“Surrender?” Lacelle asked.

Riven wasn’t sure if it was asked hopefully, or sarcastically, or just plain viciously. It wasn’t nice, that was for sure. No, it was threatening. Maybe her hostage had no effect on Viriya, who had charged into yet another fight with Wenster with all the vim and vigour she had when she’d first entered this damn city. Where did she get all that energy? Riven was going to fall down within the next few steps and then stay down. He knew he was lacking the stamina of most Essentiers, but this constant pushing was getting ridiculous.

“No, surrendering,” he replied.

Lacelle tutted. The earlier flash of anger had subsided to something deeper, and she was grinning now. “Too bad.” She grabbed Vorellick by the arm again. “You wouldn’t want me to hurt this innocent old fellow, would you?”

“Then don’t hurt him. Leave him out of this, and face me like a real Essentier.”

Lacelle laughed. Apparently, Riven’s little jibe was about as effective on her as throwing dandelion seeds. Why did she get so offended by Viriya then? “Listen, boy. I promise you’ll have no luck at all if you decide to fight me. You’ll die. Is that what you want?”

“You’ll never know unless you face me head-on. How do you think I survived against Wenster there?”

“You had your little girlfriend to keep you safe.”

Normally, Riven would have flushed at the thought of being romantically involved with the stone door that was Viriya. But he could hardly focus on Lacelle’s specific words. Vorellick met his eyes, a silent plea written all over his face. That man had no wish to die. With one little trick, Riven could make sure he was safe.

With one little surrender.

Scions, why was everything so difficult? Riven took a deep breath, tearing his eyes away from Vorellick’s pitiful face. “No surrendering. If you want to kill me or stop me, you’re going to have to do it the hard way. But I want to bargain for his life.”

“You? Bargain?” Lacelle looked sceptical. “With what?”

“With what I know. With what Orbray wants from me.”

“Don’t be stupid. The High Invigilator wants nothing to do with you.”

“Oh, doesn’t he? I was sure I held the final missing piece of the puzzle he’d been busy with for a while. I was sure he’d be Chasm-bent on you lot bringing me in alive and unharmed enough to talk.”

Lacelle tried to look more sceptical as before, but Riven must have hit a note of truth. There was no way he could know what exactly Orbray had ordered, but it was easy to surmise. Lacelle had been taken in.

“What in the Chasm do you know about anything?” she asked.

Riven shook his head. “Let Vorellick go and face me. If you can bring me down, I’ll tell you before I have to tell Orbray.”

He had hit a key note all right. Lacelle’s eyes thinned to slits, her grip on Vorellick’s arm going loose. The man pulled himself free and stepped away, but she didn’t notice. All her attention was on Riven.

All her malevolent, bloodthirsty attention.

Riven swallowed. The pain was still riding through him in waves, and he wasn’t sure he’d be able to move as well as he hoped he could. When he took his first step forward, he staggered. Damn, this wasn’t good. He switched attention to the dead soldiers littering the wet ground around him. Sept. he needed more Sept, and these corpses had to have extra magazines filled with Sept bullets. Perfect for what Riven needed.

There was an orange flash and when he looked over, Lacelle was gone. Shit. There was no time. Riven bent to picking out the magazines from the nearest corpse. He found two, the Sept bullets glowing from within. The rest were just as lucrative, though Riven was moving too slow between the corpses. Lacelle was going to catch up with him any second now.

He froze. Sept. He had enough to go on with for the moment, right?

Riven focused, the familiar pressure building up higher and higher. Golden Essence shot from him, forming into the Riven-shaped armour hovering just over his skin. Then he rushed to the next soldier, as fast as his beaten body would allow. Scions, it hurt far too much to simply move.

When he bent down to the fourth soldier, Lacelle flashed in. There was no warning. All Riven saw was a gout of burning orange Essence a dozen yards away before he was shot.

