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Commotion near the side gates drew my gaze.

“Dammit.” My palm went to the blade sheathed across my lower back, preparing to throw it and begin a new battle.

Two of Destin’s men crowded around Gwyn. One gripped her neck, chanting hurried spell work. Gwyn winced, desperate to keep her transfigured features, but the guard was swiftly impeding her magic with his own.

I stepped from the darkness, dagger in hand, and with the other I awaited the burn in my palm, the call to the fibers and marrow of their bones.

Like a spindle of unwoven threads, I could feel the connection, the pull to find the imperfections, the smallest fissure, then split it until their bodies was snapped in two. My magic worked like a glowing map in my mind. When it tethered to bone, it painted it in flashes of gold and green and crimson, the latter being where the surest points of weakness awaited.

Bulbs of blood red flashed over the knee of the guard who held Gwyn. I clenched my fist. His cries when he buckled under a shattered knee were a sweet delight. I gripped the dagger in hand and rushed at the second.

My smaller blade crashed against the longer Kappi sword. The slice of steel cut through the night and summoned the screams. Where it was light chaos before, now it was madness. Children, seers, High Mages, the lot of them scattered, seeking refuge indoors.

More Kappi forces spilled into the streets. Another strike, another jab. I spun away from the guard, aiming my blade point down.

“Gwyn! Go,” I shouted.

She opened her mouth to protest.

“Go, now! Find her and go!”

Gwyn’s brow pinched, but she ducked around the mound and disappeared.

The sharp burn of longing split down my chest. It was a matter of time before I was surrounded, before I’d be held captive by animposter. There was no telling what he would do with me. But Adira was needed more than me. She was the curse breaker, the prophesied protector of Magiaria.

What happened to me mattered little.

The only regret I held was having so little time now that we’d found each other again.

“Prince Kage, I know it is you,” the guard said, rolling his blade in his hand.

I chuckled and allowed my features to shift back into place, reveling a bit when the Kappi grimaced at the sight. “I warn you to step down. Do you truly want to stand against me, Jorgan? Your talents lie with herbs. Shall you blow some blinding powders in my face before I snap your neck?”

“There is no need for unnecessary bloodshed,” young, inexperienced Jorgan said with a tremble to his voice. “Come quietly.”

I pointed the tip of the dagger at the fallen guard who no longer had kneecaps. “Too late, I’m afraid.”

I slashed the point of my dagger across his leather gambeson. With a curse, Jorgan cut at my middle, slicing through my cloak and jerkin. Deeper than I thought, and soon hot blood fountained over my belt.

I stepped back, then lifted my glare, embracing the burn ofdimmuras the Soturi lust for battle took hold.

Jorgan blew out his nerves and rolled his fingers tighter on his hilt. “Do not stand against your people, Kagesh.”

“I’ve no plans to.”

The guard readied his sword, and I my dagger.

Jorgan lunged. I raised the blade overhead, ready to guard, and summoned a fracture spell in the same breath. Constant, clean breaks were one of the first spells taught to me as a young bone mage, and they’d serve well enough.

Until the young Kappi coughed. He fumbled two paces away, blood splattering over his lips in thick waves. His sword clattered to the cobblestones. Thin streams of pus and watery blood dripped from the corners of his eyes, his ears, one side of his nose.

For a few breaths he rocked on his feet, then fell face first on the road. Dead.

A flash of sunlight hair broke the darkness. Adira shot out from where she’d been lurking in an empty doorway.

“Hurry!” She clung to my arm, tugging me toward the door.

I glanced down at Jorgan. “I warned you,” slipped out in a whisper and I raised my frustration to Adira. “You were supposed to be gone.”