But before he could throw it, a hand clamped around Elora’s arm. She jerked back with a startled cry, clawing at the dirt until she recognized the face.
Symond.
“Get up,” he snapped.
He hauled her to her feet with surprising strength, dragging her behind a heap of toppled crates and shattered farming tools as another vial exploded nearby—BOOM!—sending splinters and black goo in every direction.
They hit the ground behind cover, breathless and rattled. Elora's heart was trying to claw its way out of her chest.
“You—” she gasped, “you saved me—”
Symond’s jaw clenched. His hazel eyes met hers, sharp and unreadable. “Don’t thank me.”
He released her arm, eyes scanning the chaos. “I was following orders. Now stay down and try not to get yourself killed.”
She stared at him, stunned, half-tempted to argue, but his expression silenced her.
“This isn’t your fight,” he added. “Let the professionals handle it.”
And then he was gone, vanishing around the crates and back intothe fray.
Elora slumped against the wooden crates, chest heaving, ears ringing. Her ankle still throbbed from the coil’s shock, and her body ached from being dragged, thrown, and nearly electrocuted. The scent of alchemical resin and burnt wood clung to everything.
She peeked around the edge just in time to see Symond strike—quick, calculated, precise. Violette’s next bolt forced Fane to shift again, his attention fracturing between three opponents.
And just as Fane pivoted to strike back, a savage roar erupted from the shadows—
Rell, now free from the goo, burst from the side with a short blade in one hand and a shard bottle in the other, his face all fury.
The trap had finally sprung.
And Elora—still shaken, still bleeding—could only watch.
∞∞∞
Rell
Rell ducked under the arc of Fane’s swing, boots skidding across splintered wood, just in time to see Violette’s bolt sink into the brute’s shoulder.
Fane grunted.
“Nice shot,” Rell muttered under his breath, pivoting to flank him. Symond mirrored the motion from the left. The kid was sloppy, but his blade was fast when it needed to be.
They had him boxed in now. Just three very pissed-off people and one oversized thug who didn’t know when to quit.
Rell adjusted his grip on his blade. One clean strike to the leg, maybe the knee. Drop the bastard, let Symond land something meaningful—
But then he saw it.
Fane’s hand drifted to his belt, fingers closing around a vial. Not just any shard. That one.
The same glowing glass that leveled half the outpost.
Rell’s stomach bottomed out.
“Violette!” he shouted, already lunging forward.
She moved on instinct—of course she did. Bolt fired, cleaner than the last, striking Fane just below the first. It staggered him, arm dropping an inch. Barely—but it was enough.
