The whole roof of the building rocked as water poured out over it. Washing over Elementals one by one and causing small explosions of steam as their bodies evaporated the water before being consumed. It sounded like half a hundred fireworks were going off all at once. None more so than the Ash Elemental. It had been burning at such a high temperature that it only succumbed to the wave after a couple seconds. The steam explosion it caused hit my abused eardrums hard and almost knocked me off my feet.

I felt a wave of relief at the notifications rolling in from the dead Elementals. But before I could get to Pyga and celebrate an earsplitting crack split the air. Like a fully grown oak tree had just been snapped in half. The cracks continued to cut through the air as I felt the roof shift under my feet. Visible cracks tearing along it and branching out like hundreds of spiderwebs. Spiderwebs that raced towards Pyga as he lost his footing as the roof began buckling under him.

“Toby!” he cried out as the supports under his side of the roof gave way and the portion of the roof he was on tilted. Spilling debris off the side as gravity pulled wood and bricks off the edge and down to the street below.

“Hang on!” I shouted. Taking one step forward before my leg gave way and I fell to a knee. Gritting my teeth I tried forcing myself to my feet with Endure and Mana Infusion but my whole body was trembling with exertion. I couldn’t even force myself to stand up right.

Not now! I thought desperately. Pushing and pulling myself forwards on my hands and knees as I forced them to bear my weight. Just a bit more! Just a little more!

“I’m slipping!” Pyga shouted. I could see him not thirty feet away. Looking right at me as his claws failed to sink into the crumbling piece of the roof. I saw the exact moment he lost purchase on the roof and he started sliding towards the edge.

I wasn’t going to make it.

Gripping Endure in my mind with a panic fueled strength I hammered it into Thought Acceleration one last time. Using the Skill again so soon making my body jolt in pain as my Neural Overload status grinded down my nerves. No. I wouldn’t let this happen. Not after I brought Pyga with me to stop the Elementals from breaking out into the onlookers below. Not after he’d saved my life with the water tower and all his water based abilities. I refused.

[You have 3 Attribute points available]

Even as I watched Pyga fall off the roof in slow motion. I grabbed my new attribute points and slammed them into Dexterity one by one.

In the midst of Thought Acceleration I felt the first attribute point run through me. From my core outwards to my arms and legs. I felt the power, truly felt it, as I moved beyond what would have been considered peak human Dexterity on Earth. Then I did it again and again with each point I had. Watching my status change in real time as my listed Dexterity rose with each point.

[Dexterity - 6]

[Dexterity - 7]

[Dexterity - 8]

I held on the that feeling of power rippling through me and I rode that wave to give my body the strength it needed in that moment. My fingers digging into the crumbling roof beneath me as I dug my feet into the wood. For a single instant within Thought Acceleration I held myself in a runner’s crouch before launching myself towards Pyga even as I lost sight of him as he fell out of view. I didn’t even register the crack of the roof buckling under my feet as I raced towards the edge faster than a bat out of hell.

Leaping into the open air as I dived towards Pyga’s flailing body.

With Acrobatics guiding me and my pumped up Dexterity giving me an almost supernatural grace I readjusted in the air as I streamlined my body to increase the speed at which I fell. The wind tore at my clothes as I fell. For a moment within Thought Acceleration as it burned my nerves part of my mind felt gratitude towards Pyga as his flailing body increased the drag he had on the air as he fell. Even as we passed floor after burning floor in slow motion as we hurtled towards the ground. I was catching up to him as I stretched my hands out to catch him. I was going to make it. I had to make it.

I lost control of Thought Acceleration as my wavering mind faltered and the world rushed into motion. The speed we were falling at rocketing back to normal. In barely a second I caught up to Pyga and snagged his shirt pulling him close to me, wrapping an arm around him as we tumbled through the air and I fired my Grapple Sigmata with as much force as I could at the building racing us by.

As the grapple snaked out of my left arm like a viper I watched the floors on the building race by as we hurtled towards the street with each passing second. The flaming windows blurring together into red streaks of light. We were fifteen floors above the ground, then ten, then five until all at once I felt my grapple snag the building. All of our accumulated force snapping all at once as we were whiplashed by our own momentum.

Before I could adjust us in the air I felt alarm blare through me as the part of the building I’d grappled onto give way as the force of our stop ripped the brickwork from the wall. I only had enough time to brace myself over Pyga as we plummeted the last several floors to hit the ground.

