KHAELOR
The blade of condensed decay severs the air a fraction of an inch from her left shoulder.
Mireya dodges, but the movement is sluggish. A second too late. The heavy, dark leather of her tunic singes, the fabric rotting along the seam. She does not immediately pivot into a defensive stance. Instead, she stares at the ruined edge of her garment, her dark eyes clouded with a thick, impenetrable fog.
"Your physical form is in the dueling hall," I state, my voice cutting through the heavy air. "But your mind remains buried in the catacombs. If you intend to die on this floor, Mireya, simply tell me, and I will cease holding back the rot."
She blinks, the warm brown of her skin flushed from exertion, pulling herself back to the present. "I am focused, Lord Khaelor."
"You are a liar."
I extinguish the blade in my hand, letting the black-gold ichor seep back into my pores. We have been circling the scarred obsidian of the training floor for an hour. For an hour, I have watched the absolute, unflinching survivor I dragged out of the courtyard fade into a distracted, hollow-eyed female.
Since she emerged from the lower archives this afternoon, she has barely spoken. She will not look at me. The sharp, demanding curiosity that defined her has vanished, replaced by a profound, internalized terror.
It grates against the center of my chest.
A dark, feral possessiveness coils in my blood. I am the apex predator of this rotting domain. I am a walking cataclysm that demands constant, agonizing vigilance to survive. Yet, she stands within the kill zone of my aura and stares through me, captivated by whatever phantom she unearthed in my family’s ledgers. I will not be ignored by the only creature in this realm who can withstand my touch. I will not let her retreat where I cannot follow.
It will be my choosing whether I grace her with my presence or my absence.
"We train more," I command, my tone dropping into a low, throaty vibration that rattles the remaining glass in the clerestory windows.
"Khaelor, we have been running drills since sunset?—"
"Defend yourself."
I do not summon a blade. I unleash a volley of concussive, necrotic shockwaves.
The air pressure violently collapses. I force her into rapid, punishing directional shifts, striking the obsidian floor at her heels, her flanks, the space just above her head. The stone shatters with deafening cracks, sending shards of heavy black glass raining around her.
She vaults over a broken pillar, her boots skidding on the floor. I am already there, intercepting her landing. I send another localized surge toward her chest, forcing her to drop and roll.
"Faster," I demand, the word a harsh bark. The heat emanating from my skin is blistering, a simmering reflection ofthe anger I refuse to name. "You are moving like prey. You are waiting for the strike instead of anticipating the predator."
She scrambles to her feet, her chest heaving, the thick mass of her dark curls clinging to her damp forehead. The exertion draws the scent of her out into the cold, metallic air—clean sweat and the heavy, stubborn warmth of her humanity. My gaze tracks the rapid flutter of the pulse near the base of her throat. I want her attention locked entirely on the danger I present. I want the fog ripped from her eyes.
I step into her immediate perimeter, closing the distance to six paces. I drive my boot into the floor, fracturing a ley-line of dormant magic beneath the stone.
The ground violently heaves.
Mireya attempts a sharp pivot maneuver to clear the erupting stone, throwing her weight to the right to use the momentum of the blast. But her focus is fractured. Her leading boot catches on a ridge of melted slag.
Her ankle rolls. The momentum betrays her.
She pitches forward, the balance completely sheared from her frame. She falls not toward the empty expanse of the hall, but directly toward me.
Time violently halts.
She is falling toward my right side. My arm is extended from the previous strike. The sleeve of my tunic is pushed back, exposing the ashen-violet skin of my forearm and the heavy, black-gold veins weeping pure, toxic decay.
Two paces.Her unprotected face is plunging straight toward my bare hand.
The absolute, paralyzing terror of what my flesh will do to hers detonates in my skull. I see the phantom image of her skin blistering, peeling back to the bone in an instant of agonizing rot.
A primal, deafening roar tears from my throat.
I do not merely step back. I violently jerk my entire body away, throwing my weight backward with such desperate, uncontrolled force that the iron-clad cage around my magic completely shatters.