The armour protected him of course. Lacelle’s bullet lodged in the crack it had made, and Riven had plenty of time to recover more magazines from dead soldiers. He was frozen for just a second on his next body as Lacelle once again disappeared in a flaming flash of orange. Was this what it was like in an actual war? Would he have been reduced to scrounging among the dead, reduced to something less than grave robbing, less even than scavenging, just to survive?

Orange Essence flared, this time right in front of Riven. Lacelle stepped out right in front of Riven. She wasn’t even pointing her gun at him.

“You can hardly move,” she noted. Her icy blue eyes were ever at odds with her red hair. A little more shadow, a hint more darkness in the area, and it would look like she had ropes of blood waterfalling off her head. “Your efforts are futile and wasted.”

“That’s what you think,” Riven said.

“You saying I’m wrong?”

Riven focused. His Essence shot out of him faster than a bullet, the shield around him expanding quick as lightning. It blasted into Lacelle, but she faded into Orange Essence. Riven grimaced. Of course. Viriya had shot her and that had been nothing but some sort of spatial illusion carved using her Distortion Essence.

How was she making it though? Distortion… what was she distorting? Light? That seemed too far-fetched.

The next bullet shattered into his shield from the back. Riven jerked around in surprise, watching the real Lacelle disappear from view as her Orange Essence consumed her. He looked around everywhere. Where would she pop out next? Where would she take pot shots at Riven from this time? Her Essence wasn’t simply cloaking her, it was Distorting her somehow. Or maybe distorting the light around her to make it look like she wasn’t there in the first place.

The next bullet cracked in this shield from the right. Riven held back his smile. Idiot was making it too easy, shooting at him with her Sept bullets that would never harm him. All it did was give him free Sept to use.

Lacelle was half a dozen yards to his right. Even as her orange Essence consumed her again, Riven focused and sent his shield away. His gun was already in his hand, and he got off a rapid shot, aiming where Lacelle had been standing just seconds ago.

Riven’s bullet cleaved through thin air, hitting nothing but the distant wall. He swallowed. She really wasn’t there, which explained how she popped out of everywhere so quickly. Distortion. Her orange Essence was Distorting space itself somehow, letting her step wherever she wanted. Riven froze. It seemed insane. Was Lacelle existing in her own little space, a pocket dimension of sorts where distance in this world was meaningless?

His eyes roved everywhere. There was no sign of where she might have gone or where she might appear next. Riven was prepared, though. He had reformed his Essence armour, ready to take any blows from her.

Nothing came for a good while. Riven considered picking up the other soldiers and doing his best to rifle through what little they had. Couldn’t hurt to have more Sept, right?

Lacelle appeared out of nowhere, charging at Riven from the front. What in the world was she trying to do. Shock made Riven jump back in alarm, and by the time he collected himself enough to get ready, she was charging in too fast to be stopped. Too fast for her blows to be stopped. Her punches were a flurry of flying fists that Riven did his best to block. Didn’t help. They landed everywhere, and he thanked the Scions for the few that he was able to stop from hitting him in dangerous areas.

The ones that landed left lasting damage. There was something strange about her fists, all wrapped in orange Essence flames. Riven blocked them with his arms easily when they connected, his Essence armour making sure he suffered no contact with her hands or her Essence. But his torso was a different story. Somehow—maybe it was her Essence—Lacelle hands slipped through his armour and struck his body, the orange Essence left burning on Riven’s armour.

One such blow landed hard, strong enough to drive all breath from Riven. He cursed with what little air he had left then fell back rapidly. Damn the Chasm. What was up with that insane Essence?

Riven lashed out with his own blows and strikes. Not that any of it landed Lacelle. Fresh and rested from her kidnapping of a hostage, she was able to easily dodge. He tried his damnedest to hit her, but she was too quick for him, too spry on her feet as she danced away.

