The voidling at the core struck once more, lashing out with long limbs. Light flashed and swirled; essence from the core flaring around the creature’s claws. Again, Laryn felt the jolt of pain inside him.

  Sand flew into the air near Keldin’s grave as a voidling shaped like a large sand crab dug down toward Keldin’s body.

  “Get away from him!” Laryn shouted, drawing his sword.

  The creature beside the obelisk trumpeted, an eerie, guttural sound, strangely musical. The other voidling stopped throwing sand in the air. Both of the monsters looked at Laryn, black eye sockets glittering in their shining, armored heads.

  Ice ran down Laryn’s spine, anger turned to fear in an instant. The voidlings charged across the beach toward him.

  One voidling had nearly killed him just barely. He had only escaped thanks to his new magical abilities.

  Could he take on two voidlings at the same time?

  He reached out with the magical affinity sense that the core had granted him. He grew strongly aware of the river running nearby, splitting around the island. Cool water soaked in the sand beneath his feet. On the edge of his perception, he noticed clouds floating far overhead.

  The larger voidling—shaped like an ant—had been attacking the core. The size of a small horse, it galloped across the sand, six thick legs flowing as it charged.

  Laryn focused his magical sense on the creature as it closed the gap. He drew upon his spell, and on the water essence around him. [Dart]. The essence formed invisibly. Droplets of water, attracted to the essence, jumped up from the wet sand. A dart of water coalesced in front of him. Laryn fired the spell, and the missile shot out faster than the speed of an arrow.

  His aim was slightly off. The dart struck the voidling in the shoulder, between its body and the joint of a foreleg. The voidling’s leg crumpled and it crashed down into the sand, rolling as momentum carried it forward.

  Laryn took a deep breath, turning his attention to the second voidling. Despite being smaller, it ran faster than its kin. Laryn reached out again with his magic sense.

  He found the water around him. But when he tried activating the spell… nothing.

  “Hey, it’s not working!” he said aloud. “Adi?”

  “Oh, sorry, there’s a cool down!” she said. "It’s only a few minutes, then you can cast it again. If you hadn’t kept interrupting my tutorial—”

  Laryn found the cooldown timer in his interface, ticking down slowly.

  He sprinted to his stockpile of supplies, searching for a way to avoid being surrounded.

  The large ant-voidling had been knocked down by Laryn’s water dart, but not out. The creature climbed back to its feet and started in again. The two monsters closed in.

  “Horel’s balls,” Laryn muttered. “Give me strength!”

  He still had the strength bonus from the core. It might help him. He griped his sword; too tightly at first, then he relaxed into the nimbleness of water stance.

  The voidlings reached the supplies, and scrambled over the crates and sacks, single mindedly determined to kill Laryn. Then destroy the kingdom core. And desecrate Keldin’s memory.

  Fury raged inside of Laryn. He might have made some mistakes today. He might have overestimated his abilities. But he wasn’t going to die like this.

  He might not know as much about ruling as he thought. But he knew one thing; one thing he’d trained for his whole life. One thing that defined his role as a second son.

  He knew how to fight.

  Laryn wasn’t going to die on this beach. It would be stupid for both of them to die here.

  The voidlings bore down on him.

  Laryn flourished the blade. Strength flowed through him as he gripped the hilt, the perfectly balanced sword becoming an extension of his body.

  The steel blade flashed in the sunlight as Laryn slashed, falling into the nimble but defensive life stance. The crab-like voidling sprang from atop a crate, and Laryn intercepted it midair with a blow to its soft underbelly.

  His strike bit into the voidling’s carapace and knocked the creature into the ground. Legs flailing and throwing sand everywhere, it righted itself as the other, larger voidling smashed through Laryn’s supplies, knocking crates aside and tearing open a sack of flour.

  Shifting into air stance, Laryn danced away from the snapping mandibles of the large ant-creature. His blade snicked through the air, missing a set of strikes at the unprotected joints of the voidling’s legs. Thousands of hours of training, all manifesting in a single moment.

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  He’d tried to teach Keldin. His brother had protested a lot, back then. “I’ll never need to use this,” he would say. “I’m going to be a priest. I won’t fight with a sword.”

  “Learning the sword stances is good for everyone, even priests,” Laryn would say. “It brings your elemental foci into balance. Besides, you’re my favorite sparring partner.”

  But Laryn always won their sparring matches. He was the warrior. He could defeat these bugs.

  Laryn dodged a series of strikes from the voidling. His magic dart had injured the front right leg of the voidling, and the creature was favoring that side. He relaxed his mind, falling back on his sparring training as he battered the monstrous ant.

  He stepped through flame stance, swinging his blade aggressively. A series of blows landing on the voidling’s hard armor drove it back. Laryn dodged toward the voidling’s injured side and landed a vicious blow.

  Strength from the kingdom core powered him. The simple boost he received helped him, striking harder, moving quicker. The vigor intoxicated him, and Laryn wondered how it might feel at higher levels.

  The voidling’s middle leg dropped to the ground, severed. The creature trumped, and scrabbled forward angrily. Laryn dodged away, and the injured front right leg gave way, sending the creature crumpling into the dirt.

