“I had wondered,” the woman said, tone stern, “if you would come.”

Tibs gasped and his hand reached for his breast, then stopped so he wouldn’t cut himself on the sword that was…

He wasn’t dead.

How could he not be dead? The sword had skewered him. Right through his heart. He looked down, and there wasn’t even a rip in his shirt.

“It did not,” she said in a definitive tone. “You would not be here otherwise.”

He looked around, and the space registered clearer than the speaker. Large and gray, the walls covered in sharp angles. He forced his gaze on her and why it was difficult was due to her being the same gray as the walls. Her curves were much sharper than on the women he’d seen before, but there was something familiar about her.

He glanced at the wall he rested against, and it too looked ready to cut him to ribbons. He’d move away if he could see one place on the floor that looked any safer.

His gaze snapped to her. “Metal. You’re Metal.” He frowned. “How am I here? How can I have an audience? It’s supposed to happen somewhere close to the element and I’m supposed to feel a lot.”

She tapped his chest, cutting the shirt and his flesh in the process. “I cannot think of being closer to the living than against that which keeps them living. Any closer and the living would have ended you far too early for you to be ready.”

It had been so quick he hadn’t realized how he’d felt in the moment, but thinking back, the idea he’d died had shattered the ice and he’d been enraged that he wouldn’t be able to make the guild pay. That Carina would go unavenged.

Tibs was on his knees, that pain barely noticeable compared to his emotions. When the scream ended, his throat was raw. He reached for Water. He needed the ice to silence the anger, the recriminations, the guild, the pain. He needed to be numb before the pain ripped him apart.

Where was Water? How could he have lost his element?

“This is me,” she stated. “My brethren hold no dominion here. Now, stop whimpering, Thing of Humans. You are supposed to be special. Show me.”

He glared at her. Whimpering? His life had been ripped to shred, and she accused him of whimpering. He was going to show her pain. He reached for Fire and…found nothing. It didn’t matter. The inferno inside him didn’t need Fire to explode.

He launched himself at her, ignoring the pain slicing his feet.

“Stop.” The order had no emotion behind it, but Tibs found he’d stopped, held in place by points of metal pressing over him, piercing his clothing, but not his flesh. “Is this what you are? A thing driven by its feelings? A thing without control? Do you bend under the lightest weight put on you? Are you nothing without us?”

Tibs tried to glare at her, but she walked out of his view and if he turned his head to follow her, points dug into him. A reminder of the damage they could do to him.

That he could cause to himself.

She hadn’t hurt him. She wasn’t who had attacked him. She wasn’t even the reason he was here, if Tibs understood how Audiences worked. The situation had caused it to happen. This pain the metal caused him was of his doing, not hers.

He slowed his breathing, forced it to slow. He pushed his anger aside. The pain of Carina death, the guilt at not saving her, his desire for revenge. He needed to be here. He needed to be now.

Anger clawed at him without Water to cool it; made thinking of then and later easier. Why did now matter when all there was in it was pain? The reasons came before, and his actions later. All he could do was endure the now, and focusing on before and after made that easier.

His anger wanted her to pay for forcing him to think about now. About the pain he was in. It wanted him to lash out against this element and to the abyss with the consequences.

But, Tibs reminded himself between breath, he wasn’t his anger, as all engulfing as it was. It wasn’t him. He wasn’t the pain he felt, the vengeance he needed.

He was simply himself.

He let out another breath as she walked before him again, and he remembered what he had to do, since he was here. He couldn’t see the shadow among the angles and sharp edges of her body, so he looked around as much as the metal points holding him in place let him. Everything was Metal, not only the person walking around him. That was so he had someone to interact with.

He didn’t see the shadow in the walls or the space between him and them either.

He studied her again as she walked before him. The edges that made her body glinted as if light shone on them, reminding him of Tirania’s crystal eyes.

And he knew who Metal reminded him of.

