Old Isidora clutched thirty hours of his life in her wrinkled old hand.

The crone hemmed and hawed as she assessed it with a critical eye, stroking the clay with a shriveled finger to assess its texture and quality. Old Isidora went to great pains to cultivate a reputation of glacial patience, slow deliberation, and a hard earned talent of bargaining until poor, honest craftsmen went home in tears.

In an ideal world, he might have avoided her entirely and plied his work to easier marks. Dytifrourá was a small pond, however, and Isidora was an especially large fish. Her patronage was fickle and fraught with stress, but Isidora’s duties as the temple’s priestess might as well have enthroned her in the eyes of the townsfolk. Life was easy with the temple behind you. That was a lesson that Kosta learned well in the eight years since his Dòrognosis.

Mighty Linus, Evanthe the Myrtle, and Pious Isidora stood proudly as the pillars of Dytifrourán society. Papa might join them soon: Kyrillos the Craftsman. It was always difficult to discern Papa’s thoughts, but Kosta suspected that he was dreadfully pleased with it all. The doors of Papa’s workshop were always darkened with new customers and commissions as Dytifrourá swelled with settlers and military forces from the Dipoli, all of whom demanded his talented hands.

Isidora clucked her tongue as she finished her assessment. Milky eyes beamed up at him as the crone spared him a gummy smile. One determined tooth still hung on proudly, although it looked like it might rot out any day now. He barely managed to avoid revealing his displeasure - why hadn’t she gotten that fixed? Ademia could fix it with a snap of her fingers.

“Marvelous!”

He blinked, his uncharitable thoughts forgotten. Really?

She gently held the clay sculpture high against the temple’s orange light. It was finely made, of course, but hardly beautiful. Kosta wouldn’t deny that. He would never have shared a poorly crafted piece with such an important client. Although he may not (yet) have the storied skill of his father, Kosta refused to create anything without investing his entire attention.

It had been made skillfully and with great care, but the offering lacked beauty. Couldn’t she see its countless flaws? The sculpture’s boyish features were grossly asymmetric. His pose lacked accuracy, cobbled together from a half-dozen impressions. Kosta might have blamed the model for that - he should have known better than to recruit little Theon, who had been a hellion before his Dòrognosis granted him the speed of the wind - but in the end it was his failure.

Isidora rubbed her thumb against the offering’s clay chest. “He will make a fine offering. I see your father in your work.”

Kosta soured. “Shall I paint it, then?”

“I’ll take care of that, don’t you worry. There are special preparations that must be made to honor the Demiurge. Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.”

Part of him revolted at the thought of leaving a work unfinished, but the rational part of Kosta bit his tongue and kept his ego in check. Isidora’s commissions practically paid for his entire workshop. If she wished to decorate the offering in the temple, then the offering would be decorated in the temple.

It was still difficult to restrain his disappointment.

There was a special beauty in bringing a project to fruition. Kosta adored sculpting a figure from clay. Measuring out the limbs, detailing musculature, and bringing to life an ideal from the lifeless material resonated with his very spirit.

But the finishing was important too.

Whereas sculpting brought it to life, those extra touches at the end offered every work a semblance of soul. Kosta was still limited to largely mundane methods now: paint, cloth, dye, gems, metal, and a little dash of magic to weave it all together into a polychrome figure.

Mastery of such skills evaded him, but each failure was yet another step on the road to perfection.

He was a far poorer painter than sculptor, but that would change. It always did.

Isidora finally paused her analysis of the figure. It was fairly small, standing evenly with her knobbly knees, and captured Theon’s impetuous grin quite well. The boy seemed antsy, ready to leap off into the horizon in an instant, all coiled muscle and bright eyes. Every line hinted at potential movement, a dynamic explosion just moments away.

Kosta could take pride in that aspect of his creation if nothing else.

“Apeironic bronze for the flesh,” Kosta couldn’t resist offering some direction. Perhaps the votive offering wasn’t meant for him, but it had been his for a time. Kosta had poured his soul into it.

Old Isidora wryly arched her eyebrow. “We have our own sacred methods, boy.”

“Apeironic bronze. The boy is a permutation of the World-Spirit, one of its dreamborn faces. A sliver of infinity. His flesh should reflect that. The hair must be—”

“Must?” Isidora’s cackle drained the heat from the temple. Withered fingers wrapped delicately around the clay boy’s neck. Kosta gasped as a great weight bowed his shoulders and an invisible grip tightened around his throat until only the barest gasps of air reached his lungs.

