Tallah lost consciousness and woke when she hit the stones beneath. A gasp for air. A chill in her hands and spreading through her chest. Blood running down her chin.

Bianca lifted her again and launched upward, fighting for height against the wind.

Don’t faint. Don’t faint. Don’t faint. Don’t—

Tallah did. A jolt woke her again, the sense of falling a dangerously long way. Christina screaming at her.

Bianca’s lines of power caught on a gargoyle somewhere and Tallah stopped in the air between two nearly invisible buildings, lost and shaken, ribs rattling inside her chest. Panic rose in her gut. Had she gone too far from the Agora? Somewhere close to the Alchemists? It was hard and getting harder to think. Her vision dimmed again on the edges.

Do not dare faint! I cannot do this if you go unconscious. Bianca yanked on her tether and moved with a certainty Tallah didn’t feel.

“I’m still alive. Keep going. He won’t fol—”

A bolt of lightning struck the roof she aimed to land on. Snow and shingles exploded, and she crashed through, falling to the street below. Impact drove all air from her again. Something in her arm snapped with a wet crunch.

In another flash, Falor was on top of her, hammer coming down wreathed in light.

Tallah kicked out against his legs and pushed away. Cobbles, snow, and black ice exploded. She fought to find her feet, but Falor came again. Another crash of the hammer, a hair’s breadth escape. She rolled and crawled and gasped in agony. Blood oozed from her mouth as she climbed to her feet and dizzily stumbled away from the monster as he came for her.

“You could have died easy back there,” he growled. Fury and a manic determination coated his words. “I offered you an easy death. I offered you an execution. Please, just die.”

Odd turn of phrase. She’d consider it later, if she managed to refuse him.

“That was you being kind?” She couldn’t resist the taunt even if she barely whispered the words out. “And here I thought you’d have outgrown childish sentiment by now.”

She struggled to think, to stall for time.

He wouldn’t risk another Punishment, not so deep in the city, surrounded by innocents in their homes, not with her able to push it back. He showed that he could chase her down. It was more than enough to finish her.

Another blast of lightning. It hit her square in the chest. Christina screamed as she dispersed the power, but she faded with the effort. Music flooded into the space the ghost left.

“That would be Christina Cytra’s power, I assume,” Falor said, a dark twist to his face. “And you’ve been running with Bianca Vel’s. That’s two murders finally solved. Are you holding Anna Theala’s abilities in reserve, to surprise me? It won’t work.”

She had to give his investigation credit. Someone on their side was very good at seeing a larger picture. She’d bet a griffon it was Rumi Belli.

“I haven’t absorbed her yet. No tools here.” She leaned on a wall to keep her feet. The pain in her side throbbed and promised a fatal conclusion.

He grunted, his anger smouldering beneath the obsidian intensity of his gaze. He was resolved to killing her.

“Why?” he asked, voice tightly controlled.

Why what?

Why run? Why kill her old friends? Why run from the Empire? Why… why?

Thoughts gelled in her head. Bianca whimpered for guidance, torn between defending them, and protecting her soul from the ghastly music pouring past Christina’s absence. Falor had grown exponentially in the six years since their last clash and he still held so much back.

“It was necessary.” She straightened and pulled in illum. He wasn’t taking her seriously. That couldn’t bloody stand. Fear melted down into anger, and that distilled into rage. This had been a mistake, but she refused to let him murder her in a dark alley like some helpless urchin.

There was still work to be done.

“Soul theft is an immediate death sentence.” He had noticed her building power again. “Even if you do escape me here, there won’t be a single place on Vas that will harbour you. We’ll send word to Aztroa. Anywhere you go, you’ll be hunted. Your crimes exposed. No allies would shelter you again.”

She laughed wetly, choking on a glob of blood halfway through.

“I’m already hunted, boy. Your mother’s made sure of it. Do you think she didn’t know I was alive?” She took a step towards him, her hands flashing into fire and lighting her up, paling in comparison to his luminescence. “And why? Don’t you know why?! Doesn’t she trust you enough even for that?”

Her words stung. She saw it in the stoop of his shoulders and in the tightness of his jaw. But he was talking. Something held him back and she couldn’t be sure what.

Her illum built up inside. Maybe enough for one Disintegration.

“You murdered your cell. You betrayed the trust of your men and of the Empire. You poisoned Valen and nearly burned it to the ground. Need I go on?” He held his hammer two handed and lightning coiled around the jagged head. “And soul theft, the sin.” His grip tightened with a grind of metal on metal. “Why all of it?”