I didn’t see the carts as I fell, it was only afterward that I made the connection that they’d been loaded full of items and personal belongings people were trying to save from the fires around the Murk district. The one I hit was not full of soft fluffy things like I would have liked but the wood of the cart I smashed into was a whole lot better than hitting bare cobblestones.

The cart crumpled and a wooden wheel gave out as the axle buckled and the entire thing tilted. I shuddered for a moment in my own personal hell as Neural Overload competed with the pain of what definitely felt like cracked or broken ribs inside my chest. Momentarily stunned, I wheezed in air as my battered body took in a breath. Staring up at the crumbling portions of the upper floors of the apartment building collapse inward on themselves.

I really… jumped off of that? And I’m not dead? I though with a pained groan. Cracking a twitching smile at the ridiculousness of the thing I’d just done even amidst the pain. Ow…Owww… I think I broke… I feel like I broke… everything… God I hope I looked cool…

It did kind of make sense though. Even though my grapple had failed to latch onto the building properly it had still done wonders to kill our momentum before we reached the deadly speeds closer to terminal velocity. The cart wasn’t a good substitute at all for a nice comfy trampoline but it had allowed me to transfer the last of our momentum through the wood and boxes heaped on it instead of the inflexible street beneath it.

Belatedly I noticed the clamoring of the crowd grow in volume nearby as a commotion came closer to me. I tried struggling out of the wood and splinters I’d made, looking more like a zombie coming to life than a human being trying to get up. With groans and moans to match, until at last I could start making out the sounds around me.

“Are we dead?” Pyga stammered. Hesitantly opening one eye. He only moved a little bit against my chest but he somehow managed to elbow me right where my cracked and/or broken ribs were.

“Watch the moving please…” I managed to get out. Only for Pyga to shift in my grip further to look at me. “Toby! You’re alive! We’re alive!” He shouted in excitement. Wrapping me in a hug of his own as the crowd drew closer, and one voice rose above all the others.

“Out of the way! Move aside! That’s my son! Pyga!” Falisa cried out as she came through the crowd and to the cart. I had just barely managed to begin getting up when Pyga cried out with joy, leaping off me and into his mother’s arms. Blessedly not aggravating my injuries further as she crumpled to her knees and crushed Pyga in a hug. Crying tears of relief into his fur as she wept.

Despite the pain of everything I’d just done to my body tonight seeing Falisa and Pyga reunited lifted a weight off my shoulders I hadn’t even realized had been there. Pyga was safe. Falisa was safe. And before I could grow any worried at all I saw May trying to make her way through the crowd as the Beast Folk gawked at me, Pyga, and Falisa. Well... they were looking at me more specifically. A lot more at me actually, I finally realized with a numb sort of recognition.

With an agility that actually surprised me I finally climbed out of the remains of the wagon and looked back up at the burning apartment. Further mollified by the sight of the formerly raging fires beginning to taper down somewhat now that there weren’t a hive of Elementals stoking the flames. Trying not to wince as I clutched my left side with one arm I reeled in the end of the Grapple and got a foot on the bricks it was attached to. Holding it down as I yanked the end free and it disappeared into my arm.

I heard the whispers of the crowd, whispers that were about me of all people begin to build as May broke through the line and made her way over to me. Smiling in wonder as she looked to Falisa embracing her son before her gaze turned back to me. The dying light of the fire painting her face in beautiful hues of orange and yellow. The blue lines of the Sigmata on her face almost as mesmerizing as the glow and warmth I saw in her eyes.

It would have been so perfect to say something then. After the hell that tonight had been for the both of us. I wish I had. Something smart or clever or funny. Or maybe even just coming right out and saying what I felt in that moment. But that just wasn’t meant to be. Wasn’t a part of the role I’d been meant to play. The role the Akashic had pulled me through to Kanaan for. I hadn’t been able to see it then, not for years yet. It had no need or want for someone content with living a quiet life to its natural end with loved ones. It needed a weapon to wield. A weapon to survive the war to come.

Whether the weapon it wanted was me or Rykas… I don’t know if it cared.

As long as it got something it could use.

The entire time I’d been saving Pyga and fighting the Elementals it didn’t even occur to me why I hadn’t heard anything further from Rykas. No snide remarks. No attempts at seeding doubt into me. Ever since he’d forcibly activated Psychometry against my will to try and worsen the Psyche Spliced condition. I’d kept a mental grip on the Spell Splinter. The same way you would clench your hand into a fist to keep someone from taking something in your palm. But that grip had wavered in the fires of the apartment building as I taxed my mind further and further. Debilitating myself with Neural Overload on top of everything else. I was as vulnerable as I’d ever been.

