My heart raced as I forced my breathing to slow. Kresida flipped the twin blades in her hands before crouching low, the look of a pure predator, ready to unleash itself on unsuspecting prey. The silver tip of a longsword peaked past the curve, candlelight glinting off its edge as it came into view.
The War Slayer’s blades moved faster than I could register as she disarmed the kingsguard who had led the descent before slicing through his exposed neck. Black armor crashed to the steps, and I leaped to the side as his body fell. Three more followed in a matter of seconds. I kept my eyes forward as the soldiers gasped for air, blood choking their cries. A calm, unfeeling wave swept over me as I stepped over their dying bodies and into their blood, continuing our hike up the tower.
The stairwell opened into a tall hall where two more charged us from where they stood outside an elaborately painted set of iron doors marked by a large sideways figure eight, our moons in their center, topped by the sun. Kresida sprinted forward, prepared to take them down, but my magic was faster. It speared forward in two ribbons of black, engulfing the two and devouring them within a second. Their armor crashed to the floor as ash replaced flesh.
“I guess that works too,” she murmured, surging to the doors. She reached for the handle and cursed as she whipped her hand back, a fresh line of red blisters forming on her light brown palm.
Locked with magic? I cursed myself for not waiting for Carina or Nerissa. My hand hovered over the shining metal, the Obscura restless beneath my palm as if noting there was nothing it could do. My shadows could only destroy organic material. But the Transcindiel…
“Stay back,” I murmured, leashing the darkness within me and matching the Transcindiel’s war song with my mind’s voice. The golden wisp of magic slithered up to meet me, and I latched it to the amplifier around my neck before pushing it into the doors.
My mind formed a solid oak. A towering, domineering tree. I sent an axe crashing down at its base. Again. And again. Until the creek of snapping wood groaned in the silence of my mind. I waited for the resounding crash, for the doors to transform from iron to oak, so I could spear that darkness toward them, so I could turn them to ash.
The familiar burn of the amplifier bit at my chest, the sickening smell of sizzling flesh filling the hall. I resisted the urge to rip the pendant off, to fling it across the hall. The doors seemed to buck against me, resisting the magic.
“Try something else,” Kresida breathed. “However, you’re trying to change it, it’s too much. Too different.”
I closed my eyes, trying to ignore the smoke wafting from beneath my armored vest. Too different… Xenelpha’s words returned to my mind.
Ice calls to water as magma calls to stone.
What did iron call to?
The tall oak in my mind’s eye disappeared, replaced by the easy current of the Ripped River. I envisioned the metal doorsbefore me melting into a blazing, silver stream. I spooled the image with that golden light, sending a blast of magic into the doors.
Golden light erupted. Kresida’s arm flew up to shield her eyes. I blinked, a fresh wave of nausea rolling over me as an overwhelming, metallic scent shoved up my nostrils. The silver iron glowed orange before turning a bright crimson as it liquefied and slid to the floor in a wave.
Blood.
We raced through the shallow pool, sloshing through the hall and into the chamber.
Shouts echoed through the room as kingsguards raised their swords. Saros stood at the center, the moons’ light filtering in from the large window gilding his frame like a false angel. He held his domineering staff in one hand and a long blade in the other.
