Shaelith pivoted left. Brynelle mirrored right. A perfect rotation that put them back-to-back for half a heartbeat beforethey exploded outward again, blades flashing in tandem like the hands of some deadly clock.
A warrior lunged at Brynelle. Shaelith’s dagger left her hand before I could even track the movement, burying itself in his eye socket with a wetthunk. He dropped like a severed marionette.
Brynelle didn’t look. Didn’t thank her. Just kept moving, kept killing, because sheknew. Knew Shaelith would be there. Knew that space, that angle, that breath—all of it was covered.
Another guard closed in on Shaelith from the left. Brynelle’s blade found his hamstring before he could complete the strike. He screamed, collapsed. And Shaelith’s blade opened his throat before the sound could finish leaving his lips.
Efficient. Brutal.Beautiful.
I couldn’t look away.
The way Shaelith moved high while Brynelle struck low. The way they created openings for each other without hesitation, without doubt. Every step was a conversation. Every strike was trust made manifest in steel and blood.
A warrior came at me. I barely registered him before my blade was in his gut, twisting, tearing. Hot blood spilled over my hands as I yanked it free and kept moving.
But my eyes kept findingthem.
Shaelith ducked beneath a wild swing, and Brynelle was already there. Her blade driving up through the attacker’s chin with such force his feet left the ground. Shaelith caught him before he fell, shoving the body into another guard and using the momentum to drive her blade through both their hearts in one vicious thrust.
Brynelle laughed. Breathless and absolutely feral as she spun to disembowel another soldier who’d made the mistake of thinking she was distracted.
It was terrible.
It was glorious.
I’d never seen war look likemusicuntil now.
The way Shaelith’s blade sang counterpoint to Brynelle’s. The way their bodies moved in rhythm—advance, retreat, strike, parry—like they were dancing to a song only they could hear. Death set to a tempo only lovers could follow.
A guard grabbed my wrist. I drove my elbow into his face, felt cartilage shatter beneath the impact. Ripped free. My blade found his kidney, then his throat. He gurgled, clutching at the wound as if he could hold his life inside his body through will alone.
He couldn’t.
They never could.
Across the corridor, Shaelith vaulted over a falling body, using the momentum to drive her boot into another warrior’s chest. He flew backward into the wall with bone-breaking force. Brynelle was already there, blade descending in a silver arc that painted the stones red.
How?
How did they make slaughter look like devotion?
Another warrior rushed me. I sidestepped, let his momentum carry him past, and opened his spine from shoulder to hip. The scream died in his throat as he crumpled.
My chest heaved. Blood slicked my hands, my arms, probably my face.
But I wasready for more.
We were winning.
The three of us werebathed in red,our bodies moving as one, a seamless rhythm ofdeath and destruction.We cut them down—quick, brutal, merciless.We had come this far, we had made it out of the fucking cell, andwe weren’t stopping.
A ripple went through the air, a wrongnessso deep my body screamed with it before my mind even caught up.
The corridor dimmed. The torches flickered.
Ashterionstepped through the blackness.
We stopped moving.