He fell to his knees on the hard stone floor. Those invisible claws tipped his chin so that he looked up at Isidora. She was still only barely taller than him in this position, but Kosta found that didn’t do much to comfort him.

Kosta shuddered as he looked into her darkly amused eyes. This was a game to Isidora and he was the toy. She was not the irritable old elder scolding the Myokipos. For the first time, he witnessed Isidora, Keeper of the Naós in place of the penny-pinching crone willing to spend a day and a night haggling over the pettiest of details.

“You overstep, sculptor,” Isidora’s pale lips twisted into a mocking smile. She waved dismissively. “Leave. You will know when I desire more from you.”

He hesitated as ingrained stubbornness reared its head. The pressure redoubled. Old Isidora’s magic was thick and potent, a reflection of her wizened soul, and he felt the weight of her fifteen decades wielded as a heavy bludgeon to smash his defiance.

There was no winning here.

Kosta wished to scowl at the crone, but he didn’t dare. All he could do was incline his head.

Isidora smirked as she tossed a drawstring leather pouch filled with his earnings to the temple floor. He snatched it up, fury fueling his motion, and stowed it into the safety of one of his many, many pockets. Kosta rose and stalked away, ignoring the surprised ‘Oh!’ of a worshipper that he forced his way past.

“A pleasure doing business with you!” Isidora sang. Her fingers brushed the clay boy’s wavy hair affectionately.

He wanted nothing more than to flip her off, but resisted the urge. His pride demanded he do something, but Kosta needed Isidora’s patronage. As much as it galled him, she was his best customer by a mile. Kosta had taken commissions from dozens now, but the temple was one of the only reliable sources.

Without Isidora’s deep pockets, Kosta’s dreams of leaving humble Dytifrourá for the vaulted palaces, windborne isles, and silver-paved roads of Argyropolis may prove impossible. At best, his exodus might be delayed by years.

Unacceptable!

Isidora’s cackling filled the air as Kosta shoved his way out of the Demiurge’s naós and into the open, bustling center of Dytifrourá’s merry agora. He wished to get away from her and the ugly feelings she inspired.

He blinked as brilliant rays of sunlight greeted him along with the revitalizing chill of crisp mountain air. As always, his eyes instinctively flitted to seek out the glory of distant Oroneiros. It laid to the east today. The mount was little more than a pile of vague lines and the grand impression of something glorious, but Kosta swore it grew sharper and more defined by the day.

It wasn’t just wishful thinking. He was sure of it!

Isidora had requested his presence at high noon, so the sun was still at its zenith over the agora. The market’s stones and people were bathed in its gentle warmth and steady light. Every spare drop was harvested by black helioklept veins wrapped around poles which supported countless stalks of little goblets and tiny constructs.

The sun’s endless energies were sucked down greedily by the glassy vessels, then used to power various constructs to serve Dytifrourá’s needs. Most were simply used to power lights as the sun set, a simple permutation of transpoietic arrays that even a novice like Kosta could manage, while others fueled the enchantments inlaid into the very stone of Dytifrourá’s roads and walls.

While Dytifrourá was a small town, the agora was its heart. Hundreds of people populated it and the loud chatter provided a familiar, comforting backdrop as he scanned the crowds. The vast majority had paused their work for the day to eat, meet, and sip wine before returning to their chores. Eneas’ fluffy loaves of wondrous bread kept most sated, each bite worth a small meal, while others stopped by the merchants to see what exotic meats or foodstuffs had been carted in from the corelands.

Others mingled by the fountains, engaged in feverish discussion over politics or philosophy or decades-old disputes that wouldn’t be forgotten any time soon. The steady buzz of haggling provided a constant undercurrent, completely inescapable in the home of the merchants.

Dozens of stalls lined the edges of the agora, with the most prominent taking place in the center. Most of the edge stalls were temporary, meant to host nomadic merchants or those who lacked the capital to invest in a proper storefront. Native Dytifrourán traders claimed large, well-protected stalls in the midst of the agora or managed a building.

Countless treasures, knickknacks, curiosities, and simple necessities could be found here. Dytifrourá saw some traffic from the barbaric westlands, which provided just enough interest for merchants to come out to this western territory to seek out strange artifacts and plentiful raw materials that could be sold back in the heartlands for a pretty profit.

