Arc 3, Chapter 37: Narrow Sight

  Rowan stood three paces off. The dagger in his hand was a blur of vibration, the tip never staying still. His chest jumped in heavy, uneven hitches that made his words come out as a series of wet gasps.

  "You are the mark," Rowan said.

  He pulled his gaze from the group and looked up at the floating ruins and the severed chains hanging in the rose-colored sky. He began a slow, staggering rotation, his free hand open as if he were trying to measure the scale of the void around them.

  "This is a Magic Domain." He stopped his turn, letting the words settle into the silence while he stared at the impossible horizon. "Only the high-born buy these. Great houses. Killers who get paid in gold bars."

  He snapped his focus back to Anna.

  The blade leveled at her throat, his fingers white where they gripped the hilt. "Look at the way you stand,"

  Rowan spat, a thin string of saliva catching on his lip. "That weapon on your hip is worth more than every acre of land my father ever plowed. You move like a professional. You were trained for this."

  Anna shifted her weight. Her fingers drifted toward her rapier.

  Rowan’s voice rose to a shriek. "What do you think the rest of us are? We are the filler. We are the bait they pulled in to make the game harder for you to win."

  He took a frantic step forward, his boots scuffing the gray mist. "The logic is simple. A Domain collapses the moment the mark stops breathing. Everyone knows the rule."

  He gestured wildly at the hourglass above, his arm trembling with enough force to shake his entire frame. "She is the reason we are here. Bram is dead because of her. We are trapped in this nightmare because of her. If her heart stops, the walls fall down. We go home."

  The white cubes drifted upward to form a rotating halo around the suspended die.

  Rowan ignored the floating threat, his eyes pinned on Anna with a feverish intensity.

  "Look at her," he whispered, his voice barely audible over the hum of the mana. "Study the way she stands. Normal people don't move like that."

  A pair of cubes shot toward Ash’s head. He swatted the first aside, the white surface disintegrating on impact, and caught the second in his palm to grind it into grit.

  Three cubes arrowed toward Anna. She stood firm as her rapier blurred into a humming circle of steel, shattering the incoming blocks into a fine mist of white grit.

  "Look at her!" Rowan shrieked, his dagger trembling as he pointed toward Anna. "That isn't how a normal person survives. Every step she takes carries the weight of a thousand gold bars and a lifetime of training."

  He lunged with a desperate, uncoordinated strike. Anna pivoted on her heel, allowing the blade to hiss through the air without touching her tunic.

  Two more cubes dove at her ribs while she was mid-turn. She swept her blade upward, shattering both in a single stroke that left her perfectly balanced to parry Rowan’s next wild swing. Steel scraped against steel with a harsh, grating sound before she disengaged and stepped back.

  Ash intercepted Rowan on his third attempt.

  He clamped his hand around the man's wrist, his fingers sinking into the flesh. A sharp, dry crack echoed through the chamber as the joint gave way under the pressure. Rowan let out a high, thin wail as the knife fell to thud against the gray mist.

  Ash let go.

  Rowan stumbled away, his face turning the color of wet parchment as he clutched his broken limb to his chest.

  Ash raised his palm. "Dark Gate: Void Cage."

  A viscous, violet-tinged energy poured from Ash’s hand. The distorted mana wrapped around Rowan like a layer of cooling tar, locking his muscles into a rigid, motionless state.

  Vera’s sobbing broke the sudden quiet.

  She huddled on the floor, her shoulders shaking as she buried her face in her palms.

  Pell stepped forward to retrieve a length of iron chain from the floating debris.

  A cube broke from the halo overhead, diving straight for his head.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Ash's hand shot out. He caught the block mid-flight, crushing it into powder before it could reach Pell.

  Pell froze for a heartbeat, then continued forward more slowly. He looked at the immobilized man, then up at the suspended die. "Keep your strength. This place hasn't finished with us yet."

  Ash withdrew the spell. The violet energy dissolved, leaving Rowan to sag forward.

  Before the man could recover, Pell wound the heavy iron links around his torso, binding his arms to his ribs. He pulled the chain tight and secured it, leaving Rowan slumped and cradling his ruined wrist.

  A trio of cubes peeled away from the halo. Ash’s palm intercepted the first, his fingers grinding the stone into a fine, cooling powder. He caught the second at his shoulder, while the third aimed for his shins. He drove his boot into the projectile, shattering it against the gray mist.

  He turned his gaze to Rowan. "Enough."

  Rowan’s chest heaved in frantic, uneven hitches. "You are corrupted," he gasped, his eyes fixed on Ash’s face.

  "The gray film in your eye proves it. You are decaying from the marrow out."

  He leaned his weight against the iron links. "The medicine she used on you is worth more than a lifetime of my wages. Every detail of her gear and her movement belongs to a great house."

