I grab her again and run.
She’s light—too light. Her frame presses against mine, and all I can feel is heat and motion and the thump of her pulse. I jump across a narrow gap. She gasps. I land, roll, keep going. Another leap, a broken chimney, a rooftop skylight that shatters under my heel. Doesn’t matter. We’re flying.
Arrows whistle past us. One grazes her hood. I snarl, pivot, fling a broken tile down at the archer—it hits him square in the head. He drops.
I don’t stop.
River’s laughing now. Wild and breathless.
“You’re insane!” she yells.
“Probably!”
“Your arms—what the fuck is that?”
“Upgrades!”
Another barricade ahead—a pair of guards braced at a rooftop bridge, blades drawn. They block the only path to the outer gate’s perimeter wall.
River starts to slow.
I don’t.
I barrel into them like a battering ram. One goes flying off the edge with a scream. The other slashes at my chest. Sparks fly. His blade shatters on the plates across my ribs.
I grab his throat and toss him through a window.
River climbs over the bridge behind me, panting, coughing on dust.
“You always this charming on dates?” she says.
“Only with girls who stab nobles,” I grin.
She snorts, wipes blood off her cheek, and follows.
The last stretch is the hardest.
A wall, twenty feet high. Iron gate locked from the inside. Guards posted. Spotlights sweeping.
Too many eyes. Too much noise.
We duck low beneath a tanner’s awning. I watch the rhythm of the lights. I count the steps of the guards.
Then I pull her close.
“I’m gonna make us a door.”
She blinks. “What?”
“Don’t stop running, whatever you do.”
“Kragna—what do you mean?—”
But I’m already moving.
The shift deepens. Plates over my arms thicken, fusing into solid shields. My knuckles crack, claws lengthen. I charge the wall like a charging bull. No finesse. Just brute, monstrous force.
I hit the gate with everything I have.