Some stalls in the center held countless gems encased behind enchanted glass or bound within shells of impenetrable, immovable magic. Kosta was a familiar sight there, although he generally only bought the cheapest gems for adornment and the occasional focus. None of his projects required valuable mundane gems like sapphire or ruby, let alone more exotic fare laced with magic.

He would seek those out on his own, thank you very much. The merchants would charge an arm and a leg!

Other stalls hawked pelts and components of all manner of beasts. Mundane wolf skins, goat horns, auroch hooves, and rabbit pelts were intermixed amongst the trophies from fantastical and dangerous creatures. A few he recognized from unfortunate experience: a mismatched pelt of golden fur and stark white feathers that could only belong to a griffin, the mottled brown hide and curled horns of a great minotaur, the pickled eye of a cyclops (still blinking), and even a dreaded chimera’s scorpion-like tail.

As many as Kosta recognized, even more were foreign and unfamiliar. What strange lands contained monsters who had wielded black fangs the length of his arm, or still-beating hearts carved of crystal?

Dytifrourá was a frontier town, the Dipoli’s westernmost stronghold against the barbaric Hesperians. An island of civilization amidst a sea of savagery and wilderness. Venturing far beyond its walls invited encounters with all sorts of wild creatures. Most were harmless, even those blessed with magic and cunning, but inadvertently stumbling upon one’s lair or crossing a monster during a hunt could prove fatal to those unaware.

Most Dytifrouráns rarely risked such adventures, but Kosta found it essential. Treasures were to be found in the wilds: precious stones, magic-infused wood, or specific minerals and components to mix into paint. Such valuable materials could easily be purchased in the bustling agora, naturally, but every token sum extracted from Kosta by silver-tongued merchants with hawkish eyes was one less to put towards the most valuable investment of all: himself.

He would never reach Argyropolis with a dozen coin-seeking ticks sucking all they could from his purse.

Despite his frequent excursions, Kosta was no great fighter. Clymere’s insistence on abusing him in the training grounds ensured that he was competent enough, but Clymere herself would always be at his back during their short expeditions. The monsters knew her by now. They rarely chose to test her.

“Kosta! Did the old hag bite?”

Speaking of Clymere…

He tugged Isidora’s payment from his pocket and showed it to Clymere. She pumped her fist and whooped, but his dour expression didn’t go unnoticed.

“Why so glum?” Clymere swung an arm around his shoulders as they walked. Given that Clymere stood just as tall as he did, it was an easy task. They’d both inherited Mama’s stature. One of Clymere’s hands, mottled with burn scars despite Mama and Ademia’s best efforts, insistently forced the pouch of coins back into his pocket. “And put that away, won’t you? You look like an easy target.”

Kosta rolled his eyes and arched an eyebrow as he waved around at the agora. “In Dytifrourá? Next to you?”

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“I am pretty awesome, aren’t I?” Clymere flexed her bicep as she dragged him towards the marketplace. As always, Clymere attracted all kinds of happy waves, greetings, and excited exclamations from the children that saw her. It didn’t stop a lot of people from having to duck away to avoid her speartip, though. “C’mon, let’s get out of here. Walk and talk.”

Their progress was slowed by the constant attention paid to them (mostly Clymere) by the townsfolk, but that was nothing new. There were few foreign faces to be found in Dytifrourá, although its population had slowly begun to swell in recent years.

Little ventured east toward Dytifrourá beyond the odd monster and occasional bandit raid, but Headsman Linus was a vigilant steward. Dytifrourá’s guard was always prepared to grind those assaults beneath their heels.

Thanks to the hundreds of settlers that made their way to this bastion each year, quite a few traders developed routes to both supply Dytifrourá and pick up whatever exotic materials flowed through its markets from the west. Still, even those merchants were easily recognized for the most part. The same groups passed through year after year.

Everyone knew everyone here. It was a simple fact of life. Finding yourself an anonymous face in a crowd was nigh impossible.

Clymere’s militia gear only stood out more in such a small community.

She cut quite the figure. Linothorax armor woven of enchanted linen draped over her chest to protect her shoulders and abdomen, ending in thick cloth plates that hung to her knees. It left her muscular arms exposed. Beneath the linothorax, her greaves were shaped of beaten brass by stoic Dorus.

All of Clymere’s armor was augmented by glyphs and transpoietic arrays to withstand the elements, physical trauma, and simple fortification that would render her equipment powerful enough to stand up to a monster’s jaws.

