I pulled Alessa on top of me as we fell.

I’d fallen a lot while on the ship. It was one of those things that happened. There was a much different feeling between landing on wood and landing on stone while holding someone.

I didn’t have time to think about the bruised ribs because I could hear what Lagrev was shouting.

“HE’S ESCAPING WITH THE PRINCESS AGAIN! HELP ME CONTAIN THIS ACCOMPLICE!”

“We’ve got to go.” I looked around as Alessa rolled off of me. The old throne room was partially collapsed with rubble all over the place. It looked like Arkun had just built the new castle over the wreckage of the old one so he didn’t have to clear away the debris.

“Where?” Alessa helped me stand up. The only light that was in the room was coming from above us and that wasn’t giving us much that we could see.

The speaker jumped into the hole with a pair of guards. All three had their swords out and didn’t look like they were going to back down.

“So fitting that you die with the rest of your family.” The Speaker nodded at the guards. “Kill them.”

I registered the word them and decided that restraint was over. I caught the wrist of the guard in the lead with my left hand and grabbed his armor with my right as I dumped my wounds into him. The guard cried out as the sudden rush of pain spread over him. As his mind tried to cope with the unexplained injury, I was able to move him into the path of the other guard, which kept him from swinging at me. It didn’t stop him from stabbing, but I dropped my arm over the guard I’d given my wounds to and pinned the blade between his arm and side. I twisted him to knock the other guard off balance when he tried to hold on to his sword, then pushed the first guard into the second, taking his sword with my left hand as the both fell.

I had to parry the Speaker’s blade left-handed and took two fast backsteps so I could switch it to my right.

“You know how to fight.” The Elf raised his blade. “But I was killing barbarians before…”

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I attacked. I knew that he was a few hundred years old, but that didn’t mean he was a good fighter. And I really didn’t want to listen to a ‘before you were born’ lecture from him.

The Elf was honestly decent, but he was used to fighting against people who didn’t want to get serious injuries themselves. I didn’t care if I got stabbed in the gut as long as I could touch him, because I could just give him the wound.

I let him slice my arm with a stab so I could punch him in the nose. I also caught his swordhand with my left, tucked my elbow to pin it against my side and yanked his sword out of his hand as he covered his face with his other hand.

The guards were back up, but only one had a sword. The other took out a dagger, but was holding his chest. He looked genuinely confused about how I had bruised his ribs.

I held up my arm to show them the cut on the back of it. “Which one of you wants this wound?”

The first guard dropped his dagger and tried to back up, but stumbled over the rubble and fell over. The second guard just eyed his fallen comrade and tried to evaluate the person in front of him that was holding two swords.

“What are you waiting for?!” The Speaker pointed at me while still holding his nose. “KILL HIM!”

I felt a tingle and dropped both blades so I could grab Alessa and yank her away from the hole above us. Spikes shot out of the ground, but not fast enough that I couldn’t avoid them as I moved us away from the light.

Stairs appeared as the stone shifted to construct a way for Lagrev to strut down to us.

“You’ve got talent boy…” The earth mage looked over at the Speaker. “You okay?”

“Just hurry up and kill him!” The Elf’s bloody face seemed to have gotten worse. Probably from all the yelling he’d been doing.

Lagrev shook his head. “Do you know where the worst place to be when fighting an earth mage is?”

Behind me was the rubble that had fallen into the throne room when the old tower had collapsed. He’d guided me exactly where he’d wanted us.

I pushed Alessa down and covered her as best I could with my body as the wall behind us exploded. Rocks ran over me, leaving me with more cuts, scrapes, bruises, and cracked bones than I’d ever gotten at once.

As much as I wanted to lick my wounds, if we stayed crouched on the floor, the next spell would be a spike through our chests. I tried to ignore the screaming nerves as I pulled Alessa to her feet. And got ready to move.

“You’re still not dead?” The Agate diplomat laughed.

“No I’m not.”

The weak voice hadn’t come from myself or my cousin.

Behind us a thin man with a scraggly beard and wild, long hair stumbled out of the wreckage.

“Kneel before your King.”