We are ten. Not because we are of all houses, but because we are of none. Anlioh is our house, truth is our creed, and secrecy is our only shield.

-Recovered from a partially burned letter, circa year 82.

The hallways down here seemed nearly identical to the upstairs. Too many turns, too many rooms, no clarity. It sprawled in every direction and we had no frame of reference.

It would be very easy to get lost down here.

Lan stood by the hallway door until everyone had entered, though it became increasingly crowded in the bedroom as they dropped down. I hung back to bring up the rear, careful to keep my shield away from anyone.

Once we were all safely descended, Lan advanced through the hallway in a random direction, roughly northward if I remembered our orientation correctly. Each time we reached a turning, she headed left. Every door we came to, we opened.

Like the floor above, the place seemed empty and deserted. The lights were brighter here, stripes of red and yellow along the ceilings just out of reach of my destructive bubble.

No one spoke. I watched the three strangers in our group, wanting to at least ask their names to break the tension of our slow progress, but we continue to move as quietly as possible. I will refused to be the one who got us all killed.

"I don't know who you are or why you invaded my home. Please go now. I don't want to have to hurt you."

Desten 5.

I snapped my attention up at the sound of his voice. He stood defiantly blocking Lan’s route forward, surrounded by a dozen orbiting pyramids of fiery yellow light.

His aura smoothly faded from his natural yellow through steady fluctuations of silver and cyan; nothing like his father’s erratic power, but just as horrifying. Pel’s guess had been right. Whatever idiocy they’d attempted, it had worked.

Then Lan charged, screaming inarticulately. Desten waved a hand, sending a half-dozen of his floating pyramids streaking toward her, elongating into silver-edged blades as they flew.

I watched, helpless, too far away to interfere, unable to reach them without pushing through everyone on our team and breaking all their defences in the process.

“Lan, stop! Wait! You promised I could talk to him.”

She didn’t stop. Either she’d forgotten her promise or just didn’t care.

Desten’s projectiles splashed against her armor and disappeared.

He hesitated, taken off guard, and Lan tackled him physically to the ground. His shield puffed out of existence and he instinctively sent his remaining constructs slamming - uselessly - into his assailant’s back.

Lan roughly grabbed his arms and held them flat against her side, keeping the flashmail in direct contact with his skin.

“If you have anything to say to him, say it,” she growled.

“Uh, I feel like this might work better if he weren’t—”

Desten’s power flared out in every direction, melting into the floor and splashing up the walls. Any that contacted Lan’s armor hissed away to nothing, but that wasn’t enough to stop him.

Vess and the soldier at the front backed away several steps as the air shimmered with heat. Lan remained in the center of the inferno for only a few seconds longer, then cried out and jumped back, wringing her hand.

Desten got unsteadily to his feet, breathing hard as he stood amid molten stone, hovering just above the pooling fire beneath him. “Go. Away.”

The defensive pyramids began to form around him again, though the aura of searing flame didn’t diminish. It was an awesome display of power and control.

I knew then that we didn’t stand a chance. If the flashmail wasn’t enough to hold him—

“Astesh, if you want to say anything, then say it.” Lan hadn’t backed off far, standing just at the edge of the circle of fire. It had to be terribly uncomfortable that close to the inferno.

I cleared my throat uneasily. “Desten. Please. I know you’ve been put into a terrible situation, but you don’t have to lash out. If you’ll come away with us we can get you help. You don’t have to become what Retti wants. You can do what you want. Create. Not destroy.”

“What do you know?” Desten’s voice echoed and warbled, distorted by the power around him which only continued to grow. “You bring him here and expect me to believe anything you say?”

I followed his glare, and found Pelys. It took a moment to figure out why Desten would have anything against Pel, until I remembered that the last time they’d seen each other Pel had been doing his best to neutralize Retti.

Lan backed up several steps, the heat growing too much for her.

