Perfect.
Information.
I reached for the newly created shadows and slid through the world to come out in a room filled with shards of glass and bleeding bodies.
Cayden’s fists glowed as he fought a group of men. Their features were too similar to be anything but Lawsons. Shirtless, Cayden ducked and weaved, muscles rippling as he conserved his strength for a perfect opening.
Quinn screamed and hurled a rock at a Lawson flanking Cayden. It hit, bounced off. He stumbled but didn’t fall.
The flanker dropped under my first strike. I spun for another; glowing runes snapped under his fingers. My blade caught on something solid. Instead of taking off the man’s head, the new glowing weapon pulsed against my steel, and my quick slaughter turned into a dance.
“Duck!” Quinn shouted.
I looked over to see Quinn’s arm shaking under a huge chunk of rock. She tossed it forward, but it only moved about three inches before falling to the ground. She swore loudly and looked for something else to throw.
Pain lanced my leg, hot and sharp. I cursed my distraction and fell back. My foot hit my attacker’s chin. He stumbled back, blood streaming from his mouth. His sword tumbled from his hand and burst into green sparkles on the floor.
A larger piece of plaster flew out of Quinn’s unsteady pitch and hit one of Cayden’s attackers. The man staggered, and Cayden broke his defensive stance to slap a rune on the man’s cheek. The man dropped like a stone. But the move created an opening on Cayden’s side, and another man kicked him hard. Cayden was sent flying backward.
A rope of gold and dark green shot toward Quinn. She tried to step back, but she hit the raised bed. Magic snaked around her, binding arms and legs tight. She buckled sideways, fighting to stay upright.
The caster lunged toward her. It only took me a heartbeat to step into her shadow. My sword came out of it first. The caster collided with it instead of her and impaled himself. I stepped the rest of the way out of her shadow and sliced upward. The man screamed, yanking his arms back with both forearms bleeding, but still attached. Two more circled me—an endless stream of orange. I loved it.
I grinned, switching my grip and pulling out a second, shorter sword.
“Enough of this,” a raspy voice called.
The man, now bleeding from his forearms, and his younger brother on my left fell back. Both placed their hands on the ancient Lawson Cayden had been fighting against. Power surged through the air.
A bear of a Lawson stepped between us and the trio, limping slightly from a gash seeping blood on his leg. He wasn’t a threat.
I slid sideways, aiming for the ancient Lawson. The bear lunged. I fell back, feeling my smaller sword pierce his hip, though he didn’t seem to notice, as my own sword nearly took my head off. I landed hard, gasping for air.
The bear slammed me down, his breath hot in my face. “For the Prophet.”
I bucked and kicked. My sword tangled between us. I dropped the hilts and swung blind. Three hits—one connected, dazing him enough to loosen his grip.
Two dark-green spheres, runes burning at their core, hurtled toward me as I rolled away from the bear. I kicked backward, pushed up on my hands, and sprang back to land on my feet in one smooth motion, with the bear no longer close to me.
The cut on my thigh burned. A new one on the side of my neck bled through my leathers. I ignored both and re-evaluated the room. No reinforcements had shown up. Men were either on the floor, unconscious, or still fighting.
The bear struggled to stand. Dark red stained his hip. He watched me as I watched him. I’d underestimated him. That wouldn’t happen again. Behind him, the two men with their hands on the ancient Lawson had become three. Magic pulsed around them. A single knotted hand extended from the ball of green-haired men and reached out.
One of the most intricate runes I’d ever seen formed under the ancient Lawson’s guidance. The air trembled, pressing against my skin like a storm on the verge of breaking.
Quinn screamed.
I’d lost focus. I looked back just in time to see the bear finish picking Quinn up and wrapping her neck in the crook of his thick, hairy arm. Just past her, Cayden concentrated on the ancient Lawson drawing a similar rune. However, his fingers weren’t nearly as quick as his elder’s. This wasn’t a race he could win.
The smart move: step into the old man’s shadow and cut him down. But that left Quinn to the bear strangling her.
Quinn whimpered, flushed crimson, and sank her teeth into the bear’s forearm.
I couldn’t make the smart move.
I pivoted as runes flew at me from two men whimpering on the ground. Quinn turned purple. Instead of dodging, I took the first two hits. My shoulder went numb, along with the left side of my face. The third was too slow and missed me completely.
I leaped at the bear, slamming us to the ground.
