I followed the bodies.

The king hadn’t taken the straightest path to the senate. Probably because he was going off course to chase down any errant Elves that he found. I started running. He hadn’t left that long before me, so I should have been able to catch up to him before he got to the Golden Senate.

I didn’t.

The front door to the large golden building that hung over the bay was broken open. It looked like someone had blasted it with a couple large rocks that were nowhere around. I had a feeling that somehow my uncle still had some of the magic from the spell that Lagrev had tried to use on him. A shudder escaped my control as the list of how outclassed I was just got longer.

I ran up the stairs towards the main floor. It surprised me that the Elves would have stairs in a building that they routinely used without a way to scale them. It was something I’d have to ask my cousin about. Or maybe there was an enchantment, but my uncle had absorbed the magic.

A scream ended that line of thinking and I ran faster.

The senate floor was twelve boxes with a large podium in the center. There were seats below and between the boxes that I assumed were for the general public to sit and view what was going on.

The entire northern wall was nothing but glass, or was supposed to be glass. Someone or something had broken it, so now we were over forty feet in the air with a drop off that went straight into the bay.

My uncle was in between the center box and the northern wall. He looked over his shoulder when I walked into the room and smiled. “Gravis! You’ve got to try this! It’s like a game!”

I shook my head as I walked over to him.

“Here’s the rules.” The king jumped from back and forth on his feet. “I pick one of them and they can run or jump.” He started moving his finger around and pointed at Arkun. “How about you play with him? As a present for him killing Eden. Just don’t kill him all the way. I want to heal him again so we can play more.”

“Again?” I stepped in between my uncle and the elves.

“Yeah.” He gestured at the dozen corpses on the floor. “I take him to the brink of death, then pull him back.” He smiled wide enough that I could see impossibly white teeth. His ability to heal himself was on a completely different level.

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“That’s enough.” I folded my arms in front of me to stare him down. “I’m Sectum, not Gravis. And this isn’t the way to handle him. I’m not going to let you kill anyone else.”

The King looked confused. “You’re not..? But you…” His nostrils flared as his mind caught up to what I’d said. “You think you can tell me what to do? I’M YOUR KING!!!”

“No, you’re my uncle and you need help.” I took a nervous breath. I didn’t think I could beat him head on, so I was trying to reason with him like I’d done earlier. “Arkun will suffer a lot more once we expose what he did here. We can make sure that he never hurts anyone again.”

The rage was replaced by confusion. “You want to kill him now?” He thought for a moment, then shrugged. “Okay.”

“NO!” I touched the handle of the sword on my back as I moved to stay between the two. There was a part of me that felt wrong for protecting the person who killed my mother. I knew he hadn’t pulled the bow, but he’d given the order and he’d killed the archer to keep what happened a secret. There was a part of me that wanted to step out of the way and stop him after Arkun was dead, but that wouldn’t be justice, it would be an execution. And while I’d killed more than my share of people, that had always been in a fight. I couldn’t condone this.

“Gravis…” My uncle bent down and picked up one of the discarded swords. “Dad would always tell us not to touch a sword unless you plan to kill someone with it.”

He was swinging before I pulled my sword out. I’d reached for it on instinct and that had been the wrong thing to do.

I wasn’t fast enough to dodge the whole thing, but I did manage to let only the tip slash across my chest as I drew my sword. I started to wonder just how good my uncle was with a blade, especially after fourteen years. I deflected the next strike and was able to follow it up with a cut on his arm.

I congratulated myself and started to feel like it was winnable. I could incapacitate him if I could wear him down.

I went on the offensive and had plenty of opportunities to score cuts on him. It was obvious that I was a better swordsman, but he wasn’t slowing down. With as many times as he’d been cut, he should have been slowing down. My arms were starting to burn and breathing was getting harder as we fought. I needed a chance to catch my breath, but he didn’t seem tired at all.

Now I was completely on the defensive. It was taking everything that I had to parry, dodge, and deflect his attacks. It felt like I’d been running at top speed for a half hour without a break. I wasn’t going to last much longer.

I decided that I was going to have to maim him. We couldn’t grow back limbs, so if I cut off his hand, then the fight would be over.

I locked his blade, then twisted so I’d be under his guard, but my sword stopped as I went for his wrist. I’d forgotten the cardinal rule when fighting a Sineater.

My uncle had the blade of my sword gripped tightly in his left hand. His blood was running down my blade and his arm. I started to yank, but my hands weren’t holding my sword anymore. I started falling as my uncle stepped back and pulled his sword out of my chest. He said something that I couldn’t hear. The world started feeling a lot smaller as an icy blanket wrapped around me.

Then there was nothing.