Azmiyah’s blade sliced through the air again, its deadly arc stopping short against a barrier of electricity. Her entire body pulsed with Îme from her mark, enhancing her movements as she danced. Her opponent was skilled—exceptionally so, likely even more adept with Îme than she was. She might have enjoyed a fair duel where technique and strength alone decided the victor, but time was not on her side. With every passing minute, one of her warriors risked death.

Thunder cracked, and a dozen spheres of electricity formed around her. Azmiyah had no choice but to leap into the air, channeling Îme into her feet, releasing enough force to propel her several meters upward. Her blade whirled, gracefully realigning itself mid-air, ready to face her opponent. But instead of striking her former position, the spheres redirected, shooting straight toward her. With a determined shout, she twisted mid-flight, narrowly avoiding the impact.

Controlling her descent, she landed just to the left of the Îme master and wasted no time. In a blindingly swift strike, she aimed her blade at his throat. Yet, once more, she was blocked, her ice sword cracking against his electric barrier. Undeterred, she spun and kicked up a spray of sand to blind him.

The Îme master shielded his face with a smooth movment and took a step back to widen the gap. Azmiyah pursued him, her familiarity with the sand giving her an edge. As she closed in, he spread his arms and released a wave of Îme to push her away. In response, she hurled her blade toward him, only to be struck full-force by his shockwave. Her cry echoed through the desert, mixing with the chaos of battle nearby. She winced; although she’d finally managed to hit him, he hadn’t missed either. His wave likely dislocated or even fractured her shoulder.

A particularly fierce scream distracted her opponent, and she seized the moment to try resetting her shoulder. The pain was excruciating—the bone was broken. Her aura, already stretched to its limit, seemed to have little effect on the man, who seemed to ignore the pressure entirely, letting it wash over him. She clicked her tongue; this was why she despised Îme masters. Not as adept at wielding Îme, she compensated with advanced techniques and carefully honed tricks learned over time.

But Îme masters controlled every little things with precision—from the smallest pulse of Îme to the most intense flows. They generally concentrated on just one aspect, refining it to mastery. Sculpting Îme required absolute focus, and limiting one’s expertise to a single element was key to achieving full command over it.

Her opponent wielded lightning, one of Îme’s elemental cores. Its volatility and power matched only by its difficulty to control. As if answering her thought, the man’s next movement was executed with exquisite precision. Injured, he was hindered, and if he weren’t a master, he wouldn’t have been able to control the volatile energy.

For an Îme sculptor, even a momentary lapse of focus was enough to lose control of their power or spell. A master was only deserving of the title when, even at death’s edge, their concentration remained unwavering.

That was also the difference between mark-bearers and Îme sculptors. A mark-bearer wielded a tool and a source that allowed them to harness this energy even under diminished focus. The mark acted both as a catalyst and a reservoir, controlled by the bearer’s will.

Lightning crackled around her opponent's arms, forming a minefield of energy spheres. In an instant, he sent them scattering in every direction. Azmiyah summoned a new blade to her hand in response.

A sphere of lightning appeared between her legs, surging up from the sand at blinding speed. She barely twisted herself into a forward flip, then caught sight of another sphere plunging down toward her. With sheer willpower, she erupted in flames, launching herself in a fiery spiral sideways, landing just in time to dodge yet another sphere. Her body, pliant to her every command, twisted past yet another threat, arching and crouching as she bounded forward. This deadly choreography of evasion continued, each step bringing her closer to him, her injured shoulder throbbing but ignored, as she narrowly slipped past each deadly spark.

Her ice blade sang through the air, death’s shadow cast upon her strike. Yet, just as her sword was to plunge into her enemy’s chest, a sharp, blinding pain shot through her leg. A wave of agony surged through her body like an onslaught of terror. It burned fiercely, penetrating her nerves and muscles alike, every fiber seemingly ablaze.

The electric current rippled uncontrollably through her, seizing her muscles, forcing her knees to buckle beneath her. She was falling. She had stepped into one of the countless traps hidden by the Îme master. The current forced her heart into an erratic beat, and an intense pressure squeezed her lungs. She wanted to scream, but her jaw clenched shut, muting her cry.

With an impassive look, he stepped toward her as she lay on the ground. Azmiyah felt the current vanish and tried to react, but her muscles, still paralyzed, wouldn’t respond. She felt Îme gathering in his hands and forced herself to focus, straining against the searing pain still burning through her.

Her vision cleared, regaining lost intensity, and with a superhuman effort of will, the Phoenix compelled her unresponsive body to move. As lightning sparked at the Îme master’s fingertips, she thrust her arms upward in a sudden motion. Her opponent, confident that his shock had neutralized her, had no time to react.

With a deafening blast of flame, he was thrown back, crashing into the sand several meters away, smoke trailing from his smoldering body.

Azmiyah’s ragged breaths finally evened out as her pulse steadied. She muttered a curse, her tongue still numb from the jolt. Her opponent was rising.

His clothes were singed, his face marked with burns, and for the first time, pain flickered across his expression.

The Phoenix stood, body heavy with fatigue. As she considered a new approach to bring down this Îme master, clearly more formidable than she’d expected, he turned his gaze toward the convoy. He squinted, and in that instant, Azmiyah felt a tremendous surge of Îme envelop him, and then he vanished in a burst of lightning, his departure marked by blinding speed.

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He was heading toward the battle. A flash of worry crossed her eyes, and she summoned her remaining strength. With a final burst of flame, she set off in pursuit of the convoy’s second.

Lysbelle had frozen, Kraast’s words paralyzing her and igniting a deep-seated terror. Azel… She hadn’t seen him and didn’t know where he was. It might have been a bluff, or it might not, but regardless, she couldn’t afford to risk that it was true.