So when Rykas reached out to grip Psychometry and forcibly activate it I couldn’t even put up a token resistance as my mental strength faltered and my fingers ripped the memories from the first thing to drift over my hands. The cloak Gregor had given me, that had once belonged to May’s dead brother. I couldn’t even cry out before the-

“Do you even hear yourself!” I shouted at my Father. “You could have done something! If you’d actually had a spine under that armor Mother would still be alive!” That broke through at least. The man taking a clinking step back in his Shieldguard uniform as if he’d been stunned. Even May’s hands flew up over her mouth as her eyes watered. I felt a wave of guilt then at the words. I knew they were over the line. But my blood was boiling, burning even. Before I could betray myself and apologize I marched for the apartment door, teeth grinding hard in a suppressed snarl as Father called out behind me. “Don’t you dare close that doo-

I grappled with Rykas for control of Psychometry but I couldn’t force him away. The last time I’d been able to easily push him out after a moment. But this was different I was utterly spent and drained. Under the effects of Neural Overload on top of everything else I was barely holding myself together.

As if sensing my weakness Rykas gripped onto Psychometry even tighter. The wave of memories bringing me to my knees as the world around me fell away until there was only-

“This the place?” I asked warily. The place stank of dead fish. The smell so deep and foul it seemed to have stained the bricks of the building itself with their stench. At least they were taking me seriously now. The Guild Master himself was here. The man looking even harder and meaner the closer I got to him. “Heard you’re the one who’s gonna get Blackwater the City Lord’s backing.” Daigo said with a devilish grin. “A pleasure.” I said holding my hand out to shake. The man practically wrapped his leathered hand over my arm as he shook. “This is Vike, one of my newer recruits.” He said gesturing to a shifty looking man who barely acknowledged me. “You’ll be working together on this job. Now, let’s-

“Stop it!” I shouted in my mind as Rykas pulled and pulled on Psychometry. I could feel my Psych Spliced condition almost to the verge of increasing in severity from Lesser to Greater. I couldn’t let this happen not here. Anywhere but here. Distantly I could still see the throngs of people surrounding me, Falisa and Pyga, May coming close to me, trying to say something to me as the dread built in my chest.

Oh God. It was going to happen again.

If I had just had the sense to spare an attribute point for Wisdom I might have been able to hold Rykas back but there was nothing I could do about that now. There was no where to go and too many people around me. Far too many. Get away from me! I tried to shout out to warn them. But my mouth wasn’t working. It was too distant. Like the rest of my body was falling away as my will broke down. Please! You’re not safe! I can’t… I…I-

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“Then there is this last one here.” I said tapping the drawing as I looked up to Vike. “Supposed to be an Elven artifact. Some kind of ceremonial dagger or knife. It’s being transported from the Segrean province to the Genesian . Some kind of token of goodwill from the nobles there. The City Lord is a sucker for anything Elven he can add to his collection. If we can get our hands on this as well as the other artifacts…” I said. Not needing to finish my statement to see the gears turning in my new partner’s eyes. Vike was staring at everything we’d laid out for the heist. Eyes seeming to soak in every detail. “That knife…” He began softly. “What makes it so special-

[Status Condition: Psyche Spliced (Lesser) has increased in severity to Psyche Spliced (Greater)]

[Sneak has leveled from 2 to 3]

[You have 5 skill points available]

Hope sparked in my chest just as despair began gripping at me. Skill points. I’d just gotten Skill points from Sneak leveling. My head felt like a dam on the verge of breaking down and I practically lunged for the Skill Menu to save myself. To save everyone around me. If I could just level one of my existing mental Skills or buy a new one entirely I could fix this. I could still…

“Toby are you alright?” May called down at me as I stared unresponsively into the open air. The blood draining from my face as I looked at nothing. “Hang on! Does anyone have a potion? Please! He needs a health potion!”

I couldn’t have responded to May even if I wanted to. My Skills List. The screen that opened whenever I mentally called on it.

It wasn’t opening.

It wasn’t opening because Rykas was holding it closed.

The realization struck me like a sledgehammer. I couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t stop Rykas from taking control. There were no more outs or solutions left for me. As May held me and the world turned around me there was a single emotion that dominated everything else. Until it was the only thing my mind was capable of processing.

