Vayra jumped from rooftop to rooftop, navigating across Shatterport the best way she knew how—on foot.

She jumped off the ivory-white edges of the roofs and bounded over alleys, then scrambled up the sloped, shingled roofs. She turned sideways to cross narrow beams and swung across alleyways using banners.

There was no need to draw on her techniques. She could navigate a cramped city like it was the back of her hand—even if she’d only been on the Shattered Moon for three days.

It was morning, and the sun pierced through the shattered surface of the planet above, its rays bearing down on the continent-sized floating island at the core of the world. Early that morning, she’d heard the port bells ringing.

Something was happening—someone important was arriving—and she wanted to see it.

A fleet of tallships sailed down the frayed branch of the Stream that joined with the Shattered Moon’s central island. She squinted. The ships were still near the upper crust of the Shattered Moon, but with Vayra’s advancement to Captain came a boost to her eyesight. She could make out details of distant objects better than ever before.

The ships had Velaydian paint—beige hulls, a faint blue stripe, and black ornaments, and she suspected that was what all the commotion was about. The fact that they were Velaydian.

They also flew the flag of the King’s Fleet—a beige streamer with two red lines along it. The King’s flagship sailed at the center of the fleet, a golden speck glinting in the rays of sunlight.

The port’s bells rang faster and louder as Vayra ran. More people were realizing what was happening. Heads poked out of windows and God-heirs lined up in the street, looking on with curiosity and mild bewilderment.

Vayra jumped onto the roof of a warehouse and sprinted up the sloped shingles. When she reached the peak, she stopped. It wasn’t the highest point in the city, but it had the best view.

If it wasn’t for the less-than-ideal circumstances, she could have enjoyed this place. It wasn’t too different from Tavelle. Just…whiter. Less plants.

‘More God-heirs and Bluecoats,’ Phasoné said inside her head.

“That too,” Vayra muttered.

She sat down on the peak of the roof and leaned back. For the past few days, since she, Glade, and Nathariel had arrived in the port, she had been training non-stop in the small living quarters the tournament operators had afforded them. All contestants were supposed to get one, though theirs was smaller than everyone else’s—that was only after they had announced that they were the Velaydian team.

The King’s Fleet reached the main island and sailed onto the patch of ocean at its edge. At any moment, Vayra expected a squadron of Elderworld warships to converge on the Velaydian fleet, but the fleet sailed down to the port unopposed.

The Shattered Moon was consecrated under a pact of non-violence. No one would attack the King’s Fleet outright, nor make any moves against the king with the armies or official contestants—not outside the tournament.

But that didn’t mean they wouldn’t try underhanded methods—especially against Vayra and Glade. Assassination, subterfuge, poison? She wouldn’t expect anything less.

Already, she’d sensed a group of five God-heirs chasing her through the city all morning. They were only Masters and Third Lieutenants, but there were five of them, and they weren’t veiling themselves very well.

For the morning, she’d decided it was good practice for using her senses, but she couldn’t just let them follow her forever. Whether they were proper assassins or people who thought they’d get lucky, they were here to kill her. They carried rune-scripted weapons and had cores full of Arcara and mana—ready to use.

And the roof of a warehouse was the best place to deal with them. Little collateral damage, no civilians to hurt. Sure, if she stayed in public spaces, the city guards would rush to enforce the pact of non-violence, but her attackers knew that too. They’d wait for a better time—and she couldn’t control when that would be.

Here, she knew she could win.

“Phas, ready with the scythe?” she whispered.

‘Ready when you are,’ the Goddess replied.

“Wonderful. Let’s teach them a lesson.”

But for all her talk of using the scythe, Vayra drew her pistol first. When the first God-heir—a young man in a black cloak, Third Lieutenant—pulled himself above the edge of the warehouse, she launched a beam of starlight and Arcara out through the weapon. It caught him in the chest. He immediately warded himself with a shield of wood chips and Arcara. A son of Vallor, then.

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His ward didn’t last long, and the blast still seared his shoulder. He shouted, then pulled himself up and leapt across the rooftops, drawing a pair of mallets from his belt. Another two God-heirs climbed up behind Vayra. One held a musket. He fired rusty grapeshot at her, but she Warded her back with starlight and Arcara. The pellets clattered off her cloak harmlessly.

The second heir stomped a foot down. Pebbles and fist-sized stones lifted from the warehouse’s railing. The God-heir punched the empty air, and the barrage of stones raced at Vayra. This time, Vayra whirled around and unleashed a Starlight Palm, deflecting the Reach technique and scattering the stones across the sloped roof harmlessly.

They’d made a lot of noise. Now, there was a ticking timer until the city guards approached and attacked.

‘Scythe time?’ Phasoné asked.