Anger flared at thought of the guild leader, but he forced it down. The rules she only bent to serve her didn’t matter here. She didn’t. This wasn’t a time for what he’d do to her. How he’d use her to bring her leader to Kragle Rock. That was for after; once he was back.

Fear replaced anger as he remembered what awaited him outside, and he pushed that down too. Something else for later.

“Why do you look like her?” he asked when she was before him again, and she paused. She could be naked, he realized, or clothed. All the edges that made up the body made it impossible to tell.

“Like who?”

“Tirania.” With her being still, the glints settled, creating areas of shadows among the light that—

“Who is she?”

“She’s a bitch,” he replied before he could stop himself, and had to fight the anger again. “She’s in charge of the guild here. She’s the reason Sebastian was able to destroy most of the town, twice. She keeps lying about there being reasons for why she does what she does.”

“But what is she?”

He frowned and points pierced him, the pain an annoyance and the question… Did Metal mean which element? She couldn’t. The elements knew of each other, but they didn’t express interest in who wielded them. Who Tirania was as a person? How she acted?

“She’s harsh,” he tried. “She doesn’t compromise, even when she acts like she will. All she cares about is what she wants.”

Metal nodded. “That is why you see me as this.”

The pain in his temple stopped the head shake. “You made yourself look like her.”

“You make me out of what is here—” she motioned around them “—and here.” She tapped his forehead and Tibs shoved that pain away with the rest.

He snorted. “If I made you, you’d be soft shapes.” And what he needed would be easy to find, even with her distracting questions.

“I am not made for softness. And you cannot make us what we are not. That will never be something you can do.”

He focused on the play of lights and shadows. The shadow was what he needed, and they were only on her. Even still, the light glinted, creating shadows. None of the glinting on the walls and floor and the air caused them there.

Was it hiding among one of them? Was it all of them? Did he have to grab the right one, or would any do? And how could he reach them when he was unable to move?

No, that was untrue. He could move; if he was willing to endure the pain.

What he saw, being able to only move his eyes, showed him enough to know that if he pushed against them, the points would cause more than pain. They’d cut his body apart. Just as when he’d tried to get the shadow out of Purity, there would be nothing left of him.

Except that there had been.

This wasn’t outside. The world of what was real to him. Here, his body didn’t act the same as there. He reached for his essence and again found nothing.

No, there was something there. His essence was there, and in it were mixed Earth and Fire, but little of them. How were they there, if all there was here was her? Metal? She’d said none of the others could be here. Was she allowing those three elements in? Was it happening without her knowing about it? If so, was this something he could use to his advantage?

Maybe if he was more advanced in his studied of etching, he could think of a way.

He could suffuse himself. Earth made him more resistant to damage and the pain it caused, but could it keep him from being ripped apart? Even entirely stone, Jackal’s body cracked when one of Sto’s creature hit him hard enough.

Fire then? He could—

No. Not fire. His emotions were already sufficiently out of control.

His essence? Did it do anything? It was already coursing throughout his body. It was what changed when he suffused himself.

He had no other way.

A slight motion of his arm, and pain lanced through as the points pressed in and others sliced. He forced himself not to think of what his sliced flesh would look like and pushed again, and stopped as the pain increase. As impossible as it should be, this was more painful than pushing through Purity.

He watched her watching him, no hints of emotions on the angles of her face. He searched the shadows while readying himself.

How long could he take? Was he bleeding out? out there, where time passed? Jackal had been worried about how long his audience with Earth took. Time had passed when he was with Fire, but had it been the same? Was time always the same when he was with an Element?

If Sto didn’t understand time, and he existed in the same place as Tibs. What was it to the elements, who existed outside of that place?

But it meant something to Tibs, and he couldn’t shake the feeling he was running low.

With a scream, determination and pain, he pushed through the points, reached for a shadow, then was free and tumbling into her, through her, being cut apart until there—

The shadow melded into him.

His reserve expanded, making space for Metal among the others.

