Erascius stood across from her. He was drenched in the power and radiance of the Azure Tiger, his metal armor and winter-white hair glistening beneath the shifting radiance of lights and energies overhead. There, his Demon God faced theBlack Tortoise and the section of rooftop where Zen stood. It bared its teeth.
Erascius smiled at Lan.
They were driving her and Zen apart so that she could not call him back from the depths of the Black Tortoise’s control.
Anger sparked in her. Before she could think, That Which Cuts Stars was in her palm, the familiar heft of its hilt an extension of her wrist as she hurled it at him.
Erascius lifted a hand, twisted, and the dagger vanished. Lan only felt it slice through the air toward her as she swiftly snapped a Defensive Seal, raising a wall of tiles to block. She heard aplink!as the dagger lodged into the wall; with a quick Counterseal, the tile wall crumbled and she caught her dagger in her palm.
The Winter Magician held out his hands, the multicolored metal bands on his wrists flashing. “Ah, my little singer,” he called. “Time apart has already eroded your memory. You forget that Elantian magicians wield the properties of metal as our magic. A mere dagger could never hurt me. And now I hold the power of the Azure Tiger.”
She struggled to keep up with his language, having been away from it for moons by now, then to form her own words: “All power has an end.”
Overhead, the Tiger lunged at the Tortoise. The ground rumbled as they clashed, lightning searing the sky. It reflected in Erascius’s eyes and illuminated his skin, rendering him something other than human. Something like a god.
“Oh, you Hin are suchfools,” he crooned, his voice amplified by the surge of qì all around them. “If you had leaned into the power of these demons, you would be the gods now.”
We did,Lan thought.And it tore us apart.
Erascius’s attack came out of nowhere. The world went bright blue, and then she was hurtling backward, the nightreeling and the lanterns and gold-tiled roofs of the palace falling farther from her as she plummeted to the ground.
She spun, a fú already between her fingers. It activated in a snap of qì, and the air around her warped, thickening beneath her and rising in a gale to slow her fall. Even with another jet of qì to the soles of her feet to cushion it, the impact still hurt. A streak of pain shot up her right ankle.
Yet in the square, like a miracle, the tide of the battle had changed. Everywhere Lan looked, Zen’s Mansorian Deathriders had turned back to battling the Royal Magicians, the air interwoven with the energies of demonic practitioning and Elantian metalwork spells.
“Zen.” She whispered his name like a prayer, seeking out his silhouette at the top of the palace. Had he shaken the control of the Black Tortoise?
She needed to move. Get to a safe place so that she could conjure the Godslayer—
“I won’t let you get away that easily this time, little singer.”
Through watering eyes, she looked up. Erascius stood several steps away from her, watching her with that same cruel smile, with those cold blue eyes that told her this was all a game to him and he would savor it. Behind him, the Azure Tiger turned from its battle with the Black Tortoise, aligning itself with its binder.
As the Tiger lifted a great claw and smashed it down toward Lan, a wall of shadows rose to meet it.
Erascius’s lips parted in surprise.
The sky above them had darkened; from the ground rose a hulking shape, head and shell, then claws, forming between Lan and Erascius. As the Black Tortoise materialized, Lan felt a familiar qì land by her side.
Zen was looking at her. His eyes were clear.
Gently, he reached out and touched a hand to her cheek.His lips moved, the sound lost to the maelstrom around them, but Lan heard his words ring as clear and true as though he had spoken directly to her heart.
It’s time to end this. I will find you again.
She touched her fingers to his. An unspoken response.In the next life.
Zen turned to face Erascius, who was no longer smiling.
And Lan ran.
Somehow, she made it through the battle in the square. Somehow, she managed to slip into the streets that led into the shadows of houses. Into safety.
When the sounds of battle were overtaken by the pounding of her own heart in her ears, she stopped, panting, next to a dilapidated temple. With a jet of qì to her heels, she propelled herself unsteadily onto its low roof and rolled onto her back.
Every muscle in her body ached. Her ankle burned, and she was soaked through with sweat.
Lan lifted her gaze to the skies above the palace, where two gargantuan figures circled each other above the curved roofs. The light of the Black Tortoise and the Azure Tiger’s battle was reflected in the clouds.