Two features stood out the most to the crowds: Clymere’s helmet and the great spear clutched in her hand.

Her helmet was forged of mundane bronze, albeit bronze enhanced by Dorus’ reliable work. A thin slit running vertically from her chin to forehead was its only vulnerability. It left her eyes and nose exposed, but would block most slashes.

Twisting patterns of geometric figures etched into the helmet’s side ensured it would protect her, and also birthed a flickering silver light reminiscent of a flame to dance above her crown and form a brilliant plume. The plume’s color branded Clymere (and Dytifrourá) as a vassal of wondrous Argyropolis.

It was convenient to look for in the heat of battle, or when seeking out a guard after a rare burglary or (much more common) drunken brawl between heated friends or feuding rivals.

Of course, most eyes strayed to her weapon. Clymere carried no shield so that she could use her free hand for casting, yet Kosta couldn’t imagine anyone managing to take advantage of that when a giant spear with a tip of precious apeironic bronze was lunging at their face.

“So…?”

“Isidora accepted the offering. She gave me my payment,” Kosta said at last, patting the pouch of coin in his pocket, “but she didn’t appreciate my advice.”

Clymere sighed and patted him on the shoulder. “I’m not surprised. That old hag—HEY, KNOCK THAT OFF!” She bellowed at a grimy, straw-haired boy tossing rocks at an increasingly irritated raven perched above the street. He squeaked and fled, familiar with Clymere’s temper, and she didn’t miss a beat. “You know what Isidora’s like. Thrice Papa’s years and thrice as stubborn! I’m glad you tried, though.”

Kosta grumbled while they sifted through the shifting crowds. He was grateful for Clymere’s presence. Everyone instinctively opened a path for the armored warrior. Otherwise he’d have to throw elbows and shove to pass through the congested agora.

“She should listen. I’m right!” Kosta insisted. “She can see that, even if she’s too stubborn to hear me out. The Demiurge is one of creation! If they’re going to waste my work, they should at least honor that! Its beauty should never be besmirched. Without its apeironic flesh…”

Clymere was content to listen to him rant for a time as they strolled through Dytifrourá’s gridlike streets. He’d lost his sister about twelve seconds in, but Kosta still appreciated the opportunity to let his frustration bleed over the walls he steadfastly maintained.

Kosta had taught her plenty about arts and the crafting techniques he’d picked up in the last eight years. To Clymere’s credit, she’d been a diligent student and absorbed plenty. She’d always had an appreciation and had watched Kosta and their father in the workshop countless times as a child. But it wasn’t her passion, even if Kosta would never understand her lack of interest.

She’d returned the favor, of course. How many hours had he spent learning to convert his power to spark and flame? It was unnatural to him, contrary to his being, but Kosta expected that Clymere felt similarly regarding the sculpting that he had taught her.

Furious words laced with acid rolled off his tongue for several minutes as they walked. Several mothers shot him dirty looks and covered their wide-eyed children’s ears. No doubt Mama would be terribly displeased when it got back to her.

Kosta didn’t let that stop him. He disparaged Isidora’s parentage, questioned her devoutness, spat on her good taste, and raised the possibility of dementia several times as Clymere led him down turn after turn. She hummed, nodded, and offered affirmation at the right times. By the time they reached their destination his anger had cooled to a light simmer.

A familiar sight greeted him: an enormous corner enclosed by Dytifrourá’s walls guarded by vaulted stone and one very dumb guardsman.

“Philo!” Clymere sang as they approached, tapping the butt of her spear against the stone to catch the guard’s attention. He blinked dully at them. “My favorite guardian of the people. What do you say to stepping over so that we can get a bit of sparring in?”

The giant militiaman towered over them both, but was still a head shorter than Headsman Linus. He took several seconds to process Clymere’s words, staring blankly at Kosta the entire time with a slack-jawed expression. He was clad in the same sturdy armor as Clymere, although he clutched a warhammer with a bronze head larger than Kosta’s in an easy one-handed grip. Philo hefted it as easily as Kosta might have lifted his chisel.

Kosta thought it was the Demiurge’s attempt at compensating.

“Cly,” Philo muttered. His voice rumbled like an avalanche. He didn’t budge from where he stood in front of the vaulted stone gateway to the Dytifrourán training grounds. “No fire?”

She shook her head and pinched her thumb and pointer finger together. “Maybe a little,” Clymere hedged. That was about as much as anyone could hope for when it came to Clymere. “I promise to keep it under control, though.”