Desten advanced, forcing her to retreat further, the floor beginning to glow with heat as he flew slowly toward us. “Haven’t you done enough? If it weren’t for him, none of this would have been necessary! This is your fault. Everything I’ve had to do, if you hadn’t—”

I realized then that his voice wavered on its own, even without the distortion of his raging power.

“Please, it doesn’t have to be this way. If you’ll leave Retti—”

“No! You will not do any more harm to my family.” He pointed at Lan. “Stand aside. My quarrel is with him, not any of you.” He pointed at Pelys.

Pel stepped forward, power flexing into a series of curved shields. He already had a stock of ice lances hovering behind him. Lan put out a hand to stop him, but he shook his head at her. “I will face him on behalf of Fylen.”

“No,” Lan said. “I will face him on behalf of Hylet. My claim is stronger.”

Pel hesitated, then stepped back.

“Desten, please,” I said, but no one was listening.

Desten fired half of his pyramids at Pel. Lan stepped to the side to intercept them, catching all but two of them. They vanished against her flashmail, though the movement brought her into the heat of Desten’s inferno and she flinched back.

Pel deflected one of the remaining two with his curved half-shield, shunting it off into the wall where it shattered. The second smashed through the shield leaving a splintered hole from its violent passage. Pel took a step back and stabbed out with a blade of dispelling force, which seemed to have no effect, then another at the last moment that dispersed the construct.

But all the time Desten had been replacing his missiles, and now had the same amount as before. He launched a second volley, more spread out so Lan couldn’t possibly intercept more than two of them.

“Desten, stop!” I screamed. “None of this has to happen! We can talk, we can come to...”

One of the others, the second team that Pel brought in whose names I hadn’t heard, raised a fist in my direction and glared; my pleas died as it was clear no one was listening.

Pel was retaliating now, firing his own attacks. None of them made it through Desten’s aura of flames. Vess stood beside Pel, supporting him with attacks, shields, or healing as necessary. The other team had formed a triangle behind Lan, switching offense and defence at a moment’s notice.

Desten remained focused solely on Pelys. If not for the others defending, I knew he would have lost long since. As it was, we were barely holding him off. Six against one and we couldn’t even touch him.

I stood helplessly at the back, holding my shield steady but unable to advance without throwing the rest of our allies into chaos. The hall was too narrow for me to slip past, my shield filling it almost completely. I might be able to fly over someone lying flat on the ground without disrupting their constructs, but I certainly couldn’t slip through the crowded hallway without wreaking chaos on my allies.

I turned to look behind us, even though it felt utterly wrong to turn my back on Desten. If I was the rear guard, I had to be sure Retti wasn’t sneaking up on us.

No one was there.

But that did remind me of the secret doors we’d discovered between all the different rooms upstairs. The whole compound was connected in a big loop. Could I get in behind Desten? If I could get close enough for my bubble to disrupt his flame aura, that would give us a chance.

I took a step toward the nearest door, then hesitated. If I left, they’d be vulnerable from behind.

I glanced back at the fight. Pel was completely on the defensive now, no longer finding time to fire off attacks, focusing on shield after shield after shield, throwing them between him and Desten barely fast enough to fend off the relentless stream of attacks.

Nope. If I did nothing, we’d lose anyway. If Retti showed up, I wasn’t going to be enough to turn the tide.

This was our only chance.

I sprinted through the door, into a bedroom. No, I needed something nearer the edge. The center rooms weren’t interconnected.

I slipped through the door to the bathroom, then out into another bedroom on the other side. From there, into the hall beyond.

I could still hear the roar of flame, the splintering cracks of power flung too fast and too sharp against each other, but apart from a faint fiery glow on the wall behind me I was well away from the conflict.

I had to find a route around. I sketched a quick map of light in front of me, filling it in as I ran, pink lightning flickering around me as time slowed. I shoved open doors, searching for the secret passages that had to be somewhere, but finding none.

Half a minute, more perhaps, and I was making no progress.

This wasn’t going to be enough. I needed to be faster.

