ante diem decimum Kalendas Februarias (January 23rd, eight days before February.)

Approximately five minutes before midnight.

One minute and thirty seconds after Lenko's heart had stopped.

Ninety seconds left before Muzio's would follow.

***

Keiser didn't waste a breath. He knew Aisha, knew she wouldn't go down that easily. Even half-blinded, even after taking the full brunt of the mana clash between her runes and his scarred ones, she was never the type to stay down. Her mind and her reflexes were both too sharp, too quick.

His vision cleared faster than hers, but he didn't trust that advantage for long. So he ran, straight toward little flame who was still struggling to stand, his steps uneven as the ground trembled beneath him. He threw his dagger toward the fuming mage's direction without hesitation, the blade a red streak in the blur.

The trembling gave way to a shuddering move.

The undercroft groaned, a deep, guttural sound like a dying beast gasping. The rim of the crater gave another tremor before chunks broke loose, tumbling into the pit below.

The tilted floor shuddered violently, every crack gleam faintly with the strain despite the sixth princess's mana desperately holding it together. Her mana wavered, vines of light flickering like frayed nerves about to snap.

Shrieks rose from the undead beasts below, a chorus of hollow agony that mingled with the rumbling of the ground. The air itself seemed to quiver, each vibration a brutal assault on his senses until his ears rang and his eyes burned, the world reduced to noise, trembling, and the choking taste of dust and mana on his tongue.

Through the haze, Keiser realized too late, he hadn't heard his dagger strike.

Nor had he seen the familiar glint of it returning to him.

When he finally looked back, he saw.

Her cool blue ones burned through rumbling, cold and furious. Her wild blond hair whipped around her face as the ground beneath her feet shifted, carrying her forward. In her hand, his dagger.

A chunk of rocks behind her crumbled, half-trapped in a formation she'd likely raised the moment his dagger struck, catching the weapon before it could rebound. She must have been watching his fight with Olga, analyzing every motion, every strike.

He should have known.

Of course she had already thought of a dozen ways to counter him.

She always did.

What made it worse was what he saw next.

In the split second he faltered, his eyes caught movement, someone stumbling out from the darkness, heading straight toward the dragon child, a knife glinting faintly in his hand.

For a moment, Keiser's mind went blank.

The dragon... No, 'not again.'

"Muzio!"

Yona's voice tore through the ringing in his ears. It dragged him out of the screams echoing in his skull, his own scream, from that memory of melting flesh and searing runes, of his chest caving under his own sword. For an instant, everything turned red again, but he forced himself back.

His momentum carried him forward, but at the last moment, he dug his heels into the dirt and skidded----the floor beneath him trembled, the runed ground shifting with the quake. Without thinking, he thrust Yona's blade downward, stabbing it through his own foot to make his skidding to a jarring halt.

Pain tore through him, sharp and clean, but it worked. The friction bit, blood spread, and his body stopped.

His breath came out ragged, his body shaking from the shock, yet his focus locked back to Aisha.

Her cold, wide eyes met his, Muzio's wild burning ones staring through him in defiance.

The ground between her rolled as she moved with it, her feet gliding over the trembling ground. Keiser pulled Yona's blade free from his foot, ignoring the pain that followed, just in time to intercept the dagger she swung at him.

Sparks flared where their weapons clashed, but it wasn't just steel meeting steel. The blood that streaked across the floor, his blood, ignited, spreading in a thin, blazing line of forming runes. It traced itself over the delicate sigils that shimmered like the ones beneath her steps.

With meticulous precision, Aisha inscribed minuscule runes on every surface, leaving her mark even with the soles of her heels. With a flick of mana, she could command anything marked with her sigil.

But Keiser had learned something in Hinnom, painfully. Even if it left him covered in scars and bandages, he had learned to overwrite sigils.

He could burn through her runes with Muzio's blood, with bloodscripting.

