About Kaimas’ market stalls and near the center of town stood a black obelisk surrounded by scaffolding. This was one of many ruins from a lost era, a constant reminder of something else that once stretched the peninsula, so strange and distant now that ‘something’ was all that could be said of it for certain. Like the Spires and so many other piles of rubble the purpose of this obelisk remained as opaque as its mirror-sheened obsidian surface—yet still it stood. So, of course, what else to do with such a thing than drape it in wood and hang a bell from its top?

The halflings were a truly innovative people.

The crier pulled a rope. The knell marked his proclamation. The crowd in attendance harkened; whatever news they awaited had their breaths bated. Once all eyes were his he examined a small note, a leather scrap, and squeaked:

“With sorrow in their hearts, the joint offices of the Mayor and the Sheriff announce this morning two more missing persons: Liudas, son of Dovydas of Sternstreet; and Anika, daughter of Rapolas of Third Main.” The note returned to a pocket. “As ever, if you have information on the cause of these disappearances, or others that have afflicted our community, address it to the Sheriff immediately.”

Thus had the news been since soon after the party’s departure. One or two villagers each night, often those in the outskirts or with huts far off in the woods, reported missing by whatever family members were left come morning. Eris watched the scene with disinterest as it repeated itself for lack of any more interesting distractions. Though attempts to avoid her companions had born some fruit over the last two days, the severity of her monetary situation was enough to make investigating the obvious peril surrounding this latest tragedy an attractive prospect. As it happened, her altruistic ‘friends’ already volunteered themselves for just that task.

Rook and his new knife-eared fiancé made camp with their adopted daughter by a stream beyond town. Zydnus was there, too, and Pyraz, and Guinevere, all of whom congregated together appeared to Eris as little more than a walking cemetery. Rook and Guinevere sparred with sticks by the water. Aletheia held a bow in her hands with an arrow nocked as Astera guided the movements, an instruction on how to pull back a string. The target was a tree: carved in the trunk, a small target, bullseye and all.

“No, no, no, no, no!” Zyd cried out from some distance off, “that’s all wrong! You’ll never be able to hit anything like that! You have to tighten your fingers up, and broaden your shoulders!”

Astera didn’t bother regarding him. “I know how to shoot a bow, Zydnus. I can teach her.”

“Yeah, well, it’s my bow, so you should do it my way!” He was lounging at the base of an orange-leaved tree, and he saw Eris as she approached the scene. “Great. Are you coming, too?”

“In fact I came just to mock you,” she said.

He shot upright. “I thought maybe it was to bring me my lantern back!”

This was too familiar to excite irritation any longer. “Do you know, I believe I have a spell that could turn you into a lantern? It would not last long…but it may make the sting of that tragic loss dull over.”

“One of these days I’m gonna find out where you put it, and you’ll be sorry.” He collapsed back down. Then, toward Astera again, “She’s never going to hit anything like that!”

Eris turned to look. A moment passed. The elf stepped back from the girl, and the bowstring twanged. The arrow hit the bullseye.

“Fantastic!” Astera said. “What an amazing first shot!”

“That wasn’t anything,” Zyd said. He looked away.

Eris folded her arms. She did not approve of this exercise. “Why are you teaching this girl to use a bow? Intend to enlist her in the levy, do you?”

“It was her idea,” Astera said. She retrieved the arrow.

Aletheia turned to speak, but averted her gaze. “I want to learn to fight.”

“You are a magician,” Eris said, “and your mentor is an elf. She could teach you magic far more potent than an arrow.”

“I’ll learn both!”

“I’ll teach her both,” Astera said.

“Ah, so you are keeping her, then? I hope you checked for mange,” Eris said. She was impressed when Aletheia’s face contorted not into meek submission, as expected, but instead flashed with rage. Her fingers tightened around the bow’s grip. That made Eris smile—she liked this girl just a little bit more for it. But the display only lasted a moment; she turned, in silence, and walked far off.

Astera approached. “Aletheia has been through a lot,” she said.

“As have most strays. Yet I was always taught not to feed alleycats lest they keep coming back for more.”

“Choose your words carefully; they might be turned against you someday.”

Eris laughed and rolled her eyes. “I have earned my upkeep, elf, and I have traveled with Rook far longer than you. Do not think your ears entitle you to my respect; you have not earned it.”

“She isn’t an animal. She’s a child. She deserves to be treated with dignity. You could at least refer to her like a human.”