“Good,” she said in that same neutral tone, and he turned as he fell. Through her, he saw the remnant of a body held in place by thin spikes. He opened his mouth to ask—

* * * * *

He screamed as he opened his eyes onto a man’s terrified face. He felt the pressure against his neck and Tibs reacted. Pulled essence to his hand, made a blade and thrust it through the man’s chest. He grabbed the collar and pulled, then saw the metal out of the man’s back as he felt blood pour over him.

He shoved him aside, glaring, not caring if it was his assassin or some passing townsfolk who thought he could rummage through his pocket or had been attempting to help. Someone had tried to kill him and someone had to pay.

Everyone had to pay until he had the culprit. If he had to burn the whole of the town to make that happen, so be it. He would show them what came of any who sought to hide his killer.

Fire coated his hand, and pain bloomed.

They it was gone, and he was filling himself with water, forcing it into ice before his anger could find purchase. Then he was on a knee, his anger no longer masking his physical pain. Of course, he was in pain. He’d ripped himself apart to reach her and the shadow.

He frowned. This wasn’t the pain of his entire body being pierced. The pain was only in one place. His hand came away bloody from his chest.

The stabbing came to him; the sword appearing under the arm pulling him.

He dropped to his knees and finally noticed his essence pouring out of him through the wound.

He suffused himself with Purity, and it stopped. The pain went away. He could breathe without feeling his inside being torn. He stood again. Now, he only had one job to do.

Someone was going to pay.

The body was that of a man dressed like any of the townsfolk. Maybe he had been trying to help.

Something had pressed against Tibs’s neck, and next to where he’d laid was a sword covered in blood. His blood. He touched his neck. The pain was gone. Had his killer been about to cut his head off? Wasn’t that how killers went about proving they had committed the act?

So his killer was dead.

The work was done.

Only there were more out there, here to kill him, to destroy his town. They had to be dealt with, too. It had to be final and decisive. This had to show any who came the folly of going up against him. Against Tibs of Kragle Rock.

He let go of purity and reached for—

The pain started even before fire manifested and Tibs shoved it away in favor of water. He filled himself with it, cooled it even as his anger tried to make it steam. Water could kill just as much as fire. It didn’t even have to be hot. Cold. Cold had killed Sebastian, taking pieces of him out slowly, let the man scream in such a delightful way.

Water wasn’t only about soothing, it could fill a man’s lungs, take away the air. He could cover a town, even a city, with it and no one would ever dare threaten him and his again. He could easily—

On his knees, panting, the ice finally crackled through an over him.

Too hard.

This had been too hard. Fire wanted too much. And part of Tibs was more than willing to feed it. He would be better without Fire. Without a threat to his control. If he could think of a way to reject it, he would.

He stood.

But things were as they were, and he wasted time wishing for them to be different. He had survived his assassination and gained an element in the process. That was what mattered.

He turned to the body. There was nothing special about the man. He might not even be the one who had stabbed him. Tibs had no way to know. Other than the sword where his neck had been to indicate what the man had been in the process of doing, this could be anyone, even someone living in Kragle Rock.

And if they were? If Tibs had killed one of the townsfolk?

It was too late to do anything about it.

He searched the body and came away with nothing. Not even coppers. So probably not one of the townsfolk.

Sound from the end of the alley drew his attention.

There had been a commotion, the crowd had reacted, Tibs had…been stabbed. Had the man arranged it or simply taken advantage? It was still going on. He could go, stop it. Get answer from those involved.

He stepped in his blood as he moved and stopped.

He was covered in blood. That didn’t bother him, but it would draw attention. Lead to questions. Questions that might clue the guild in on Tibs’s multiple element.

He sensed the new reserve.

He had to make time to practice suffusing himself with it to gain control, and that would…

Mean letting go of Water.

He frowned. How much damage could Metal do? He looked at the body as he touched his chest through the hole in his shirt. Too much.

And that was without considering how quickly Fire would take advantage and roar to the surface.

He couldn’t chance that.

He headed deeper into the alley, looking for a way to the roofs.

What Tibs could do was ask someone how it was he’d had the audience with Metal.