The giant man squinted at Kosta. His fingers squeezed tighter around his hammer’s shaft. “Art man.”

“Hammer man.”

Philo pursed his lips. “Not allowed.”

That was just blatantly untrue. Kosta was allowed. He may not be part of the militia, but Headsman Linus encouraged all citizens to train their abilities for battle, or at least utility so that they may aid in Dytifrourá’s defense.

Theirs was a harsh world, and every citizen ready for battle made their little frontier town that much more secure.

But this was a familiar ritual, one that they’d repeated many times now. One that made Philo happy.

Kosta could care less what the dullard wanted, but Clymere had a soft spot for him. He shared a glance with Clymere, rolled his eyes at the unspoken insistence Kosta saw there, and let loose a long-suffering sigh.

“What do you want this time?”

Philo took another few seconds to process, then smiled with the realization that he’d won yet again. “Hammer!”

Just like last time. And the time before.

Imagine that.

“Very well.” Kosta always carried crafting supplies in his pockets (he never knew when he might get inspiration) but didn’t bother with them for this. No, Kosta simply strolled over to a nearby boulder, pressed his palm against it, and focused upon his power.

Kosta had commanded a violent flood in the wake of his Dòrognosis. He’d had eight years to master his power, and now it flowed forth like a smooth river. The grey magic seeped from his skin, infiltrated the pores of the stone, and fed Kosta a steady drip drip drip of raw knowledge and information.

Faults, weak points, abnormalities… Kosta’s ability to survey his materials was just as precious as his ability to chisel and shape with his molded magic. His spectral blade could be used to its fullest extent with the data that filtered into his mind.

He allowed his power to slowly infuse the rock. It followed an imperfection, slowly filled that gap, and when he was ready…

Crack.

A lump of stone the length of his forearm fell away. Kosta caught it and held it up for inspection.

Grey sandstone with streaks of yellow and red. It wasn’t particularly beautiful, but it would serve his purposes. The sandstone wasn’t especially durable either. This wasn’t a material that he’d use for a creation meant to stand the test of time.

Part of him wished to take mere moments to sculpt out a rough approximation of a hammer and throw it at the huge man. Philo hardly had a deep appreciation for art, after all.

But no, that was just a passing fancy. Mediocre wouldn’t do at all. It must be his best work! How else could he improve and join the artists of legend?

Besides, Clymere would be terribly upset. She’d never let him hear the end of it.

So he worked.

Power flooded the grains, suffused every bit of empty space within the sandstone, and began to shave and grind and cut away anything that wasn’t a part of his vision. The act of creation barely taxed him at all now, coming smooth and easy with long years of practice.

Hard stones like granite and marble were still quite draining to shape, but he could mold and cut softer materials as if they were clay.

That was his gift.

A long handle, ridged with delicate lines as though wrapped in leather, that came to an end in a rounded knob. The hammer’s head was wide and thick, a little blockier than a proper weapon, and one side ended in a fierce spike that would pierce a breastplate or linothorax with ease. Fine details such as interlocking patterns and simple depictions of broken monsters soon etched themselves into the model…

His vision was soon made manifest.

Kosta scanned over the hammer and found it lacking. Ugly.

Oh, some elements were nice. His linework had certainly improved and at least he’d intentionally buggered up the proportions this time to fit Philo’s normal request. But it lacked depth. It lacked soul!

While his magic might let him work quickly and efficiently without the need for mundane implements, it was just a tool like any other. And, like all tools, Kosta’s magic was limited by the skill of its user. He might as well be a stumbling toddler cobbling together ugly ‘masterpieces’ of mud.

Part of Kosta wanted to smash the ugly thing and start again. Papa would grind the hammer to dust if he were here to see it. Kosta’s stomach fell. Imperfect. “Here,” Kosta passed the sandstone hammer to Philo. “It’s yours.”

Philo’s radiant smile didn’t ease Kosta’s racing thoughts.

“Good hammer!” Philo assessed. It was just a mimicry of a real weapon, but that didn’t stop the giant man from appreciating it. One enormous finger poked the spiked head with obvious fascination. “Strong.”

“Can we pass now?” Kosta asked, impatient. He’d promised Clymere to train with her today, but every minute wasted fighting was one that he wasn’t in his workshop.

“Good hammer!” The giant man was too obsessed with his new toy to pay them much mind. He turned it in his huge hands, fascinated, and inspected every detail. At least someone appreciated his work, middling as it was.