“I could…yet I will not, if for no other reason than you have revealed how much it irritates you.”

Astera grimaced. “You’re a vindictive bitch, Eris.” With that she departed back to Aletheia; their lesson resumed.

“What,” Zyd said, “aren’t you going to say something else to her?”

“Why? She has me exactly.”

She watched the final few blows between Rook and Guinevere and waited until their sparring came to a close before pressing forward. Rook caught his breath and drank deeply from a skin.

“You have succeeded in assembling a menagerie,” Eris said. “I hope it is not now your plan to put us in cages and take us on tour.”

He considered these words seriously, then with exaggeration. “I’d never need swing a sword again!” Another drink.

Silence. He opened his mouth, as if to speak, when…

“AIR-EZ!”

A bull collided against her torso, followed by the miasma of body odor.

“YA’VE COAM TAE HOONT DAEWN THA WIRRY-CAWS WETH UZ?”

Guinevere embraced her. Eris pried herself away, and then she saw. There was no longer an infection on Guinevere’s face, no draining pus or ooze, but a yellow, peeling scar. She looked like a corpse in the making. If it bothered her, she did not show it.

“That was my intention,” Eris said.

“Astera found tracks outside one of the houses,” Rook said. “We’re going to follow them.”

“There seems to be no exhausting her talents!”

“You might put an impressive resume together yourself if you lived an eternity. Did you know she was a huntress in Seneria?”

“It would be more impressive still if she had been a hunter in Seneria; her experiences, clearly, would only be broader.”

“I would think her experience is broader, having stayed a huntress throughout.” Eris was amused enough to laugh, but resolute to look dissatisfied. Rook continued with a grin, “Shall we get moving?”

Eris gestured. “I am, as ever, at your disposal.”

Astera crouched in the dirt.

“The trail leads up to the door…see there, two sets of feet, then back out again, toward the forest. They followed the same path both ways.”

Eris saw nothing whatsoever but nodded sagely regardless.

“They weren’t interested in staying once they had what they were looking for. The feet are very wide…boots, yes, treads…” She hopped over a log. “Could be dwarfish, or some other creature that belongs to these parts. Are you familiar with stories?”

Everyone looked to Zyd.

“…about what?”

“Monsters that kidnap townspeople from their beds at night,” Rook said.

“Oh. Sure. Loads of them. Everybody knows those stories. Don’t you?”

“No,” Aletheia said.

“Well—EVERYBODY knows. Haven’t you heard of bugbears?”

“Should I have?” Astera said.

“Only if you like being alive! Bugbears will throw you and your mom in a pot and boil you both alive for broth, like you’re a lobster! They live in old tunnels and come down from Kem-Karwene to do whatever monsters do. Like eat babies. What else do you want to know?”

“What ARE they?” Aletheia said.

“They’re like dwarves, but bigger, and hairier, and they smell really, really bad. And they eat people!”

“Are they real?” Rook said to Eris.

“The Fallen Sons of the Mountain Peoples of Nanos? Yes, they are real, but whether or not they kidnap halflings and eat babies is another question,” Eris said.

“We’ll find out one way or another,” Astera said. She led them across fields, past cows, and into familiar hills. This was the same route they took on their journey to the bandits’ lair. As before night fell long before they reached their destination, and that night Eris found it impossible to keep herself from Rook. But there was more on her mind than kissing.

She reclined against a tree beside his bedroll. Across the fire was Aletheia. Cleaned up now, in traveling clothes, revealed to be nothing but a plain and unremarkable girl. Eris prayed she might now be able to speak sense into her partner:

“What is your plan, Rook?” Eris whispered.

He read from a small booklet, which snapped shut at the sound of her voice. “I leave planning only to people smarter and more attractive than me.”

“That would explain why I am the one who must come up with every course of action.”

“I was referring to Pyraz.”

“Better him than some others of our company. Yet I must ask again: what is your plan?” She gestured overtly toward Aletheia.

“Why do I need a plan now?” he said.

“Because if you had thought the situation through, you might have come to the conclusion that it is not wise to drag a child along on a hunt for bugbears.”

He shifted upward. Clearly he recognized the wisdom in her words, but he spoke flatly, “She didn’t want to stay behind.”

“Then give her the dog.”

“The two of you have a lot in common. You would get along.”

“I very much doubt that,” Eris said.

“Of course. You’ve made up your opinion before hardly speaking to her, haven’t you?”