Vayra nodded, then tucked her pistol into her belt. Then, she Moulded her scythe. Starlight leaked out of her scarf—a strip of Phasoné’s sacred artifact dress, and a permanent window into the night sky—and blended with her Arcara, then formed up into tendrils and manifested as a ghostly scythe.

She threw it at the stone-Path God-heir and pushed it in an arc. The stone-Path woman collapsed, the upper half of her body severed in a burst of sparks and flame. The scythe lost momentum, but Vayra and Phasoné had thrown it hard. It still had enough spin to leave a gash across the musket-wielder’s back. He collapsed, falling limp.

Vayra held out her hand, and the scythe returned to her. She caught it and whirled around.

The wood-Path God-heir was already sprinting toward her, Bracing his legs with a sawdust technique. He swung his hammers over and over, forcing her on the defensive. She blocked with the haft of her scythe, retreating down to the other railing of the roof. His strikes hit hard, but he was burning through mana fast—she could see that much.

The last two God-heirs leapt up onto the roof. Like the others, they wore black cloaks, but their eyes shone blue, and they held cutlasses. Lightning crackled along the blades. Both were Third Lieutenants.

Vayra twirled her scythe behind her, deflecting a swipe from each, but bolts of lightning and electricity still shocked her and charred her cloak.

She gasped in mild discomfort, but she was still in charge.

“Phas, remember the thing we were practicing?” Vayra rolled to the side, putting all of the God-heirs in front of her. They fanned out in an arc, adjusting their footing to match the slope of the warehouse’s roof.

‘The thing?’

“You know,” Vayra whispered, deflecting an overhead swipe. “Oh, just read my mind.”

‘Right. The thing. Alright, give it a try. If you get an electric cutlass to the gut, don’t blame me.’

“I won’t!”

Vayra dispelled the scythe, then Braced her own legs and sprang back across the roof, giving herself distance. The three God-heirs still approached, and they were fast, but Vayra was faster.

Phasoné slipped out of Vayra’s body, manifesting as a wireframe of white lines and ghostly starlight. Vayra’s hand brushed the Goddess’ wrist as she leapt out, and Vayra fed Phasoné as much mana as she could in the brief interval.

Phasoné’s ghost was still only a fraction of a God’s true strength, but it could hit harder than Vayra could on her own. Vayra might have focussed on speed and agility, but Phasoné could still hit hard.

They might not win an arm-wrestle with a forge-Path God-heir, but they could still do damage.

Phasoné made a fist and, empowered by the burst of mana Vayra had given her, struck one of the lightning-Path God-heirs in the chest. She hit hard enough to cave the man’s chest in. He collapsed on the spot, dead. It was a precise, blunt strike.

Vayra leapt into the opening and launched a Starlight Palm at the wood-Path God-heir. A three-foot-tall handprint of pale blue light shone through the air and blasted into the man. Less precise force, spread out, but still enough to fling him back into the sloped edge of the roof. He smashed through the shingles and plummeted into the warehouse below, unconscious or dead.

The last God-heir swung his cutlass hard and fast, using a Bracing technique of his own. He cut through Vayra’s cloak and left and thin slice down her back, but she Warded herself in time to absorb most of the blow. The lightning probably stung more than the cut.

She and Phasoné turned around in unison and faced the God-heir. They both shook their heads in unison.

The God-heir yelled and swung one more time, but Vayra reached out and pinched the flat of the cutlass’ blade between her thumb and her first two fingers of her mechanical hand. She couldn’t feel the lightning.

She activated the disruption runestone in her mechanical hand, triggering an aura of Arcara disruption. The technique faded from the sword’s blade, and the lightning fizzled out.

Vayra’s mechanical hand wasn’t bound by the limits of her body. Its strength changed with the strength of her Arcara.

The stronger her Arcara, the stronger her hand, and she was a Captain now.

She pressed down, squishing the blade between her fingers. The steel shattered.

Before she could say anything, Phasoné’s ghost used the last dribbles of mana Vayra had fed her and kicked the God-heir off the roof. He plummeted to the street below, but with the strength of the kick, he was probably dead before he hit the paving stones.

“See?” Vayra said. “Worked out.”

“You got a cut,” Phasoné said, her voice ringing out normally in the air. “And the lightning stung.”

“Still not used to it?” Vayra grinned, but it didn’t last long. A troop of city guards in blue jade armour sprinted down the street, holding up glaives and shouting. They were too late to stop the fighting. “Ah, we’ve gotta go. Wanna get back inside me?”

“If it means you do the running?” Phasoné asked. Her ghost puffed into white sparks and slipped back into Vayra’s body. ‘Gladly,’ she said, speaking inside Vayra’s head once more.

Vayra took one last glance back at the port. She had wanted to see what would happen when King Tallerion disembarked from his ship, but that would have to wait, now.

“Back to the contestant housing it is, then.”