Fear.

The same fear that had left me lying awake at night after Gregor had given me a place to stay. Terrified that if I closed my eyes I might not wake up the same person I’d been when I fell asleep. That I’d find myself standing over the bodies of the only people in this world who had given me a chance at life in Kanaan. It may have looked like I was holding it together on the surface but underneath where no one else could see I felt like there were times I was coming apart at the seams. I couldn’t think anymore. Couldn’t process it anymore. The fear of killing my friends. The panic of losing control. The hate I felt for Rykas. The rage I felt at the world for hurting me. **

All of it swirled together and collapsed in on itself within me. There was a distant whine in my ears as I fell away from my body. Falling into that mental plane I’d been in once before as my mind retreated into itself. That whine grew in pitch in my head as Rykas tore at the defenses I’d erected like a battering ram. Using all his strength for this final push for control. To destroy me for good.

I almost couldn’t hear him. There was only the sound that left my very being vibrating. It grew from a keening wail, higher and higher until it was a roar. Until that roar tore into me, through me.

Something gave in my head. I couldn’t name it. Couldn’t place it. Buried so deep I’d never have felt it if it wasn’t on the verge of tearing apart. There was an instant I could feel it holding back the tide. Struggling to keep me together. Straining before it began to fray trying to hold together reason and conscious thought. Strand by strand breaking and tearing.

Until all at once it snapped.

Even as Rykas broke through the walls. Rushing me in a frenzy. I didn’t run. I couldn’t have even if I wanted to. There was nothing else. He was everything in that moment. The friends that turned their backs on me. The teachers that looked down on me. The family that disregarded me.

He was my father. He was the world.

And I wanted to tear him to pieces.

With fury like I’d never known coursing through me I hurled myself at Rykas. Not even realizing I was screaming so loud that if I was in my physical body I’d be spitting blood from tearing my vocal chords. I felt the shock ripple through Rykas as I hit him. The surprise that flickered through his frame before we both started killing each other.

There was no semblance of thought to it. No hint of System granted Skill or ability. Just the desperate struggle of two animals going for each other’s throats.

I hit Rykas with every ounce of force I could muster over and over and his claws tore at me like knives. Only instead of cutting away blood I felt myself lessening as things bled away. Snippets of memory and thought that were lost to me forever. That drove me harder somehow. Knowing intrinsically what I was losing things both precious and unremarkable.

Rykas looked just as he had before. A barely human looking monster. His face was completely blank, without eyes, hair, or a nose. The only thing he did have was the maw that split his face from one side to the other. Snarling as he swiped at me with claw like fingers as I darted back and forth around him. Hunting for openings in his assault with a burning intensity I’d never known I was capable of.

I don’t know how long we went at each other. I could only think in the present moment as I came in to hit him again and again. Not even questioning the effectiveness of using my bare hands to fight against something with claws as I unleashed blow after blow.

After another brutal exchange some distant part of me remembered that I had Skills. I called on Thought Sculptor as we clashed again, the Skill flickering as it tried and failed to form projections from my maddened will. I couldn’t form anything as complex as a weapon. I was too far gone for that. The emotions burning through me could only impress the most basic of ideas onto the Skill. But it responded none the less. Giving me what I wanted. Something sharp, something that would hurt.

The spike was brutally simple. A foot long black rod that tapered to a point. As unthinking as I was in the moment I couldn’t even force the thing to hold an edge along the sides like a blade so that I could take advantage of my Small Blades Skill.

It would do.

Once again I hurled myself at Rykas, ducking a blow that would have sheared through my head and slamming the spike into his side with an almost savage glee as he cried out in pain for the first time that fight. Finding that to be effective I produced spike after spike, stabbing them into Rykas at every opportunity and hurling them at him whenever there was none to take advantage of.

For a while the fight shifted in my favor as I pierced Rykas again and again. Even though the damage they did was minimal considering their size and they wouldn’t be able to finish Rykas outright I didn’t care. I would have kept going forever if it meant I could hurt the monster who’d been tormenting me more. But even if I wanted it to I couldn’t last forever.

Rykas was a monster, claws scything through the air in rapid succession as I weaved between blow after blow. I was covered in wounds, my very psyche leaking memories old and new. The faces of childhood classmates. The flavor of honey and spearmint. The layout of my apartment. Disappearing one by one as I fought. Driving me to be even more reckless as I tried to kill Rykas. As if his death would let me reclaim my own vanishing memories.