“I do not need to speak with her—it does not matter what I think—” here she was getting frustrated— “taking a child who cannot control her powers and cannot wield weapons on an expedition like this imperils all of us. It is foolish, and would be even if I thought this girl was Porphyrogenita. But it does not imperil us half so much as her mere presence does, for mark my words, Antigone will not let her apprentice go so easily. She will send kidnappers after us, and we will not be spared her fury. Surely you see this?”

He lowered his head down low to hers and met her eyes, as if coming for a kiss. His breath hit her in the face as he said, “Let her come.”

“You will be killed.”

“Better to die for Aletheia than gathering spoons in a cave filled with giant lizards.”

The luster of his handsomeness was waning. If only he could be selfish—he might be the perfect man. “Better to die for neither,” she said.

He stared back at her. She wondered what he thought of her, truly. What thoughts played behind those blue eyes—for by her life, she could not see anything in them but her own reflection. And as always, she was left in despair, because she did not understand why she cared what he thought at all.

He kissed her.

It was quick and simple, unlike last time, and although she liked it, she fought back and pushed him away. And once they were apart, he said,

“I’d do anything to protect my friends. Including you. Goodnight.”

He retreated into his bedroll, and she was left stunned—before her despair crumbled away into anger. If Aletheia was his friend already, the barrier was rather low. An enemy might be worth saving for all his life within the course of a single swordstroke.

So she was furious as she went to bed that he refused to be reasonable, and furious that she saw no way for her to tolerate such stupidity. And yet tolerating it would have been easy, if only she compromised on who she was, on what she believed, on how she thought. It was as easy as giving herself up. And in exchange…the prize was immense. But she would never do it.

She was also furious that one more kiss had ignited something in her sternum that kept her up all night and made every muscle in her body ache. That was not the plan. This was supposed to get easier, not harder. Something was going wrong.

Barking pulled her from bed just before dawn. The whole pack stirred: swords raised, arrows nocked, spells prepared, and jaws set to strike in an instant. Then, growling. Pyraz lowered on his front legs, his eyes set on the forest toward the mountains. Astera conjured a single light and sent it out in that direction; the shadows of leaves were sent back across their camp as the hanging light drifted through the branches, but for all the dog’s agitation, nothing could be seen.

“The sun is nearly upon us,” Astera said once silence fell, “we should get ready.”

“Thanks for the early wake-up call, you stupid mutt,” Zyd groaned.

Rook held a hand to his head, fighting off grogginess. “She’s right. Let’s start packing.”

The morning was early and miserable, for Eris more than anyone. Her sleepless night buzzed in the back of her brain. Their spirits were not high as day broke. There came one good stroke of fortune, however, as Astera examined the area around their camp: it seemed Pyraz had not seen a phantom after all. Squarish bootprints led uphill in that direction.

They’d received visitors late at night.

“Then we know our course,” Rook said. “Let’s go.”

Like a column of ants they pressed on through the trees. It took all of Eris’ concentration to stay standing. She hardly paid attention to their surroundings, and so she was not the one to notice that they were becoming more and more familiar with each successive step.

“Meebee tha wirry-caws haev mooved entae tha towar,” Guinevere said off-handedly.

“What do you mean?” Astera said.

“Tha towar! Wee keeled tha banned-its en tha towar en tha heels, butt meebee tha wirry-caws haff mooved en!”

“Bugbears wouldn’t live in a tower,” Zyd said. “They live underground. They come out of caves and tunnels that connect to Kem-Karwene.”

“You said you found a tunnel beneath the tower,” Rook said.

“Yeah, so what?”

“Aye, wee pecked tha look,” Guinevere said.

“Of course we did, we were looking for my lantern. I don’t see what—” Zyd stopped. “Oh. But…it’s the old watchtower…the dwarven tower...the thing we…”

Guinevere, who had been grinning an imbecile’s grin, frowned. “Et wuz looked miety wil.”

Eris glanced around. From where they now were there was a view of all Rytus, of Kaimas, of the mountains far to the south, of the Spire and Thermopos and…yes, they had been here.

“Dida wee laet tha wirry-caws oat?”

“Aw, jeeze,” Zyd said. He collapsed onto a rock. “You—you don’t think this is all my fault, is it?”

Rook knelt down near him. “That doesn’t matter. We’re setting it right now.”

“Don’t tell anyone in Kaimas! They’ll think I’m an idiot!”

“I wonder why?” Eris said.

“Oh no—this is so embarrassing!”

