked and he knew it was made of ice, but he also knew it would not shatter like real ice. The thought of fighting Thar—

The second person that stepped out was Acela and she stood right in front of Thar, her back to D’Argen. She raised a hand to rest on Thar’s shoulder. He did not flinch or shrug it away as he would have in the other realm. Thar disliked being touched even more than D’Argen did. Yet he remained. He did not shift at all as Acela leaned into him, her smaller form fitting into his embrace as if it belonged there. She raised her chin and her lips moved so close to Thar’s. D’Argen’s fingers started hurting with how tight he was gripping his sword. Acela looked over her shoulder at him and she smirked.

No.

Acela would never do something like this. She cared too much about appearances. She loved Zetha too much.

The smirk fell from her face.

D’Argen’s mahee ate a whistle in the air and he dodged back two steps, avoiding the downward strike that would have cleaved him in half. Zetha did not let his miss slow him and he used his shield to hit at D’Argen. D’Argen crossed his arms in front of his chest, hoping the bracers would absorb the impact. It was too strong for that. He stumbled back a few steps. Zetha followed, his feet sure in the grass as he slashed. D’Argen was able to block or parry the sword with ease, but he had rarely fought against opponents with shields and never with ones who used the shield as a weapon more than as a defense. And Zetha was advancing too fast, too strong. D’Argen never knew his king to be such a good fighter. He barely dodged another hit from the shield when Zetha swivelled it around as if he was only holding it, no straps to his arm, and then the bottom tip of the shield sank into his chest.

It broke ribs. He felt it. It sank deeper then pulled out with a spurt of blood. D’Argen felt his lungs constrict and his entire body try to curl up around the wound. There was no time though.

But Zetha did not attack again.

“Are you willing to kill us all?” Zetha asked, but it sounded like Acela’s voice.

D’Argen coughed to try and clear his lungs.

“Can you even do it?” Acela’s voice rang much louder this time, but it was still Zetha’s mouth moving. Or at least, that was what it looked like to D’Argen’s eyes. Everything was blurring together. There were two of Zetha in front of him. Then one of them turned out to be Acela and when his double-vision cleared, the two merged into one.

It was Zetha’s sword that stabbed at him but Acela’s golden one was like an echo through the air. D’Argen parried Zetha’s sword with a trembling hand. Then Acela’s sword hit his defense as well. D’Argen could not keep hold of his sword. The silver blade was torn from his hand. Zetha’s shield blocked his view of the sword as it went flying. D’Argen had to stumble back to avoid another hit of the shield’s sharp bottom edge.

Again, Zetha struck first with a slash and D’Argen dodged under it with a turn of his body. Acela’s blade slid across his open shoulder and her blade dug deep. Even though Acela had a shorter reach and a shorter sword both, her blade did not miss as Zetha attacked once more. D’Argen was able to duck under the heavier blade but he had never fought against an opponent like this and the gold sword cut lines into his robes and skin and deeper still.

He wondered for a moment if this was how the demons had felt when Thar’s shade danced around him and killed them.

Then he remembered the demons.

He raised his arms to try and block Zetha’s blade from cutting his head. It hit stone and bounced off. Stone. Not the metal of his bracers. Acela’s golden sword also bounced off the stone shield that appeared in the air between them. Both Zetha and Acela stepped back and stared at the shield in fear. It unfurled.

When the shield’s head came up, it opened a dozen eyes to stare at Zetha, Acela, and D’Argen. They swiveled around its face like they had no fixed point and each of them moved to look at those surrounding them. D’Argen did not dare tear his eyes away from the demon. Its head disappeared back into his shield-like circular body, the only soft spot this demon had.

D’Argen jumped back and away from it. He eyed his sword in the grass a few steps away. It had not sunken below. The demon’s form moved like a wheel, cutting a deep furrow into the grass as it started spinning on the spot. Then, it started circling around D’Argen, spinning in ever growing circles. Every step he took and the demon continued to surround him, keeping him always at its centre. His boot touched the silver steel of his sword. He twitched toward it. The demon pivoted and shot right at where Zetha and Acela still stood as one.

Zetha raised his shield and the demon hit him hard. He slid back in the grass, creating deep furrows. The demon kept spinning in the air as its stone surface tried to cut through Zetha’s shield. Acela stepped away from his form and her sword was true when she struck into the spinning body at just the right time. The sword went flying out of her hand and into the air but the demon stopped its attack and then collapsed. Its foul blood quickly stained the ground before it too disappeared.

A moment later, Acela’s sword fell back to the earth and struck deep.

D’Argen slowly rose from his crouch, sword in hand. He did not dare tear his eyes away from his queen and king. The look they both gave him was one of disgust.

But hey.

It worked.

He shrugged lightly and then raised his sword and stabbed right down into his stomach.