Then I made my first near fatal error.

Overcommitting to drive another raw Thought Sculpted spike into the mess of spikes on Rykas’ body I couldn’t get out of the way in time as his head darted down. Pulling up my left hand to defend myself I felt his teeth close around my forearm, sinking through my mental body like I was made of wet carboard.

Kicking into his body and parrying a claw with a spike in my other hand I desperately leapt away from Rykas as my arm tore away. Leaving a ragged stump below my elbow as I instantly felt half a hundred songs, facts, names, places, things, and people rip from my awareness. Months of my life spread out over years gone. Shuddering with pain and fury I clutched at my head with my right hand as if I could reach inside myself and stitch together the holes in my memory. Nails dragging over my face as my eyes locked on Rykas through my fingers. Watching as the remains of my arm, a part of myself and my own memories disappear down his throat as he grinned at me. Roaring at the loss I strangled Thought Sculptor as I activated it again, as if I could crush the usefulness out of it. Force it to bend to my deranged will.

Spikes erupted from my body in twos and threes. Tearing out of me as Thought Sculptor obeyed me. Along my arms, chest, and neck until I could focus properly on the stump of my arm. The raw and torn skin breaking anew as one massive spike grew out from the end. Almost three feet of solid black with a broken and jagged looking tip. As if the thought that formed it was inherently broken and incomplete.

Snarling I sprinted for Rykas and for the first time he was the one backpedaling as I swung and stabbed with my new weapon. I wanted to hurt him as much as he’d hurt me. Whatever it took, whatever the cost. I didn’t think about anyone else. Not May, not Gregor or Grima, anyone. I didn’t even think about trying to survive the fight against Rykas. Self preservation be damned.

Which is why I deliberately leapt for Rykas, giving him an opening to sink a clawed hand into my stomach and through my back. Just so I could drive my spike through his chest.

It sank all the way through and I roared in triumph as Rykas screamed in pain, even as more of myself bled away through the wound in my stomach. He tried to throw me off of him but I hugged him in a death grip. Piercing him even more with the spikes on my chest. He tried to bite into me again but I brought up my other hand to jam it and the spike it was holding into his mouth. I could feel his pain as he tried to shake himself free. Through the bleeding of his own sensations and thoughts and it drove me wild. I wanted him to hurt more. Needed him to hurt more.

With the spike in my arm lodged in his chest and my other hand lodged in his mouth I bit into him myself. Sinking my teeth deep into his shoulder as he wailed, desperately trying to pull me off of him. But I wouldn’t let go for anything else. Thought Sculptor whirred as spikes tore open on my face and inside my mouth, growing over my teeth and piercing my lips and tongue as I bit harder and deeper. Tasting his pain, and fear. That delicious fear as bits of himself began to tear away. I wrenched my head from side to side like a dog tearing meat from the bone, growling savagely as I mauled him.

With a sickening ripping sound Rykas finally extracted my spike out of his chest, screaming all the while as I tore a chunk out of his shoulder. Hurling me away as I tumbled and gnawed on the remains of him between my teeth. I got to my feet ready to face him again, however many times it took as he-

He ran.

The sight was so mesmerizing I stared slack jawed as his broken frame, with a hole through his chest and a gouge in his shoulder, fled like he was running for his life. I stared so long that the remains of his body in my mouth lost form and dripped down. Soaking into myself and settling down, deep down into my very core.

Then I laughed. Harder and harder until I was howling into the dark recesses of my mind Rykas had fled to. It was only a little while after that that I realized I was shouting. Then a bit more until I heard what I was shouting after him.

“You know why you can’t remember!” I shouted as a smile split my face from ear to ear. Not even realizing I was ranting about things I shouldn’t have been able to know. “Why there’s so many gaps in your head! It’s because you’re gone! You’re nothing! You hear me Rykas of House Asuliel! NOTHING! You’re nothing but a worthless echo of pain and memory I scraped off the walls!”

I could have stayed there forever shouting after him but I could feel myself drifting back into my body now that Rykas wasn’t trying to take control anymore. My eyes snapped open and it took me a heartbeat to recognize where I was. Still in front of the smoldering building. The crowds still surrounding me as I lay on the ground. Falisa still gripping Pyga as May crouched over me. Asking me if I was alright and looking scared as she reached out to me.