  Laryn smirked. Then he realized he’d lost focus on the crab creature voidling. A sharp pain stabbed into his back, a pincer latching onto his flesh. He tumbled forward and fell against the ant-monster, catching himself with one hand against its rough carapace shell.

  With his other hand he swung the blade around, trying to dislodge the crab-like beast that had lodged itself on his back. It bit into the flesh near his shoulder, gnawing at the muscle with its mandibles as it clung tightly with pincers.

  Laryn screamed.

  Beneath him the large voidling surged back to its feet. The creature must have weighed five times as much as Laryn.

  In an instant Laryn knew that the voidling would try to crush him. So he jumped onto the monster’s back, wrapping his legs around its body.

  He flung his elbow back repeatedly, smashing it into the shell of the crab on his back. A pincer came loose, and he took advantage with a hefty blow.

  Breathing deeply as the rush of battle filled him, Laryn found him overcome with a surprising gratitude to his deity.

  “Praise Ishtoran!” he shouted, striking the crab with his elbow again.

  The hit sent the creature flying, and Laryn laughed. It felt right as he thanked Ishtoran for the strength buff he received from the kingdom core.

  Blood ran down Laryn’s shoulder and dripped from his elbow, spattering the carapace of the voidling beneath him.

  The ant-beast bellowed then shook, nearly sending Laryn flying. It hopped and skipped, but Laryn caught hold of a spiny ridge with one hand, riding the beast like a bucking bronco. He narrowly avoided being gutted by the sharp spines and ridges of the creature’s carapace.

  Realizing it wasn’t going to buck Laryn free, it dropped to its knees and rolled. Laryn sprang away, narrowly avoiding being crushed beneath the massive bulk. For a moment, the underbelly of the voidling showed itself to the sky.

  Laryn rammed the sword down. Thin carapace cracked, and the blade sank deep into the gigantic insect. A single, fluting trump escaped the voidling’s throat. It kicked all its legs out, then they curled up.

  Hearing movement behind him, Laryn yanked his sword from the corpse and spun.

  For a brief moment he held his sword into the air. He had feared the disapproval of Ishtoran in this moment, for abandoning his duties in Eltar and seeking to become a [Ruler]. But now he was winning. He felt good, strong, like himself again. Like the god smiled down on his actions.

  He attacked.

  The remaining voidling dodged back, shuffling in the sand out of reach of the flashing blade. Strength boiled inside Laryn, a vigor he hadn’t felt before. The rush of victory—of slaying an enemy with nothing but skill and a naked blade—drove him onward.

  The voidling put up a good fight, dodging in and out, landing a few blows on Laryn’s shins. But Laryn had fallen into the flow of water stance, and his blade flew with artistic precision, down, up, out, around, and down.

  The magically enhanced weapon cut with an edge like a razor, splitting chitin.

  He moved through an offensive flow, each strike landing, pushing the voidling into a defensive posture, pulling its limbs up into the crab-like shell. As he reached the end of the onslaught, Laryn took his chance.

  Planting his feet firmly on the ground, both hands holding the sword, he brought the blade down on the shell with all the strength of earth stance.

  The blow smashed through carapace. Shards of the shell exploded across the sand. The blade continued into flesh, slicing the voidling in half and sinking deep into the sand of the beach. Laryn quivered with passion.

  A beating heart lay on the sand, fallen with the offal of the voidling from its severed exoskeleton. It pulsed, once, twice, then stopped. Laryn laughed.

  “Praise Ishtoran!” he shouted again, raising his blade over his head.

  “Praise him!” Adi joined in. “That was incredible! Where did you learn to fight like that!”

  “Keldin did you see that!”

  Laryn looked at the sword in his hand. Raised to the sky, smeared with dark red-black voidling ichor, the sight of the blade was like a bucket of cold water dumped over his head. He turned to see Keldin’s partially uncovered body laying in the sand.

  Exultation abandoned him, leaving nothing but a cold, emptiness. What was the power to kill your enemies, when your brother was already dead?

  Laryn let his arm fall. He walked slowly back over to his pile of supplies, and surveyed the damage. His organized piles had fallen over, and a few containers had broken, but most of it remained intact.

  “Not too bad here either,” Adi said, materializing beside him. Laryn didn’t reply.

  He picked up the scabbard, then cleaned the sword and sheathed it. He dropped the sword.

  “Are you okay?” Adi asked. “You’re bleeding still.”

  Laryn shrugged. “Maybe I shouldn’t be a [Ruler],” he said.

  “Why not?” Adi asked. “Or are you talking about the birth order thing again?”

  “Not that,” Laryn said, with a shrug. “Sometimes a father may change the ordering of his son’s vocations, if a son is particularly unsuited to the role. I never thought father would support Yarin. I thought he would see me the better son, better suited to the role, and advance me.”

  Adi waited for him to continue, watching him with her large, dark eyes.

  “It might not be right for me to rule,” Laryn said, “Because a ruler must make good decisions. Must remain removed from the passion of the moment, to make the best decision to guide the kingdom. Every decision that I made, lead us down this path, to this desolate place..”

  “Poor decision making?” Adi scoffed. “I think you’ve been doing an excellent job so far. Don’t be too hard on yourself, it can be tough—”

  “No,” Laryn said. “A set of terrible decisions I made before I activated the core.”