After a rather slow walk to another prisoner. I released her hands and gave the staff to a nearby skeleton.

“Those bone shards you sent into the guardsmen were... Inspired.” I told Kaylee. “Practice it further.”

“Cup your hands,” I instructed.

She did so, and a skeleton walked up from behind placing one of the severed hands in hers.

“Bone them,” I continued. I saw her try to reach for a dagger while still holding the hand.

“No.”

She paused considering. I walked behind and put my arms around her, resting my head on her shoulder and cupping her hands in mine before pulling them up. Her own head tilted slightly, nuzzling her head against mine.

“Breathe.”

We exhaled together, my own hands moving to cover the top and trapping the air from our lungs inside. Scales turned dull and fell off, then bits of tissue and blood dripped and ran between her fingers. They sizzled in the midday sand and the smell of burning kobold flesh and death hit the prisoners nostrils.

I spoke softly, “Can you smell their fear?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“That’s what you tasted like.”

She shivered and goosebumps formed. Her control faltered and the necrotic mota floated through her fingers.

I bit her earlobe, “Concentrate.” I said seriously.

It was a far cry from my training. I recalled the feeling of the tube forced down my throat, scraping its way down to my lungs before water poured from it to fill them. Trying to concentrate enough to condense the mana in my lungs and use the pressure to force it back out my throat.

Failure meant passing out and having my head tilted to let the water drain out, then slapped and hit until I woke up. The rule was simple, succeed three times or pass out six. But the only thing that made him more upset than me failing was me failing to pass out. He’d pour water in twice as long after every success, waiting until I was spasming from a brain starved of oxygen before giving me the chance to clear my lungs.

I bit again harder, hearing her cry out.

“Can’t have the teacher’s pet failing can we?”

The bones were polished now, lost in my thoughts I‘d barely noticed her finish. Cleaned until what little remained would struggle to feed even the mites in the sand.

“Grab a carving blade and sharpen the tips. Three cuts, that's it, after you’ve finished with the first hand, clean and train on the second. If you take more than three cuts to make one sharp enough after you‘ve finished with both hands.”

My fingertips stroked her own middle finger as I finished speaking.

“I’ll demonstrate the proper technique on yours,” I told her.

I armed myself with the blade and staff once more and the skeletons followed me to the flame shaman, dragging the blind and amputated kobold behind them. I continued past him and turned around, allowing me to keep Kaylee in the corner of my vision and watch her as she trained.

She only barely flinched when her knife slid on the second attempt and left a chunk of her palm hanging on by a small section of skin.

She looked up suddenly, no doubt worried I’d seen her failure and having her fears confirmed when she saw me watching her.

I mouthed a single word.

Earned.

She nodded and held the chunk tight to her palm before fusing it in place.

A skeleton undid the leather holding the shaman’s hands bound and he rubbed at his wrists.

I kicked the moaning kobold between me and the shaman and spoke softly.

“I told you I’ wouldn’t kill you or your friends here if you surrendered, do you remember that?”

He said nothing.

I waited and finally realizing I would not continue until I had an answer he simply nodded.

“You lizards might not be brilliant, but your cunning in your own way. Perhaps you even realized at some point I could honor my agreement just by having you killed by someone else.”

His eyes went downcast. He had realized that.

“No worries friend, I wasn’t trying to be cunning like you fucking lizards. No it turns out,”

My blade's tip impaled into the chest of the kobold between us.

“I lied.”

I saw the leather covering the shaman’s mouth blacken as fury hit him.

I threw the staff at him, smacking him in the head with it and snarled.

I could already taste his core and even the fight against the neophyte hadn’t been a mage duel, I needed training. My blade split my palm as the leather finally burned free and flame came roaring out. Slightly predictable and I already had a blood shield redirecting the attack to the ground as it grew closer.

The attack was impressive but wasted a lot from being spread out over such a large distance. By the time it was a few feet from my core the flamethrower attack washed over my barrier but stood no chance of penetrating it.