Rook lifted Zyd off his seat. “Come on. Get up. You know the way there, don’t you?”

“What will they do to me!?”

“Nobody knows but us, they won’t do anything.”

“I just wanted my lantern back! It’s her fault!” He pointed to Eris. “Blame her, not me! It was supposed to be down there!”

“Your concern for others in times of crisis is unparalleled, Zydnus,” Eris said.

“It was all your idea to pick that lock anyway, I told you I didn’t want to do it!”

“Maybe they’ll all be okay,” Aletheia said.

“We gain nothing by wasting time,” Astera said.

Rook sighed. He looked to Guinevere and Eris. “Can you take us there?”

“Aye!” Guinevere said. “Fallo mee!”

Rook dragged a protesting Zyd by the shoulder. “Let’s go.”

Just as before the tower stood at the very precipice of a cliff, overlooking a drop thousands of feet down. This time its door was ajar. Before it, a few feet off, was a pike; and atop its spearpoint rested skewered the head of a halfling.

“I take that’s new,” Rook said.

“That is new,” Eris said.

Aletheia took a step behind the elf. Rook drew his sword. “Let’s hope the rest are okay.”

“Wait!” Eris said. “There is a trap.”

“Aye!” Guinevere said, “tha trep! Ya aev tae dook!” She took the lead; and, falling to her knees, crawled through the door. The trap triggered. An axe blade swung out at eye-level, then reset itself.

“A trap,” he said, stunned, no doubt contemplating what such a mechanism might have done to his head. “Okay.”

Astera gave them light. The first storey was not as they had departed; the bodies of the bandits, left where they fell, were now missing, but a hideous stench of decay consumed the tower.

The hatch behind the stairs was open.

“Down?” Rook asked.

“Down,” Zyd said.

Past the hatch, finely carved steps led into the bowels of the hills. They leveled off at a tunnel that extended off toward pitch darkness. The ceiling was just tall enough for Eris to stand with her back straight; Rook had to bend, and Astera hunch, to descend the steps. The way twisted as it descended into what must have been the rock beneath the nearby mountains, but presently they reached a solid tan stone door locked firmly shut.

There was no handle. All manner of Dwarven runes etched the surface in arcs, glowing: wards that maintained their magic since this place’s abandonment eons ago.

“They say dwarves are fashioned from the very earth and rock itself,” Rook said. “Does that mean they view a stone portal like this like family?”

“No more than humans do their sheep and goats,” Astera said. “Do any of you read Dwarfish?”

Eris scoffed. The elf gave herself away. She knew little about magic in practice, beyond her natural affinity. “There is no writing to read,” Eris said. “These are words of binding. Some spell keeps this door shut.”

“Like the keystones in the Spire,” Rook said.

“Yes, although I am not aware of the Dwarves using stones for locks.”

“So what’s the key?”

She looked the runes over. It was not easy, deciphering static magic. “These are wards of mobility, here. Most of the magic entwined with this door concerns its opening, not keeping it shut. Whatever the key is ‘tis not complicated. I would guess some item common to those who would have walked this tunnel when it was still in use.”

“Bee-urds?” Guinevere said.

“Possible…”

“What about Dwarven steel?” Rook said. “Guin, let me see your axe.”

“You have a Dwarven axe?” Astera said.

“Ieh tuuk et uf tha boody uf a dwurf,” Guinevere said. She handed the heft of her axe to Rook, who placed it against the door. A moment passed—and then, one by one, like candles extinguished upon an altar, the runes went dark.

Axe back to Guinevere. “Steel yourselves,” Rook said.

The door slid open and into the wall. Its corner fit perfectly within the carved walls of the tunnel; once settled, no sign remained that it ever had existed. Not the slightest indentation. The process was long, slow, and loud.

A voice called out to them in a language that sounded like a dozen rocks being ground together. Astera sent her lights forward; three dark shapes were revealed, short but wide, around a low table, upon which glowed a dim lantern.

Guards at their post.

They jumped to their feet, reaching for weapons—and Guinevere charged straight ahead. Space was still constrained in the tunnel but Rook followed after, and Astera. Eris saw nothing but dancing shadows across the walls. There was little for her to do, so she stood idle, nervous, with Aletheia and Zydnus and the dog, hoping Rook survived.