I glanced down at my makeshift map, The closest I’d been to the fight was the sitting room, but it had no access points. Following the twisty logic of the place, I knew there had to be a bedroom between it and the hall, but they belonged to different apartment sets.

No. I was thinking too small, too constrained.

I wanted to smack myself for being stupid. There wasn’t a door? I could make one. I may not be Pelys levels of strong, but I could smash through a wall easily enough.

I sprinted back to the meeting room, reoriented myself to be sure I had the right wall before I started smashing. I had to open a hole in my shield, since I was unable to create external constructs at a distance like some people, it had to be connected to my hand at least at the start. I formed a blade and started slashing. Behind the wood paneling, the wall was stone and metal, smoothly formed into perfect planes, but I knew I could break through.

I’d melted through Pelys’s balcony railing in seconds. I could do this.

I switched my power to a formless blob pressed against the wall, then willed it to heat up. Boil, steam, whatever.

The desperation of my desire translated perfectly. The power melted into the wall, stone heated up and dripping down the sides, cooling almost immediately. It took another half a minute - too long! - but it worked.

I jumped through the hole and into the bedroom I’d known had to be beyond. Another quick check of my map, and I ran through the attached bathroom and another bedroom, then out into the hall beyond.

I would be around the corner in back of Desten. Out of sight of everyone.

I repaired the hole in my shield, forcing myself to take the time, though I could hardly think straight. Then I ran, power flowing at its maximum limits, the shield pulsing at full strength, moving as fast as I’d ever moved in my life.

Around the corner.

Desten stood with his back to me, facing five illuminated figures that were still only barely visible beyond the raging flames surrounding him. The ground beneath his feet was molten and smoking. I pushed myself into the air, though the effort of flight allowed the battle to move a bit faster as my speed was leeched to fuel the levitation.

I barely slowed, charging him at full speed. I felt the impact when my flickering dispelling shield came into contact with his aura, the strain as the two powers tried to burn each other away.

For a split second I thought I had him, then his power overwhelmed mine.

The shield puffed to nothing. I had no time to react before colliding bodily with Desten’s back. Flame seared my face and hands, setting my robes alight, even as something deeper resonated through me. I felt my powerstone vibrating in my chest, trying to draw closer to Desten like a magnet to steel. All in the same instant.

I screamed, pushing myself away. I cleared his aura and landed out of reach, collapsing to the ground. My power faltered as pain claimed full ownership of my attention.

I was on fire. For a moment I couldn’t think what to do, then I took a deep breath and drew a basic shield tight around myself, expanding it outward in a quick burst. Deprived of air, the flames died, leaving scorched cloth and reddening skin showing in open patches.

“Pel, help!” He could do his healing thing. “Vess?” One of them. Someone. I squinted to see past Desten, hoping they could do something to help.

Even if my attack had been less a battle-ending victory than I’d imagined, it had distracted Desten quite thoroughly. He spun on me with a snarl of rage, and I knew at once that I’d severely miscalculated. There would be no reasoning with him.

I was about to die. No shield I could put up would possibly protect me. I watched his deadly missiles streak toward me at incredibly slowed pace, powerless to defend myself. How had Pelys ever believed I would be useful here? This was a place for master combatants, not a downcity commoner who stumbled into too much power.

Why. Why why why…

I still couldn’t fathom it. Couldn’t put my mind into any place that understood what Retti and Desten were doing.

What sort of person went around killing others for their power? What sort of person was okay with this insanity and violence? How could that possibly be justified?

I couldn’t fathom it, couldn’t grasp it. My mind wasn’t capable of modeling that kind of mindset. Even when I knew I was about to die.

It just didn’t make sense.

Desten’s flames died as something tackled him out of the air. He slammed face-first into the molten stone beneath him, his constructs faltering in their course. They continued on, straight and no longer guided, and I had just enough time to roll aside as they all slammed into the ground where I’d been lying a moment before.

Lan knelt on Desten’s back, holding him in the rapidly-cooling stone. I didn’t want to watch, but any movement sent fresh agony through my burned body.