Taking a deep breath, Riven hunkered down. They’d been going at it for a while now, and he was sure he saw through her. Riven charged forward a little, throwing his face forward as he let her land most of her blows but tried not to show that they hurt. That they were wearing him down and were compounding the agony that Wenster had left him as a souvenir. That they would soon make him collapse.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

As expected, Riven got punched in the face. Lacelle hit him square on the jaw, and as her fist entered through the golden Essence like there was nothing there, Riven expanded his armour into a shield. It pushed the orange flames back along Lacelle’s arm, and before she could jerk it out, Riven grabbed a hold. Lacelle hit him. Her foot slammed into his shins and her other hand punched him in the guts and in the face too, but he wasn’t letting go. A second later, the shield had gone beyond her and they were both within.

Lacelle was without her flaming orange Essence. When she jerked her hand again, Riven let go this time. It wasn’t like she had anywhere to go.

She knew it too. Her face was filled with trepidation and consternation. She glanced back once then brought up her flames again to disappear along with them. Riven waited. He had reined in his expanding shield so that it now stood still with half of it sunk into the ground to form a hemisphere. One second, two, then the orange flames appeared in at the golden shield’s wall. Lacelle popped out.

“What the fuck is this thing?” she muttered, punching the golden Essence experimentally.

Riven laughed, jaw stinging where he’d been hit. “I ask the same thing quite a lot.”

Lacelle turned to him, face more murderous than ever. Riven didn’t care. His face hurt, and now that she was trapped, she was going to pay.

He brought out his gun as fast as his reflexes allowed, already primed and loaded to fire. The shot didn’t hit her though. Or it did, but not the true her. Riven had fired, and the bullet had sunk into her chest, leaving a bloodless hole as she looked down with a slightly puzzled expression.

Shit. Of course. Riven whirled, but he was still too late. Orange Essence erupted at his eight o’clock and Lacelle burst out with her gun drawn forward, her shot blasting loud enough to deafen Riven.

He had foreseen it enough, thank the Scions. Lacelle’s bullet whizzed over his head, and Riven rolled on the ground before coming back up on his feet, his own pistol smoking as he returned fire. It hit her again, but as before, it was only a decoy. Distortion. What in the world was she Distorting to create illusions like that? He had determined space, so maybe it was interacting with the light there somehow in that little pocket.

There was no time to wonder. She was going to pop up any second from some other direction and Riven would be screwed. He had intended to make a small space where she’d have no space to come out wherever she wanted, but he had made it too big. The space wasn’t small enough. Yet.

Riven focused on the pressure within him, keeping it damped inside as he recalled his Essence towards him, promising that he’d armour himself for better protection. It was so easy to manipulate.

But his Essence was coming in too slow. Orange Essence burned somewhere above him, the glow shading the whole area in a bright tangerine shimmer. Lacelle had chosen to appear above him. Riven was already jumping forward, his head turning anyway to peer at the gun coming out of the burning orange cloud, but he wasn’t fast enough. Lacelle fired. The bullet took him in the upper thigh, near his hips. Riven screamed, but still feeling thankful despite the sudden jolt of agony making his nerves ignite. If he hadn’t jumped, he’d be dead now.

Riven got his own shot away before he thumped to the ground. It hit Lacelle of course, but again, it was only a dummy. Fake Lacelle fell to the ground, the only blood she got was that of the dead soldiers around them.

The real one was still in her tiny pocket dimension.

Forcing himself up as he bit his lip against the pain, Riven pushed his back against the golden Essence wall. Scions, it hurt. He was soaked with blood already, but the trail running down his legs was uncomfortably warm. Scalding, almost.

The space within his shield had grown very small, no larger than his little bedroom back in Providence now. Another orange flash, and Riven threw himself forward this time. Lacelle’s bullet shot over his shoulder and he crashed into her for the first time. Riven’s shoulder dug into her midsection and speared her back. The real her. The whoosh of breath blown out of her lungs as she collided with the golden wall was all too real.

