The Arbiter will send more. Stronger. Faster. More capable of adapting to my power. This was a probe, not an assault—a way to measure my capabilities before committing real resources to my destruction.
The divine soldiers may be dead, but their purpose has been served. The Arbiter knows how I fight now. Knows my strengths, my methods, the exact pattern by which my power disrupts its control. It will factor that knowledge into its next assault.
Next time won’t be so simple.
I turn to check on Zephyra.
She stands exactly where I left her, her gaze tracking me—assessing damage with the same clinical eye she turns on everything else.
Just… observation.
Problematic. People who stay this close have a tendency to end up as leverage or casualties.
I won’t let her become either. Not now. Not ever.
“Six sentinels.” Her voice betrays nothing. “You killed them all in under two minutes.”
“They weren’t here to kill me.” A test. The Arbiter wanted to know what I could do in the field, how I fight when I can’t retreat. Now it has that information.
The ice beneath my feet is already beginning to reform, divine magic working to erase the evidence of my violence. In an hour, maybe less, this street would look pristine again. No blood. No shattered sentinels. No proof that anything happened here except the continued grip of divine ice.
Pathetic.
“We should move.” I turn away from the sky. “This position’s compromised.”
“You’re bleeding.”
She moves closer. I watch her the way a predator watches movement in its territory.
She stops in front of me, closer than necessary. Her scent cuts through the ice and blood—clean, sharp, bright. “Let me see.”
It’s not a request.
My instinct is to refuse. To maintain distance, maintain control, maintain the wall between professional duty and personal entanglement. But the flat certainty in her expression makes me hesitate.
“Fine.” The word comes out rougher than I intend.
I sit.
My back presses against the frozen stone of a building that was once someone’s home. Through the ice-covered window, I see shapes inside—a family, frozen mid-dinner, their final meal preserved in divine punishment. The mother’s hand reaching toward a child. The father’s mouth open in a word he’ll never finish speaking. A grandmother, spoon lifted halfway to her lips, caught in the moment between life and stasis.
They didn’t resist. Didn’t do anything to earn this punishment.
This is what the Arbiter does. This is what the gods consider justice.
My dragon snarls at the thought. Even it has limits.
Zephyra kneels beside me and starts working on the wound without comment.
“Three cities.” Her voice breaks the silence. “You said it hunted you three times before.”
Not a question. An observation. She remembers everything.
“Three cities. Each time, I was investigating disturbances the gods wanted left alone.”
“And each time, you escaped.”
“I didn’t escape. I evaded.” The distinction matters. “Escape implies I found a way out. I didn’t. I found ways to delay the inevitable until the Arbiter moved on to other targets.”