Pelys stood behind her at the edge of the molten stone, disrupting any attempt by Desten to activate his power.

Between Lan’s flashmail and Pelys’s watchfulness, the attempts diminished until Desten lay still and the glow of power faded from his skin.

No one moved for a long moment.

“Lan, you’ll need to take that armor off if you want healing,” Pel said quietly. Lan knelt trembling atop Desten’s body and didn’t respond.

Vess raised a hand toward me, draping me with the most wonderful soothing blanket of power I’d ever experienced. Calming and healing. My power slid through Vess’s, strengthening and encouraging it to greater speed.

“Cay can take it for now,” said one of the strangers, the man with teal power in tight loops around his body like extra-thick belts. There were only two now; one of their number lay as dull and unmoving as Desten.

Cay, the only woman of their trio, took a step toward Lan as though to transfer the flashmail immediately.

Pelys glared at her, and she raised her hands and backed off. Instead, she focused on building up her own shields again, blue power flowing out in a smooth ripple.

I lay watching passively. I didn’t even have the energy to feel horrified any longer, though I should have been furious at Desten’s fate.

It felt like a betrayal, somehow, to spend so many months wanting to save him only to stop caring the moment it actually mattered. Just because he’d tried to kill me instead of someone I didn’t know well enough. How stupidly shallow could I be? How naive?

But I had no strength to worry over it. I could only lie helplessly as my body slowly put itself back together under Vess’s and my combined power. My robes were barely fit to be called such any longer, scorched and melted through in places, smelling of smoke and blood. Thankfully they were cheap and of no importance. I’d have felt bad if they were properly tailored house robes.

Lan didn’t seem to notice the activity around her, tears streaming silently down her face, though whether from pain or rage or some other emotion I couldn’t guess. She made no move to divest herself of the flashmail, so Pelys and Vess did their best to heal her exposed face and hands without their power coming in contact with the strange blue disruptive metal of the armor. It wasn’t nearly as fast or efficient as the full-body power surrounding me, but Lan’s injuries were much less extensive than my own.

“Daum, keep a lookout.” Cay pointed back the way we’d come from, as she walked past me to the other corner. “I’ll watch here.”

Vess finished with Lan and started toward me, then hesitated beside Desten’s body with a frown. “Do you feel that?” he asked quietly.

Pel shook his head. “What?”

“A … vibration.” Vess put a hand to his chest, brows furrowing. “Is it from the flashmail?”

“No,” Lan said. “Flashstone negates. It does not resonate.”

Vess glanced down at Desten. “Is he …?”

“Dead.” Pelys said. “Very much so.”

“Then what…?”

“I felt it,” I said. “When I was fighting him and got too close. Like my stone wanted to pull toward him.”

Vess nodded. “Yeah, that’s the same feeling. Why is it doing that?”

“Probably something to do with why his power is so strong,” I said. “Pel thinks they’ve figured out some way to augment powerstones successfully.”

“There is no way someone that young should have lasted even ten seconds against us,” Pel agreed. “That was not an ordinary amount of power. I’ve never even seen someone with that kind of power, and I know a lot of the best Sarosa has to offer.”

“I believe they’ve found a way to combine other people’s power into their own,” I said quietly. “That’s why Fylen’s heartstone was stolen.”

“Should we do something?” Vess asked uncomfortably. “This feels really weird.”

“It’ll fade if you move away. I can’t even feel it from over here.” I sat up gingerly.

Vess shook himself and hurried toward me. “Hold still. This is no substitute for proper rest and recuperation. You’re lucky. If it had gone any deeper, I can’t do more than surface level.”

“Are we doing the right thing?” I asked faintly. “Or is it just vengeance?”

Vess shook his head. “I don’t know, Astesh. That’s not something I’m concerned with. But you don’t just come back from something like that. The kind of killing he’s been doing, Fylen, Hylet, Trein, and who knows how many others? I don’t think you could have saved him.”

Why.

But I subsided into silence and let Vess continue his work. And I tried very hard not to feel like a complete failure.