She clubbed down with her gun and Riven’s back erupted in little bruises of agony. Chasm, what was her gun made of? They tousled and struggled together, snarling like mad beasts. Riven tried to grab a hold of her dangerous gun, spurred on by the blistering blood seeping out of his wound and down his weakening leg. At one point, they were facing each other, and Lacelle spit at him. It would’ve been fine if it hadn’t been right in his eye. Riven cursed as he dropped his gun and fell back, Lacelle’s knee digging into his guts.

He retreated with a sudden jerk. But his hands had been gripping her gun, and he tore it free from Lacelle. She looked frightened for all of a second before there was another orange flash. Riven yelped as her gun caught fire in his hand, and he dropped it. It disappeared before it hit the ground.

Shit. He’d been spit at and kneed only for her to magic her gun away? No, Riven was having none of that. With a growl, he charged.

Lacelle didn’t even bother bringing up her orange Essence. Riven was too close anyway. Then again, she didn’t need to. Riven aimed a punch at her face to show her just what it felt like to have one’s jaw clocked, but she was too agile. She swerved away from his rushing fist, and her own fist lashed in. The punch stuck Riven in the kidney area. He almost buckled at the force of the blow, stepping back with his feet splashing in the blood. Shouldn’t it have dried up by now?

Lacelle was relentless. Her punches blitzed in like pistons, and Riven barely raised his forearms to ward off her blows before she took off his head. Then came her kicks. Riven swerved away every time one came whipping in from the side. Or tried to. She was too damn fast. He jumped back at the next one, landing slightly higher on the curved wall of the shield than Lacelle, wincing at his rebelling thigh wound. Then he pushed off, propelling himself forward with his feet. It didn’t work. Oh he crashed into her all right, but the tiny space made sure Riven couldn’t throw her off her feet as he had intended. Damn it, all that pain for nothing.

Lacelle was still hurt, but she twisted an arm around his neck. His airflow was cut off. Fuck.

No, he had his shield. It was so close, the space available so tiny, Riven used his legs to raise himself while Lacelle kept up her tight chokehold. Three steps, and he was horizontal and parallel to the ground, nearly at ninety degrees to Lacelle as he was held aloft by her death grip and his legs pushing against the curved wall.

Then Riven withdrew his legs and fell. His hands went around Lacelle’s head and pressed it tight into the back of his own. She shot back with a little shriek when Riven’s arse made contact with the floor, chokehold disappearing as she staggered back, though only for a couple steps. The shield stopped her.

Riven was back on his feet in seconds, weaving slightly on his injured legs but ready to fight back. Scions, so ready. He flew forward, raising his fists and letting loose a storm of punches and jabs. Lacelle was too groggy, her face still smarting to fight back, and he took advantage. She tried to block, succeeding several times to ward off his blows. But not always. Riven landed a punch to her jaw this time—hah, now she’d see—then rammed an elbow into her guts hard enough for her mouth to gasp open. Another hit took her in the temple to make her even groggier, and Riven’s next blow nearly crushed her neck.

She coughed violently, almost as if she wanted to heave her own lungs out. Riven didn’t relent. He struck forward, but Lacelle had recovered just enough to parry.

Riven screamed as he pulled back. There was a nasty wound on his palm, the blood like fire as it seeped out and coated his hand in crimson. When had she brought out her Coral knife? The blade glinted, the magenta camouflaging his blood.

She swung again, and Riven danced back. But there was so little space. Scions, he’d forgotten about sharp implements and now there was no way to dodge. Riven fumbled and brought out his own knife, but he was utterly outclassed. He had been practicing with a longsword, not a knife. She left cuts on his shoulder, on his forearm, on his chest. Even a shallow stab right between clavicles. Riven had nowhere to dodge to. The golden shield was at his back.

Lacelle screamed as she rammed forward, aiming straight for his neck, and he dived out of the way. Fate had his back, apparently. Lacelle’s knife jabbed into the shield and inserted itself there, lodging in the crack. She pulled but there was no give.

Riven laughed. Idiot had trapped her knife all by herself. Seemed he wasn’t the only one without enough foresight.