He’d asked that before, those six Winters prior. She had refused to answer him then.

They were three, maybe four, steps apart. Whistles echoed, calls to action, screams of the panicked. His lightning buzzed and crackled across his weapon.

Just tell him. He’s hesitating. Maybe… Even Bianca couldn’t finish that thought. Falor wouldn’t believe the truth.

“I didn’t kill my cell. I never betrayed the Empire. And I am not doing what you think I am.” Her fury grew and she spat more blood to the side. “I never betrayed anyone that hadn’t stabbed me first. Do you know what happened to all those that I hunted down for your mother?”

“Locked in Drak’s Perch. Some of them blanked.” He sounded affronted. He believed the lies. “It’s better than they deserve.”

Tallah chuckled grimly. “Drak’s Perch is empty, Falor. Go see for yourself if you won’t believe it, once you’ve dealt with me. There’s nobody there. Empty walls. Silent cells. Nothing.” He didn’t dismiss the notion straight out of hand. Still as a statue, he waited for her answers, hammer abuzz with his fury. “They’re all under Aztroa’s Crown, out in the Expanse. Tortured. Dead. All of them emptied out and buried as husks. I saw the graves. I dug two of those myself.” One for Rhine’s corpse. One for herself. She squeezed down on the pain of that memory and added it to the fuel of her furnace. His black eyes were unreadable. “I confronted your mother. She didn’t take it well. Here we are.”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

A frown creased the impeccable line of his forehead.

Tallah felt Christina’s whimpering in the back of her mind. Good, she hadn’t been burned out of her. In that electric, quiet moment she couldn’t afford the grief.

She breathed in and sought for the right words when something crashed into Falor, howling from above. A figure had bounded off a roof and leapt down with two weapons in hand, toppling the prince. They went down in a sprawl of limbs, sparks and flashes of electricity. Tallah got the impression of a horned helmet and two axes glinting in the firelight.

“Vergil?” she asked, incredulous, unable to believe her eyes.

Vergil howled in glee as Falor threw him off. He rolled through the snow, landed on all fours and bounded back against the prince like a wild animal. An axe in each hand, he closed the distance again before Falor could bring his hammer to bear. Dull clangs of metal sounded as Vergil smashed aside the hammer head, hooked it with an axe’s beard and almost yanked it out of his enemy’s hands.

Falor moved with the pull and smashed into his opponent, armoured shoulder to armoured chest. Vergil drew back and slammed his helmet down on Falor’s exposed forehead, drawing blood. The prince caught him by the arm, released his hammer, and blasted with a bolt of lightning.

Tallah rushed to help the boy.

She didn’t see the blade. It came from the shadows for her throat.

Both she and it slammed into an invisible hair-thin barrier that stopped the killing blow. The figure holding the curved sword cursed and Tallah recognized him. Barlo. The Miscreant had caught up with Falor and had waited for his moment.

“Pay attention, Tallah. Vergil can handle himself.”

That was Sil. The healer called down to her from a perch way on high on a rooftop.

“There are soldiers coming. Move.”

Barlo slammed two gauntleted fists into the barrier and Sil yelped above. Cracks formed in the air. Tallah was unarmed and hurt. Her sword was lost somewhere. She couldn’t fight the mage killer then and there.

Vergil, smoking and steaming from Falor’s hit, howled and launched himself again at the princeling. Another blast of lighting and the boy moved with incredible grace around it, just like she’d taught him to. That this was Horvath fighting got stowed away for later digesting.

He came at the prince with such fury that it got Barlo’s attention off her. Before the vanadal could rush in to help, Sil dropped the barrier and Tallah blasted him into the wall with a kinesis push. Vergil’s axes clanged against Falor’s hammer, a flurry of blows that managed to push the star-ore head away. The Commander defended with his bare gauntlet and barely pulled back from a strike that would’ve buried an axe in his forehead, forced to drop his weapon.

Vergil leapt at Falor with murderous intent.

Tallah grabbed him mid-air with Bianca’s power and, with a twist, launched him skyward towards Sil, saving him from a lightning strike from above. It shattered cobbles and raised another cloud of dust and steam. She launched herself as well before Falor refocused on her. She couldn’t run from him.

But she didn’t need to.

Sil arrested Vergil’s flight with a barrier and he cursed in ancient Dwarven at her, screaming and kicking for the fight he was being denied. Tallah reached them, pulled them both close, and used the shard hung on a string at her neck.

The world and the night and the snow all lurched sideways, and they dropped awkwardly through nothing.