  Rowan’s gaze turned glossy with unshed tears. "You must have a home. A village. People who rely on your return." He strained against Pell’s chains, the metal clinking as he fought to reach toward Ash. "You are the only thing standing between us and home. Step aside."

  Ash looked past the man. He noted the suspended die in the air and the silent wall of jointed wood to his right.

  "Kill her!" Rowan shrieked.

  The halo above dissolved. The cubes lost their momentum and tumbled through the air, hitting the mist to scatter like discarded toys across the arena.

  The air pressure spiked, popping Ash’s ears with a sharp click. The large die began to rattle. It rotated in a frantic, humming blur until the faces merged into a solid cylinder. It snapped to a halt. A pair of black pits stared down at the gray floor.

  The tectonic grind of stone returned. Above, the glass bulbs of the hourglass swung through the void in a heavy, light-erasing arc. A wall of compressed air slammed into the platform, rattling Ash’s ribs as the pressure in his head intensified.

  A tide of red light flooded the sky, briefly staining the floating ruins before an ink-black shadow chased it away. The remaining green halos flickered, their glow fading into a weak, sickly emerald.

  The sound of jointed wood groaning filled the arena.

  The mannequins moved in a single, heavy shift. Their wooden feet hit the mist in a rhythmic sequence of thuds as they advanced six paces.

  The ring of painted eyes and leveled weapons stood significantly closer now, cutting away the outer reaches of the mist and leaving only a narrow circle of floor for the group to stand on.

  —

  Anna watched Ash tighten the iron links. Rowan's words circled in her head

  *Noble-born. Professionally trained. The mark. Is that what I am to them?* She looked at her gloves. The expensive leather felt like a mark of shame.

  Her chest tightened.

  *Maybe he's right—*

  *—I’m—dragging them down*

  "Look up!" Orin’s voice was a frantic rasp.

  Twenty-one cubes hung motionless above them.

  Anna's head snapped toward the sky.

  *Pell.Ash.Vera... nowhere to—* Anna's thoughts fractured.

  Her breath caught.

  *No.*

  The blocks remained motionless for a heartbeat before they began to descend

  *No.*

  *No*

  *No.*

  Her pulse hammered in her ears.

  *I have to—*

  *I need to—*

  "Ash!" Anna shouted. She bolted.

  Ash dropped the first mana plate at her knee. Her boot slammed into the violet energy, and she used the momentum to vault into the air.

  The second shield appeared high to her left, tilted at a sharp angle.

  Anna slammed the side of her boot against the solid light. The hard resistance banked her body, converting her vertical climb into a high-speed diagonal thrust. The impact sent a jar of force through her hip as she redirected her entire weight toward the first target.

  She twisted mid-air. Her rapier split the cube clean through. A golden petal bloomed along the trail of her steel.

  Just as she plummeted, another platform materialized to meet her path. Anna hit the mana with her knees tucked. Her body snapped into a new angle like a reflected beam of light, sending her driving toward the opposite side. Her blade sang as it cut through another white surface.

  Behind her, a golden line hung in the air where her rapier had passed. A single petal bloomed along the trail, glowing softly before beginning to fade.

  *too slow*

  Another shield appeared beneath her descending trajectory.

  She hit the next shield and pushed off. Her legs felt like they were being torn from her hips

  *Not fast enough*

  Another cube. Her rapier carved arcs of light. A golden petal bloomed behind her.

  *Move faster.*

  The cubes spread out. She saw one diving toward Vera.

  *A heartbeat late. I can't—*

  *I have to—.*

  "System." A blue panel flickered into existence at the edge of her vision.

  Her boots hit the next shield. The impact sent a jolt through her bones. The world blurred at the edges.

  "Skill." The word was a dry rasp.

  A current ignited in her chest, a wave of heat that chased the exhaustion from her muscles. The air around her skin tightened and warped.

  "Petal Dance."

  Her skin flashed gold. Her weight vanished. The platform became a tunnel of motion, a series of white targets in a field of gray.

  Each landing on a mana plate was a sharp, vibrating shock that she absorbed and redirected.

  She ricocheted from shield to shield in a sharp zigzag motion, a blur of gold light and steel.

  Her blade met the first cube. A spray of grit. Another. A flash of light. The white blocks shattered into powder on impact, one after another. She carved a path through the swarm. Hundreds of petals bloomed in her wake, filling the air with floral brilliance that outshone the green halos.

  The gold light died. Gravity slammed back into her. Her body felt like lead. She hit Ash's final shield, and her legs gave out.

  Anna fell from the energy disc, her body hitting the mist hard. Her rapier clattered against the floor.

  Golden petals floated through the air like falling snow.

  Above, the halo dissolved. The remaining cubes went dark. They tumbled from the sky, striking the mist in a scattered rain of hollow thuds.

  *It's done.*

  The platform was silent except for the sound of her own ragged breathing.