His next attack was more concentrated. Balls of fire spat forth from the staff in rapid succession. These were much denser but also barely contained, made so rapidly they lacked stability and ripped apart exploding on impact. I threw up a minefield of small globules of blood to cause them to detonate prematurely. It worked, but I was getting concerned about the amount of spare blood left in my body.

I ran and as he turned to fire I distracted him, the kobold at his feet couldn’t even grab an ankle, but his stubs struck out and drew his ire as I ran towards the supplies.

Realizing the zombie was no threat after a moment the shaman kicked him away but I’d already reached my target.

I threw several flasks at him and his staff’s tip flared red again firing to intercept.

They impacted and the water flasks he hit disintegrated leaving a haze of steam between us.

Holes quickly formed in the steam as he fired at random and I had to waste several barriers protecting the supplies. Perhaps not the best choice of cover.

I took off again towards Kaylee this time. She’d been watching me and part of me wondered if she enjoyed the show.

“Need help?” She asked.

Do I need help! I defeated the fucker when he had an army with him, bitch.

I grabbed her ass running by.

“Yes, but I’m just not sure now is the best time to bend you over Princess.”

My other hand reached up and grabbed several of her already made bone shards.

“But if you did a good job on these, I’ll make you a whole bed from the dead kobolds to take care of the problem on.”

I launched the first one through the mist in the general direction of where the fire had been coming from and heard him shriek.

“Always stay moving,” I yelled to Kaylee, hoping she’d been paying enough attention to at least realize some of my brilliance.

A solid circle of flame was visible even through the mist and I launched another shard at it. I could feel the necrotic mana in the bone lose connection to my core as it hit the solid flames, the heat must have been hot enough to melt bone because no sound came this time.

My silhouette became visible as a dark running outline as the mist lightened and the shaman went forwards. The water would still weaken any attempt to burn a path through, especially if he missed and he couldn’t quite tell my distance.

I knew he’d need me to stand still long enough to close and use his mana’s superior raw power to overwhelm me. But his leg was bleeding from my earlier attack and he had trouble running. The air cleared further as my outline was rocked with nearby explosions. He condensed air roughly in front to slow me down and one finally exploded close enough to force a stop. More explosions rocked the area, and he held his staff pointing forward. Grinning in triumph as he walked closer while spewing a jet of flame. He reached it just in time to see the blackened silhouette of pure blood disintegrate. His eyes went wild and turned in all directions, looking right just in time to see the shard of bone burrow into his chest, penetrating his lungs.

I walked up enjoying the view as he tried to breathe fire and spat only blood. I pulled bits of it in before it hit the sand, using them to mend the cut in my palm smooth.

Scars were earned, and he’d spent too much of his short life being the only person capable of manipulating mana.

Still, his core was worth it. He fell down and gasped a few more times.

“Come, Kaylee,” I told her.

We sat down beside each other once more on the body of a dying kobold. I threw a bone up in the air and made her catch it with her necromancy before it landed. After a few tries, she did so easily. Then we dueled, taking turns with one of us trying to hit the other’s shard while the other person tried to avoid being hit. The fights of the last several days had greatly increased the core density of both of us and flying a small shard around did nothing to tax our strength.

After a while, I threw several more into the air until we had over a dozen in the air at once between us. Her skill was improving enough she’d soon be able to command a whole skeleton and not just pieces of one.

I’d been winning the aerial duels and was surprised when she used several shards at once to box one of mine in, smashing into it with multiple attacks.

I felt the tinge of failure and I knew what I needed to do. To demand she did it again and again as I made it harder and harder, forcing her to get better at every moment until she broke.

But then the weakness I thought I banished came back. Perverting my feelings. I felt pride. Not in my own success but in hers, hers that came at the cost of my failure. Several shards flew off course, embedding themselves into my legs.

She turned to look at me surprised. When I said nothing, she remained silent but her eyes became questioning.

“I failed,” I said after a moment.

“Mm,” she replied.

I felt her hand reach over and pull them out one by one. Then we sat silently together, meditating over the kobolds corpse, his life force knitting my legs whole again.