But Lacelle took advantage of it. She punched the blade with her hand, the cracks in the shield growing wider with every blow. The fractures spread, growing whiter and wider.

Shit. Riven rushed up, shouting as he threw his fist forward again, but her boot came up like a lever. It stuck him in the guts and pushed him back against the shield. He tried to move forward but there was no give. Damn it, he was pinned. Lacelle spared him one quick glance, blue eyes freezing him in place and ensuring he couldn’t interfere, before continuing to pound away at where her knife was lodged in his shield.

The knife. Of course. Riven brought up his Coral blade, and sank it into Lacelle’s calf. She grunted, her punch pausing as her whole body seemed to try and contort away.

Then she went on punching like it was nothing.

What in the Chasm? Did this damned woman feel no pain? With a jerk, Riven pulled out his knife and rammed it back into her leg. He pulled the knife out and rammed it into her leg again. And again. And again. Riven left holes oozing blood all over her foot, but Lacelle didn’t even notice.

She punched and suddenly, her arm was through his shield. The knife clattered to the ground, but Lacelle had never been aiming for it in the first place. Orange Essence flared around her hand, moulding into a familiar form.

Lacelle had her gun back.

She grinned as she pulled her arm back inside the golden shield growing ever smaller. Riven never gave her a single chance to shoot. He rushed forward, and the closeness meant he didn’t have to go far before he was on top of her, his hands grabbing Lacelle by the wrist and raising her gun overhead. She was strong, far too strong, and his arms trembled at the effort of keeping hers away from him. They were far too close. His punch had left a purple bruise, and it writhed like snakeskin. The heat was unbearable, and she was all hard planes and angles that dug into him everywhere. Lacelle snarled in his face, and Riven growled back. He was not going to lose.

“You’ve wasted enough time,” she rasped.

“I was going to say the exact same thing,” Riven spat back.

He rammed his head forward, jabbing his forehead into the bruise on her face. Lacelle shrieked, the sound so close and near it jabbed right into his head as he pulled back. And then she bit him. At the first touch of her teeth, Riven jerked his head back, but not before she got a good chunk of the skin and flesh to the right of his temple. Blood streamed down the side of his face, the vicious scorching sensation forcing him to blink back tears both clear and crimson.

Lacelle spat and went still. Her whole face was splattered with blood. “Go away.”

There was a strange lightening sensation, as though Riven was rapidly losing weight and would float away any moment. A flash had him look up. Then he gasped, pulling himself away from Lacelle as he let go of her hands. There was nowhere to go, though. His own shied trapped him in.

Lacelle had set him on fire. Her orange Essence fire, to be exact. It was eating him away, his hands burning without any pain, but leaving nothing at all. Just emptiness as though he had never had hands to begin with.

Riven screamed. Lacelle’s laughter was a sharp enough contrast to ground him away from the onslaught of sudden panic, and he stared at her. Laughing. She was laughing.

The panic made him lose all focus and the shield he had kept up for so long now disappeared, and Lacelle stepped back, still laughing. He was burning all over. She had done something. Her Essence wasn’t supposed to be able to burn people out of existence, was it? What was happening to him? The orange flames spread down his arms, consuming clothes, skin, flesh, everything. All that effort, and she could simply burn him away like this?

“Ah, it feels good to finally get out.” Lacelle stretched as Riven screamed again as his torso disappeared. “Oh, shut it boy. You’re not dying. I’ll get you back when I’m done with your girlfriend.”

Lacelle walked away ignoring another scream from Riven as though it was nothing more than a puff of air. The orange flames consumed him, and Riven’s throat went hoarse as his screams turned to shrieks. They ate through his body, sinking along his legs and rising up his neck, and he turned to say something, to beg or plead or somehow make Lacelle turn off this nightmare.

But the flames of her Essence reached his mouth, silencing him for good. All he saw was Lacelle’s back, and the still-ongoing fight between Viriya and Wenster.

Then the flames took his eyes and the world disappeared.