Lichos cursed as he stared down the woman hovering ahead of him. Feeling the magic coursing from her like a river. Feeling it, even as his own body broke the aura down into nothing.

He’d not known it was possible for any mystic’s power to do that so casually. Always lived assuming there wasn’t a being of magic alive he couldn’t turn to helplessness with his nihil. It didn’t seem fair, to him, that there was. Surely one who cast aside all else to destroy magic ought to have been unlimited in his capacity to do so.

But fairness and reality had never been even passing associates, and he felt his throat tighten at the Immortal ahead. There was no use in crying over what wasn’t.

“Move aside, pariah!” Snapped the Immortal, glaring at him as if he were less than an insect, an offence to her very eyes. Lichos supposed, proudly, that he was.

And yet he considered obeying. For one terrible, twisted moment. In the end he found his nerves hardened, but not with duty. He’d seen Gemini Menza’s fear, and no child would be killed before him. Lavastro Kaiosyni had wasted her fucking breath.

“Sorry, you’re going to have to kill me for that.”

She could fly around him, he realised, but so too did the trembling in her hands register to his hastened gaze. The woman- the Immortal- was nervous. Lichos could only hope it tipped a few mental scales.

She charged like the Eclipse himself, arcing straight for him and clearing the space almost without pause. He might have been killed, had he not devoured so much magic. Instead he threw his nihil out to meet her. Thicker, denser than he’d ever made it, then compressed into a singular streak to concentrate it even further.

The Immortal cut through the anti-magic like a blade through gristle. And yet it slowed her.

Lichos watched as the magic was weakened across her body, raising his bayonet to meet the woman’s eye even as it widened with shock. The steel turned to dust in the impact, and a moment later she struck him.

Ribs broke, impossibly. But he held her, tightening his fingers amid her hair and pinning the woman close as she plucked him toward the sky alongside her. Lichos began biting, pelting her with headbutts, kneeing and elbowing wherever he could. Desperate to break her down, wound her and delay her as much as he was able.

It was more than he might have hoped, blood wept where he struck, tears streamed from brown eyes and a thousand curses lit the air. Unixian, this time, to blend neatly with the Taikan swearing he answered with.

They spun, dipped, arced, crashed through a hundred buildings like sand castles, and his hold remained unbroken. But the pain grew. His ribs protested, teeth were torn-free, one finger snapped entirely, and Lichos roared as the woman plunged one of her own deep in his eye and crushed it almost from the socket.

In the end, he doubted his battle had lasted so long as it might have. But he let a grin lift his face as he saw the maddened fury lighting his enemy’s face.

Just moments before he fell to land amid a crushed house.

***

Gem’s eyes remained on the buildings ahead, the cover they’d provide. As close to safety as Gem could manage. If she reached them there may be a chance.

More wishful thinking than I’ve ever had in my life. She thought, bitter fear almost weighing her down with its intensity. An Immortal’s chasing me, perhaps I should simply stem my magic and dive head-first into the ground. Make it quick, at least.

It almost escaped her notice when the sounds of fighting died down behind her. A great, thundering impact shook the air from below, betraying a meteoric impact without demanding a glance.

Again a hand seized her, fingers closing around her shin tighter than they had before. So tight that the bone gave way with barely a squeal, snapping as if it were a twig underfoot.

Gem screamed, then screamed louder as she was wrenched back by the wounded limb. Falling into her enemy’s embrace, tears clouding her eyes.

Hot breath hit her ear from inches away as the vice-like grip tightened, threatening to shatter ribs just as it had her leg. Gem sobbed into the woman, face pressed hard against her shoulder in twisted mockery of an embrace.

“Are you ready to die, little Menza?” The Immortal hissed, monstrous in its victory. Hot with Cutaris, yet so, so cold. “So few of your age are. I’m afraid I’ll have to make this quick.”

“It’ll be quicker than you think, I’m afraid.” Came a new voice, deep as a man’s and clear as a general’s. Proud, unwavering, energetic and stronger than even Lavastro’s. It was a voice Gem had heard countless times before, one to pierce even the pain marring her.

One she’d feared might never call out to her again.

Before she could even consider the newcomer, magic was at work. Leaping to wrap around her body, then expanding like a bubble of air beneath the waves. It had a power unmatched by even the Immortal, terrifying in its quantity and unassailable in its quality.

Somehow, though, Gem found it far less threatening. Drawing comfort from the force’s touch, where the Immortal’s had brought only fear.

It hardened in an instant, expanded like water turning to ice. Forced Gem back from the woman with a power that might have reduced her body to mulch, yet she scarcely even felt its touch, receiving a caress where she’d have expected bone crushing pressure.

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They were apart in an instant, Immortal screaming her frustration as Gem fell back from her. She landed moments later, impact made light by her magic.

Gem stared up as the Immortal hurtled back like shrapnel, rebounding from the ground amid enough dust and debris to blind the Goddess.

She barely noticed the impact, eyes drawn instead to a figure descending twenty paces from her with all the grace of a falling feather.

A man. Light seemed to cascade around him, though no physical glow caught her sight. His hair was silver, eyes an incandescent cyan. Skin pale like fallen snow. All appearing to glow amid the ephemeral shine.

The magic was like a star’s heat as it osmotized from him, but barely held Gem’s notice. There was far more to catch her eye than any supernal presence.