Her hand began to shake, the tremor traveling down to her blade, and her throat tightened. In a strained whisper, full of fear and desperation, she forced herself to question the giant.

"Where is he?"

The colossal figure finally steadied his heaving breaths, the terror of his near-death experience still etched onto his face, mingling with the confusion of his discovery. Kraast let out a nervous, rough chuckle that echoed oddly in the tense silence. His black eyes, still wide, fixed on Lysbelle with a cold, intense gaze. Rising slowly, each movement calculated, as if balancing on a razor's edge between life and death, he sneered.

"You really think I’d risk coming here without leverage?” he hissed, his lips twisting into a venomous smile. “Your brother is much closer than you think… but if you want to know exactly where, you’ll have to listen to me."

Lysbelle’s heart tightened further. She wanted to lunge, to bring her blade down and silence his wretched voice. But Azel’s name hung around her neck like an anchor, holding her back, trapping her in Kraast’s vice grip. She swallowed, trying to steady her trembling hand.

“What do you want, Kraast?” she murmured, her voice layered with suspicion.

The giant straightened further, careful not to make any sudden moves. His smile widened, clearly pleased to have stirred the fear he intended.

“I want to ensure that you cooperate… nicely. Listen closely, pest: one wrong word, one wrong move, and Azel vanishes into the shadows forever. But if you obey…” He paused, his eyes gleaming with malice. “…then maybe he’ll still be alive at the end of the day.”

The threat didn’t have the intended effect. Like a phantom pain, memories of her mother flared up, searing hot as iron left too long in the fire. Instead of backing down, she raised her blade toward the giant.

A furious cry tore from her throat as she attacked. A powerful swing shattered the weapon Kraast had lifted to block, burying her blade into his chest, and he roared in pain.

In the next moment, a jolt of lightning surged through her body. In an instant, she felt every muscle lock up, every nerve ignite in searing pain.

The agony lasted only a second. Whether by instinct or survival, she felt her mark react. A familiar force surged from within, one she had felt only once before, the very first time she used it. All her energy, unstoppable, relentless, coursed outward.

Realization dawned in her thoughts: if what Tyrell had told her was true, everything around her would be leveled in an instant, friend and foe alike.

Time seemed to slow around her. She saw Kraast’s second-in-command registering the event, surprise on his scarred face. Kraast, still reeling from pain, had rage boiling in his bloodshot eyes. Further off, Azmiyah was hurtling toward them with tremendous speed. But what struck her most was her surroundings—the wounded members of the Caravan and the convoy lying scattered around her. If her mark detonated as it had in the midst of the Swarm, she would kill everyone.

The realization seeped into her mind, creeping at first, then crashing through her thoughts: she was about to bring death to both those she loved and those she hated. Her heart skipped a beat, then pounded violently, almost painfully, as if it, too, wanted to escape the unbearable weight of this knowledge.

A flood of panic, disgust, and horror swept over her, each emotion clashing with the other in a dizzying whirlpool. Guilt grew, suffocating, consuming her until her entire body trembled. She closed her eyes, struggling in vain to contain the energy surging within her, stronger and stronger with each passing moment.

In response, the caravan's second-in-command tried to strike her down. Lightning sparked in his hand and launched toward her, growing in intensity.

A certainty dawned on her just as the lethal strike closed in: she would never be able to contain the impending explosion. Her body tensed, and she resolved that if she couldn’t contain it, she might be able to channel it. As her mark threatened to release all its power at once, she created an opening. And, like water finding its path, all the energy that sought release began flowing toward it.

She felt her hands tremble under the strain, and the lightning that should have pierced her was vaporized by the overwhelming power she unleashed. Before her, aimed straight at Kraast and his second-in-command, an energy storm erupted, pushing everything back in a destructive wave. At the heart of it, she glimpsed a flash of brilliant light, lasting only a fraction of a second.

The pressure was so intense that Lysbelle nearly blacked out, with only pain keeping her conscious. Pain, and the hope that her control was enough to direct the immense power.

A few seconds later, the quiet of the night reclaimed the wreckage of the convoy. Only the groans of the wounded echoed in the cold stillness.

Exhausted and battered, Lysbelle looked out at the silver desert stretching before her. In the distance, a faint blue glow crackled—evidence that Kraast and his second had fled. Arround her, nothing had been hit by the energy storm. She had managed to channel it.

A gentle hand settled on her shoulder, and she didn’t even have the strength to flinch.

“When you go all in, you don’t hold back, do you?”

Lysbelle turned her head toward Azmiyah. The woman was injured, her smile a forced brightness against her weary face. In a hollow voice, marked by helplessness, Lysbelle answered.

“He said Azel would die if I attacked him.”

“And yet you tried to kill him?”

Lysbelle nodded solemnly, hesitating briefly before continuing.

“He killed my mother even after she surrendered… so that Azel and I could live.”

“Then you did the right thing.” The certainty in Azmiyah’s voice left no room for doubt. “If he’s sunk that low before, he wouldn’t hesitate to do it again.”

“We have to go after them… They can’t go unpunished,” Lysbelle implored. “You’re fast, maybe we c—”

“No.”

Though gentle, the response was final, the undeniable tone of a leader being obeyed. Azmiyah had dismissed Lysbelle’s proposal without question.

“But—”

“We’re not pursuing them. We achieved our goal, and many paid for it with their lives. Now it’s time to bring the prisoners back, tend to the wounded, and honor our dead.”

For a brief moment, Lysbelle wanted to protest, to chase after Kraast and the other. Then reality struck her fully.

Rayssa had died to protect her. And she still didn’t know where Azel was.