The ringing of blades lasted only a few seconds. Surprise had been on their side. Rook pulled his sword from between the shoulder blades of one of the creatures and let the body fall to the ground. Guinevere raised her axe triumphantly, only to hit the ceiling. And Astera…

Astera stumbled backward. She bumped into Eris, then turned and hit the wall. A crude bronze dagger was thrust into her gut. Blood pooled in torrents down her leathers. Her knees gave and she slipped downward.

“Astera!” Aletheia said, and she rushed to the elf’s side. Terror consumed the girl’s voice. “What do I do?”

Astera shook her head. She frowned. Both her hands found the dagger and pulled; Eris heard a wet wrenching, then the gurgling of blood.

The lights went out. That was the hazard of relying on magic for sight. Eris quickly conjured fire in her palm and held it high to give off light; Rook knew the game, and he retrieved torches for her to light. He handed one off to Guinevere.

“Guin, watch the hall,” he said. He rushed to Astera’s side.

“Is she going to be okay?” Aletheia said.

Eris couldn’t stand such stupidity. This girl would have asked Alp’s severed head if it was in pain. But still she felt obligated to hold up a torch for the elf’s dying moments—not a second too soon, she thought. Providence had chosen its next victim well.

The bronze dagger clattered to the ground. Astera let out a gurgle. She pulled her hands to her stomach. Then Eris felt something—a release of energy, a torrent of mana. Around Astera’s fingers burst forth radiant red. She held them near her injury.

The light funneled itself into the hole left by the blade like water down the side of a glass. The wound knitted itself shut. Soon the only trace of the injury was the damage to her clothing. She gasped as the spell ceased, then hugged Aletheia.

“I’m okay,” she said.

“What did you just do?” Aletheia said.

“Later,” Rook said. He was stunned, too, but not quite to silence. He offered them both his hands and helped them to their feet.

“Agreed,” Astera said. There was clear exhaustion in her voice.

At least she had not escaped completely unscathed. With all their company apparently in tact Eris took her light to the bodies of their slain foemen. Three of them, one on the table, two on the ground. Their weapons were all of similar make to the dagger, bronze or black iron, and they wore piecemeal sets of armor. As for they themselves…they were gray-skinned and black-furred. Each was covered in hair, like an ape, yet in proportions they were strikingly similar to dwarves. All bore long and bristly hair about the chin.

Three bowls carved from rocks were knocked onto the floor in the melee. One still carried trace amounts of some soup Eris preferred not to smell. Their lantern did catch her eye, however. Within a cell of stone sat a glowing orange rock. Dim, but constant. She lifted it—and found it weighed as much as she did. Interesting none the less. A point of data. A demonstration of the fact that even these monsters needed some light to see.

“Are those bugbears?” Aletheia asked.

“More bear than bug,” Rook said.

“Yeah,” Zyd, who had been doing nothing at all, said. “That looks like them to me.”

A light returned from down the tunnel. “Tha toonal kyps guuen awn,” Guinevere said, “butt et staps et enothar duur, with nae off tha gloowies.”

Eris was left wondering why one man, two women, an elf, a girl, a halfling, and a dog were required for this expedition when only three could do anything at any given time. She bit her tongue for the time being and held the light silently, then came to a realization.

“Why am I the one holding the light?” she said.

Rook started slowly back down the tunnel. “Why are you holding the light?”

“’Tis why I asked. This is beneath me. You, take it.” She handed it to Aletheia, who was at once surprised by the responsibility, annoyed for being singled out, and then appeared grateful for having something to do. She accepted the burden silently.

Eris was glad to be rid of it. She would need both her hands free in an emergency. If they were going to drag a child along, carrying their light was at least some fitting role for her to play.

Presently they reached another door, but, as described, this one bore no runes. It appeared off its invisible ‘track;’ Rook pulled it with Guinevere’s help and it budged, sliding into the wall.

There the tunnel ended, and the smell became so much worse, and the noise was like the torture chamber of a mad king.

It was another cavern. How Eris found herself in caves so often she could not say. This one, at least, was dry and warm, but its virtues ended there. From some distance off echoed the screams and shouts of beasts in a language no human could ever possibly learn to speak, punctuated by the shrieks of something much closer to human.

A pathway led straight. Rook broke into a run. Following after, and bending around a rock wall, they saw a burning fire, and came to a sudden precipice: below them, a sharp drop twenty feet down, where a number of cages crowded around crude oven. A pit. A wooden bridge ran along its edge, stretching around in a shallow decline and leading all the way to its bottom.

The cages were not empty. Another four bugbears tended to their prisoners, and butchered a carcass atop a small table.