Even if her movements fluid despite the uneven terrain. And rode the quake like a wave, the ground beneath her feet shifting and sliding with her, guiding every motion.

It still halted.

The shifting floor beneath her locked in place with a resounding crack.

The source was clear, the line of blood over her sigils, staining over it with dull crimson. The ground that had moved slammed to an unresponsive patch to her command.

Her eyes widened. For a moment, her balance wavered, and that was all the time he needed.

He lunged, twisting his weight low, his body moving before she could adjust. He was already slipping past her guard. He turned his wrist, sliding his dagger along the flat of the dagger, guiding it upward in a deflecting arc. The screech of steel rang loud as he used the motion's recoil to pivot.

In that same breath, he slammed the blunt edge of Yona's short blade against Aisha's exposed wrist.

The impact cracked through the air. She hissed, a flash of pain breaking her composure. Her fingers faltered, the dagger she had seized from him spinning loose from her grasp.

Keiser caught the motion instantly, stepping aside as her balance faltered. Her footing failed as the ground falters to move with her command.

He didn't waste the chance.

"Eat dirt," he muttered under his breath, voice low and edged. He shoved forward, forcing her back as he wills the dagger back back to his hand, runes flaring.

Aisha stumbled. Her eyes snapped back to him, furious, her jaw tight.

"...fuck---" she spat, but Keiser didn't let her finish.

As soon as Keiser regained his grip on the dagger, he didn't hesitate. Without even looking back, he flung Yona's short blade behind him, the motion swift, instinctive. He'd seen her when she called his name.

Yona had already burned through the melted metal Aisha had weilded to trap her in place, the purple flames eating away the restraints as the undead closed in. She didn't flinch, of course she didn't.

The metallic clang that followed came right on cue.

Keiser caught it from behind him. When he glanced over his shoulder, he knew Yona's other blade cleaved through the undead that swarmed after her. Some of them were still dragging themselves forward, half-burned, half-cut, yet somehow still moving.

But her blades always found their way back to her. Faster than anything.

The moment her returning blades, she caught both weapons mid motion, her stance low and sharp. She slid across the debris strewn floor, half-kneeling, sparks flying as she met the strike head on.

It came from an unknown man.

The man's knife gleamed wickedly as it lunged toward the dragon child, but Yona was already there, intercepting. Her twin blades crossed in a tight, precise motion, catching the knife between them. A shrill metallic impact drag as edge ground against edge of both unrelenting blades.

Yona's arms trembled from the force, but she didn't yield an inch. Her heels dug deep into the cracked stone, the purple fire along her blades flaring brighter as she locked the knife in place. Her back shielded the dragon child completely.

Keiser's chest tightened. Little flame behind her, wasn't just dazed anymore. She wasn't moving at all.

She sat on the ground, slack and still, her eyes unfocused, her hands open and empty. The knife she had on her was gone.

So was Lenko's body.

For a moment, Keiser forgot the pain in his foot, the heat of his runes, even the ringing in his head.

Keiser felt a cold dread sink deep into his gut the moment his eyes met Aisha's. She had rolled onto her back, her hair strewn across the cracked floor, yet there was a faint smile curling on her lips, one that made his stomach twist.

He barely had a second to react before movement flashed in his periphery.

He spun just in time to catch the knife descending toward him, the blade plunge in his palm. His other hand, the one still pierced by the broken shaft of an arrow, trembled violently as he pressed his dagger, hovering over Lenko's neck.

The boy's body was still, his skin pale beneath the faint smoke of mana that seeped from his wounds. The air reeked of burnt iron and mana, tendrils of her mana snaking through Lenko.

Then came the knife. The screaming blades.

Keiser's guard faltered. He recognized it too well, the same resonance that marked Aisha's control, the same twisted mana that bound and mark anything to her command.

His hand tightened on Lenko's, plunging the knife deeper.

He knew, with dreadful certainty, that he was next.

Next chapter will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.