It had been weeks, even months, she’d gazed upon the face of her father. She’d almost forgotten the comfort it could bring.

“Hello, Gemini.” Gilasev Menza beamed, grinning his lopsided grin, standing crookedly as ever. Head tilted as if in a challenge, eyes glinting with the same mischief they always did.

Lavastro had spent a minute testing her leg after Kleidra left. Walking, first, then jogging. Increasing her pace with a gradual and careful lethargy. Taking all three hundred beats of her heart to finally approximate the height of what she could manage.

It was a relief to know that she could move unimpeded, provided her hold on the bone remained unbroken. But the stipulation was a testing one. She would easily double the consumption of her magic reserves by doing so.

There was no choice in the matter. Lavastro could not heal herself, such magics were beyond her. The temporary, expensive measure was as much choice as she had.

There was nothing to do but accept the disadvantage and plan around it.

Her sprint was a mercifully fast one, sustained by a stamina made no less superhuman than her pace. A horse would have covered the ground slower, and soon the limitation of her injury seemed insubstantial.

Lavastro was saved from complacency by the rationale of Manamis, made ever present and secure in her mind by the ongoing need for her telekinesis.

She still stood leagues from the city’s outskirts, where she’d instructed her bodyguard to bring Gem. Already Lavastro regretted sending the man alone, but time had been of the essence, and she’d known not whether her current pace had been possible. Her action had been logical. The Manamis calmed.

Seconds oozed by, made glacial by the magic-carved edge of her perceptions. Still Lavastro ran, leg squeezed tight. Continuing without fail until her run had stretched on into minutes. Her progress leagues.

It was only when she’d crossed half her journey that the shiver ran along her spine.

Magic. Thick, almost viscous, congealed in a mass at her back and registering as a blot on her senses. More than she possessed, more by several times over, and separated into numerous sources. Each was inferior to her, but not by far.

Lavstro knew the rarity of her power, even among adult mystics. Knew the slim probability she’d have encountered ones able to approximate it. Realised, almost reluctantly, that it was far more likely her pursuers had been searching for her in particular.

There was no challenge in deducing their actions from there. They’d have seen her as she left the Crux, noticed the magiphage by her side in an instant and opted to wait for a better chance than in his presence to strike.

She’d given it to them by sending her bodyguard away, and the minutes since would have been enough for the vultures to grow confident in his absence. They would soon strike.

Very well then. We’ll see how powerful an assassination team our hidden Immortal could muster.

Lavastro turned, wrapping a new force around her body and adding to the deceleration of heel against stone. Stopping with an impossible speed, then restarting her sprint in the opposite direction.

Surprise proved as strong an ally as she’d hoped, for ten women and a man all froze as she barrelled towards them. They were righted by the time Lavastro was halfway across the distance, but the hesitation was weapon enough.

A flick of her wrist sent her mind to one side, wrapping it about a crumbled pile of mortar and crushing the desiccated stone to powder.

She hurled it to the nearest with as great a speed as she could muster, the mass of debris striking like a sandstorm. Trailing and coiling, almost akin to the limbs of sand used by Rajah’s pupil.

It hit just as she’d hoped, taking first the mystic’s senses, then his balance. Miniature particulates scraping against steel-hard flesh more greatly than larger sections could ever have.

A half dozen hands rose as the man fell, and Lavastro leapt aside from the volley of magic that assailed her.

Heat left trails of screaming atoms as it cut like spear thrusts through the air, meteoric masses erupting seemingly from nowhere and hurled for her caked in fire, water arced like razor blades and vines erupted from below in serpentine strikes.

Lavastro leapt as they neared her, flying sidelong and high at once, pitting telekinetic might to bolster the muscular. Desperate for more speed.

She flew clear of perhaps half the attacks before her guard was up to take the other, encasing herself in force as a second defence and gritting her teeth before the impact.

It rocked her all the same.

A house tried its best to halt her flight, crumbling with the effort and barely slowing Lavastro as she continued onwards. Dust clung to her while the wind scythed whatever flesh it could reach, and still she flew. Stopping only after flattening half a street.

The ground was tortured apart by her grating deceleration, leg jarred so abruptly that it might have been broken anew had she not kept her grip on it.

She’d stood only an instant ago when the enemy came into sight, moving just as fast as before. Sensing their kill and rushing to claim it.

A terrible certainty overcame Lavastro as she straightened up, accursed Manamis leaving little doubt in her that she’d be dead before long.

Her enemies were weaker individually, doubtless lacked access to half her spheres, yet their numbers alone were an impossible force. Her advantage in might wasn’t half so great as to overcome that. She was a lion, about to be killed by dogs.

There was something soothing about accepting her fate for what it was. Banishing panic, strengthening resolve, sharpening wits and steeling her back as Lavastro stood tall. Beyond regret or bitterness. Eager only to live her last moments well, then die to match them.

Her breathing was heavy in her ears as they came on. Lavastro watched, waited, braced herself.

Then froze along with them as a new voice rang out from beside the battle.

“Hello there, Princess. D’you want a hand?”

She recognised the voice instantly. Felt its rough, chipped-razor edge grate against her as she listened. Recalled the way it had left her nerves frayed all too well and felt almost overwhelmed by the air of magic that accompanied it.

Lavastro turned to rest her eyes upon Bob Danielz as he approached, fellow butchers in tow. Eyes still hidden behind his darkened spectacles, lips still parted to reveal the fanged grin beneath.