For a terrifying moment I struggled to remember who and what I was. But as damaged as my mind had been, and as many new gaps in my memory there were. I still managed to come back to myself. Not completely, but enough to think consciously again. How long? I thought to myself as I put a hand on the ground. My left hand. For a moment I was overcome with relief as I stared at it and I felt the fingers I’d thought I’d lost in my fight with Rykas. Was all that… Did all of that really just happen? Just now? That quickly?

“Toby! Are you alright?” May said again as I looked up to her in wonder. Wonder at being alive, wonder at actually winning against the monster I’d been so terrified of taking control again. “Listen to me. We have to move! We have to move now!” She said gripping my arm. I hadn’t even had a moment to collect myself or ask what was wrong before a voice cut through the noise.

“Spellbreaker!” A rough voice shouted over the crowd as a flare of fire lit up behind the crowd of Beast Folk and other Murk district residents. Cries of fear rang through the crowd as they backed away from the figures approaching me from thirty feet away. A bald man with red scars swirling up one bared arm marking him as a Redbrand strolled forward with at least a dozen other men behind him. “We’ve been looking for you.” He said grinning as he looked me over. “Why don’t you come with us nice and quiet like?”

You. I thought with a level of hatred I’d never felt before. You did this didn’t you?

In my mind I saw everything that happened tonight. The bomb at the restaurant, the attacks against civilians, the burning buildings and everything else in between. The images flashing before my eyes one after the other. Something inside me burned white hot, to the point where it eclipsed every pain in my body.

“Look at you.” He began. Sneering as he spoke. “I bet you can’t even-”

In the space of a second I was standing to my feet and in front of May as the wind of my movement displaced the ash drifting through the air. I was leaning towards the Redbrands with my teeth clenched in a barely contained snarl as my fingers twitched rapidly. Itching to clench his throat and feel his life drain away under my hands. I was bleeding, covered in ash and soot, and could feel things inside my chest that were either cracked or broken. But as I stood with the dying light of the fires behind me none of it mattered. My shadow stretching out over the Redbrands as the men collectively took a step back, their faces blanching as I stared them down.

I’ll kill you. I promised in an almost primal fury. Tear you open and carve you into pieces. Crack open your bones and rip out the marrow. Until there’s nothing left inside you but the red!

That white hot fire inside me demanded blood. Demanded I move and act on the unbridled violence rippling beneath my skin. I was all but ready to lunge forward, battered body and all as May grabbed my arm. “Come on!” She said desperately. “You can’t fight them!” I whipped my head back at her and she flinched away as she looked at my face.

The fear in her eyes was what brought me back from the edge I’d been about to leap off of. Cooling my emotions even as one other continued to burn bright. I barely had time to consider the insane hatred in my chest before the roar of the crowd drew my attention back to the current threat.

Though I doubt I could have called it a crowd anymore. The packed together Beast Folk were charged with a different kind of energy now. No longer filled with the fear of a crowd of onlookers watching a disaster but a mob of wronged people who’d just sighted the people responsible for their suffering. The people who’d edged away from the Redbrands before seemed emboldened after seeing me stand up to them and began shouting back at the Redbrands. The few of their number waving flames and burning weapons towards the mob menacingly only seemed to stoke their fury higher.

One Redbrand hurled a ball of fire at someone in the crowd, the fire exploding over the person’s clothes and fur as it hit. And like that was the signal the tension holding back the mob broke as they all rushed the Redbrands. Not a single Class among them as they fought to get at them.

May pulled on me again and dragged me away as the clash between the mob and the Redbrands escalated. I spared a glance for Pyga and Falisa but the space they’d been in just a moment ago was empty now. I could only hope Falisa had the sense to run off with Pyga to safety as I got my feet under me. Feeling the strange sensation of weakness and strength both as my newly boosted stats pushed my tired body beyond what it had been capable of only a few short minutes ago.

Even as my Dexterity perfectly placed my steps on the stone of the street I was leaning on May as she helped carry my weight.

I had won my fight against Rykas in my mind. But I’d also taken something from him. Ripped it out of him just like he’d ripped part of me away.

What? I thought numbly as May dragged me into an alley, the flickering light of the fires finally beginning to die down as the Redbrands fought their way through the mob to chase us. All the while the blazing heat inside my chest kept burning. Begging me to turn back and spill blood until the world ran red. Not out of a sense of the mad anger and disgust that drove Rykas. It was my own emotions and thoughts that were feeding that fire now.

What did I just do?

I had won. Against both, threats outside and within myself. But I had only just begun to pay the cost of that victory as we both ran into the night.