Momentum carried them through the teleportation. Wherever the other shard spat them out, they kept moving until they slammed into a wall.

Vergil was the first up on his feet, growling, axes held out.

Tallah followed, stumbling from pain and exhaustion. Her left arm was shattered and the pain maddening.

Soldiers surrounded them on all sides, some of them more surprised than others. It had been a trap!

No. Details resolved in her vision. An old bookcase. Another. Dust and discarded scrolls. Overloaded work desks and alchemical compounds strewn about.

They were in Ludwig’s home. There, at the other end of the room, held at knife point, was the old bastard himself, white-faced with fear and terror. Rumi Belli held his hand in her own and two soldiers held his arm. Three fingers were bent at wrong angles. One was missing.

Tallah lashed out with Bianca’s kinesis, grabbed a soldier that had drawn his sword, and launched him bodily at the mind-skinner. She dodged out of the way and the flying body hit another. Ludwig stood there, frozen to the spot, stupid frightened.

“Move, old man,” she called out as she flung another man through his home, knocking over book shelves. An explosion of paper and dust choked the air. Vergil was already moving, cutting with his axes. He took an arm off someone and kicked another with enough force that Tallah heard the sickening snap of bone. “Sil, move. Get to him.”

A soldier had come out behind her, sword raised. She turned and smashed him with a flung piece of furniture. It looked like the old man’s favourite armchair. It shattered to splinters, springs, and cascading stuffing.

Men cursed and rallied. Crossbows were drawn, pulled back and loaded. Bolts flew but smashed into invisible walls. Sil moved towards the stricken Ludwig, pinning people in place with her barriers. In the melee, Tallah had lost track of Rumi Belli. She turned to scan the room and was met by Vergil, who swung his axe at her. Bianca yanked her sideways and she heard the clang of weapons meeting.

A man wearing loose black clothes, looking like one of the Guild’s handlers, had sneaked up behind her. He held a twisted, three-bladed knife almost as long as her arm. She’d seen him somewhere before, but couldn’t place that plain face.

The man dropped his knife and moved in chest-to-chest with Vergil. Even the mad ghost couldn’t keep up with the storm of fists, elbows and knees that the warrior unleashed. Vergil spat blood through his visor slit as an elbow drove into the side of his neck and snapped his head sideways. Another fist to the stomach scythed the strength in his legs and he dropped to his knees, gasping for breath.

Tallah intervened with a kinesis burst. The man avoided it, pulled back and disappeared in the chaos, lithe and graceful as a dancer. A strange glint in the way he looked at her triggered some ancient instinct and she moved sideways just in time to avoid a knife to the small of her back from Rumi Belli. The hammer strike’s echo slammed her and she nearly blacked out with the effort of staying upright. Aerum had run out and she was dizzy with effort. Every breath was a fight. Vergil’s axe swing chased off another attempt from Rumi Belli.

Thunder rumbled above and the wind whistled inside through the shattered window. A flash of white. Another crack of thunder that seemed to cover the world. And Falor was out there.

“We need to go,” Tallah called to Sil. The healer had locked down most of the soldiers and helped Ludwig stand. “Go to her, bucket-head. Go, go.” She didn’t bother grabbing at Rumi and the warrior in black. She focused whatever reserves Bianca still had and heaved forward.

Ludwig’s front wall exploded out into the night, dropping heavily over Falor. Twin fireballs set the entire ruin alight in a burst of embers and glass.

Tallah rushed over the detritus to Sil and Vergil. The boy stood awkwardly, like a doll held up by strings. No time to worry about him.

“I hope you have a way out, old man. Now’s the time to use it.” She was panicking and could hear the bursts of lightning that threw away the wreckage of the building. It was all about to come down on top of them.

Ludwig fumbled awkwardly with one hand to his neck and shakily drew out a shard dressed in cloth.

“My supplies a-a-are up-upst—”

“We don’t need them.” Tallah reached out and grabbed the shard in her fist.

Sil grabbed Vergil by the back of his collar, and wrapped a hand around Tallah’s.

Falor flew at them through the crumbling ruin of the door, singed and smoking, hair matted by blood, his hammer already swinging. His eyes met hers for a brief instant. Maybe… maybe she thought she saw hesitation there.

Probably just imagined it.

Pity it had come to this. She had regretted it six years prior and she regretted it now. She would have wanted to know if he believed her, if without Vergil’s intervention they could have—

Too late for regrets, much too late. She siphoned illum into the shard and Valen dropped away.