A door behind them flew open, followed by the roar:

“HYOOMUNS!”

Eris turned, but too late. She had been too distracted by the pit to notice—to think to look—that behind them, on their path, was another door, and from it now emerged five bugbears, armed and armored, their leader holding a long dwarven sword of immaculate quality—

One held a crossbow. He leveled it at Eris. There was only enough time to see his hideous face contort into a smile as he pulled the trigger.

The bolt hit her straight in the heart.

Her wrist snapped backward.

The jade ward, worn for so many months, since their first outing to the Spire in Spring, shattered. Shards of shrapnel flew into her skirt and chest, but the bolt was deflected away—even as her arm was twisted, broken, and she was sent flying off the precipice and down into the pit.

For all the thoughts Eris anticipated when meeting her death in some pointless way, in some forsaken place, she had not expected I should have worn the ward on my left hand to be one. Yet that was all she could think, for the first five, six, and seven feet. It seemed so obvious now as she flailed with her right arm to cast her levitation and found she had no control over herself at all, no ability to manipulate her hand or fingers. Gestures were not required to use magic, but they helped focus the mind and channel mana, and so as she, in the worst pain she ever experienced, took the weight and velocity of her fall upon her Essence to cushion herself, it was no surprise that the result was anemic. She saw a flash of green, then she hit the ground.

When she awakened she took a sharp breath—and inhaled filth. Putrid bile and wretched, disgusting, excreta. She landed in a pool of something sick. It coated her arms and legs and hair and she preferred death to the taste in her mouth, which she could only heave and vomit to rid herself of.

The wind was knocked out of her, but that seemed like nothing now.

A boot hit her face and sent her back into the pool.

She choked on slime.

A hand grabbed her by the ankles and dragged her back out. There, looking down at her, was a bugbear. His mouth opened. Words that weren’t words issued forth. Two more bugbears appeared beside him, and they grabbed her arms and heaved her up to standing. They pulled her toward an open cage, far too small for a woman her size—

Of all the things to do to a mage, allowing her to grow furious was the worst. When fury festered unchecked then her care for the things around her, and herself, faded, and only the vaporization of her irritants seemed to matter. Now Eris was far past such a point. She was not thinking of herself, or the damage spellsickness might inflict. She was fueled by rage.

The bugbear at her right arm stopped. He looked down, then cried out in a guttural yelp of pain, yet when he went to withdraw his fingers, they were frozen—stuck to her skin, impossible to pull away. Then, in an instant, the frost turned to fire, and his hand went up in green flame. Eris pushed him away; she felt her bones twist in her arm at the attempt, but with a breath of mana he stumbled back. She sustained the fire with her own energy. It wouldn’t burn out until he was dead.

The other bugbear reached for a dagger at his belt. She caught his hand with her mind and turned it back on him. The blade inched toward his neck: he let her free, then fought his own hand with the other, stumbling backward. For seconds he held himself captive with the point at his throat, but Eris let him free. With her good hand she reached down beneath him. Then, as if pulling up a weight, she brought forth a pillar of magma. A puff of smoke filled the air. The bugbear was incinerated.

Eris stumbled backward.

Two more were left. One had remained far off; now he ran, up the scaffolding, out of the pit, away from her and toward whatever melee raged with her companions overhead. But the other, their leader—he still faced her down. He roared, and he grabbed a cleaver off the nearby table, and he ran at her with the blade raised.

She braced. She caught him, but it sent her stumbling back again, into the cage. But her grip tightened. She fastened her mind around his shoulders. Then she grabbed him by the legs. Pushing him away. Overcoming his strength. He yelled, but it was no use: she pulled, with all her strength left, and pulled, and pulled—

Until his spine snapped. He split in two. The noise his intestines made in exodus from his body was like the dropping of stones down a quarry. Eris held both segments in the air—then she spotted the fleeing companion.

She pelted one half at him, then the other. The first knocked him to his feet. The second knocked him from the scaffolding. He plummeted, just like she had, and landed on a cage. He smashed clean through its roof, then rolled into a pile of filth.

Eris grinned. She stepped forward. This was power. A battlemage could route armies alone. This was why the Magisters were worshipped as gods. She counted herself among their number. Power unimaginable. She could level cities with the snapping of her fingers. She was a god. Rook and Zydnus would be lucky if they could do so much as grovel at her feet—

And at that thought, she collapsed to the ground unconscious.