Clymere shrugged and hurried them through the stone archway while Philo was occupied.

He inspected the cut of the entryway’s stonework. As always, the poor craftsmanship rankled him. Uneven, misshapen. Little more than a pile of boulders cut by some fool with too much strength and cemented together with glyphs.

It would be lucky to last the next ten years. At some point he’d offer to fix it for Headsman Linus. Kosta was more of a sculptor than a mason, but you had to develop an eclectic mix of talents in a town like Dytifrourá. His gifts aligned with the shaping and perfecting of stones, and he did enjoy it. Beauty could be found in many works, not just those meant to exemplify it.

“Come on, come on! I’ve been waiting all day for this!” Clymere urged him onward into the empty arena. Thick earthen walls bound it like a prison on all side, heaped up fifteen feet high. Most arenas like this would have been instilled with wards to ensure no crack of magic may damage them, but Dytifrourá simply made the stacked mud sturdy and strong enough to withstand whatever battles may be fought here.

Crude, but undeniably effective.

The training field itself was featureless, simple dirt pounded flat into a wide plane. Dedicated sentinels smoothed it out and repaired the extravagant damage each week or so.

It was a familiar sight. Kosta had visited many times now (most of which ended with his face getting beaten into the dirt by Clymere). Hordes of guardsmen would fill the training grounds at dawn and dusk, but during the day it often sat unused while the militia attended to their duties.

“Ready?”

“Almost. One moment.”

There was no way he’d bring anything valuable into a fight with Clymere, so Kosta emptied his pockets of anything precious. Cressida, Dytifrourá’s best tailor, had woven his chiton of white wool fibers bathed in the blood of a fire-spitting chimera to imbue it with resistance to flame. That only went so far, however.

Cressida had been sympathetic to his needs and well-prepared: orders for such clothing had become more and more common once news of Clymere’s gift had spread.

He stowed away the rest of his valuables into a metal lockbox warded by all sorts of magic. Black helioklept veins were laced all throughout the bronze in an intricate network to fuel its enchantments. It would take a greater practitioner than Kosta or Clymere to break the potent transpoietic array.

Kosta gently placed a half-dozen aspen blocks, his chisel and hammer, eight lumps of quartz, a dozen smooth river stones, and a random assortment of knickknacks, previous creations, and strange materials for future projects into the box.

He patted himself down once to ensure nothing irreplaceable was still stowed away in his pockets. Once satisfied, he turned to face Clymere. She clutched her spear tightly in one hand, cinders and dancing embers falling from her fingers as she eagerly awaited him.

“Catch!”

Kosta barely had time to react as a xiphos sword came flying at his head. Kosta fumbled a bit, but felt rather pleased with himself when he managed not to drop it. Rather than mundane iron, steel, or even blessed apeironic bronze, a polished wooden blade greeted his eyes.

It felt right at home in his hand. The xiphos’ double-edged leaf-shaped blade was just a replica that Kosta had crafted, but it would serve its purpose well enough.

Still…

“Doesn’t this seem a little unfair?” Kosta pointed the end of his wooden blade at Clymere’s spear. Its polished bronze tip gleamed in the midday sun, shimmering with power. A simple spark would set it alight in a conflagration of red-gold.

Clymere rolled her eyes and impatiently pounded the butt of her spear into the dirt. Black smoke billowed from her nostrils like breath on a winter day.

“You make that stupid joke every time!” Clymere complained as she lifted her spear to tap its tip against Kosta’s blade. “Shut up and fight.”

Kosta breathed deeply and awakened the power within him. It coiled like a snake in anticipation. He would rather be in his workshop right now, but part of him was eager to be Clymere’s sparring partner today. Perhaps he should just imagine her as Isidora…

They stood there for a moment, matched beneath the pounding rays of the sun. The training grounds were cut off from the rest of Dytifrourá by the great walls piled like heaps of slag. It was easy to imagine that they existed in another plane entirely, one hewn from flat earth and promises of combat.

Only the jutting mountains that cradled Dytifrourá broke the illusion with their snow-capped peaks. And of course, inescapable Oroneiros towered above them all on the horizon with its palette of phantasmal hues.

As always, they waited three breaths before beginning.

Now!

Kosta yanked his blade back with one hand, held it aloft as he focused his energies upon the blade…

A bronze speartip lunged at his chest, flickering with Clymere’s flame, and their duel began.