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Theon appeared beside her as she planted her feet onto the wet floor. He turned to her and nodded, confirming Akane was hidden safely in the basement.

He held out his hand for her to grab onto. “If he dies for this, I will never forgive you, Lady Naia.”

Naia quickly worked on a pair of leggings Ronin had specifically folded next to her bedside, ignoring the slick, sticky feel of her blood against the material.

She took hold of Theon. “I don’t think I will forgive myself.”

The floor beneath her feet melted away and drenched grass took its place. Theon let go of her. A rush of metallic invaded Naia’s nostrils.

The Kahale’s backyard had transformed into a battlefield, with mud and water rapidly overtaking the area. The clouds thrashed with thunder as fat raindrops beat down on the tops of Naia’s shoulders. In a matter of seconds, her hair was drenched, but Ronin’s briars remained intact. A thick, crimson overgrowth consumed the yard’s clearing. Jagged vines arched over their heads, pulsing like a chamber of a heart. She sensed the magic sustaining their form against the rain.

“You cannot win against me, Mr. Kahale.” Cassian made no effort to fight back, and this only seemed to inflame Ronin’s patience.

Cassian’s fighting was the epitome of elegance. A dance seamlessly spun with Ash tucked between his arm and the pocket of his blazer. A step this way and that, with graceful timing and a terrifying calm as he dodged Ronin’s attacks.

At the sight of Ash in Cassian’s possession, Naia’s fingernails bit into her palms to control the quivering of her arms.

“I don’t fucking care about winning or losing!” In a sharp motion, Ronin’s arm lifted in the air. Two blood briars slashed across the damp earth, their needle-like ends glinting under the gray sky. “Give me back my child!”

Through the distance, she made out a sliver of scarlet sap unfurling from the syringe held in Ronin’s secure grip—so tiny, the raindrops couldn’t touch it.

Just one drop.

Ronin needed an opportunity, and Naia was going to create it for him.

She pushed off her feet. With her fist drawn, she reared her elbow back. Her knuckles met the soggy, solid earth, and water splashed into her eyes. Fissures cracked like an egg’s shell across the soil beneath Cassian’s feet.

He did not lose his balance and disappeared again, cloaking Ash with his power of invisibility.

Naia’s throat constricted at the sight of her child vanishing.

Cassian reappeared a few yards away to her right. With ease, he casually bent his neck to miss the flying ice spears coming for his face.

Theon stepped up in front of Ronin and spread his arms wide. The rain falling from the sky halted mid-air and hung like suspended jewels, and solidified in an audible crunch, glimmering as they sharply spun and sailed for Cassian.

Naia caught the tail end of the High God’s smirk before he went invisible again.

Theon snapped his arms down, and, like the pull of a string, the ice shards dove between where he assumed Cassian to be. Naia wanted to dispute for the sake of Ash’s safety, but she trusted Theon not to hurt their child.

Cassian flickered back into sight, protected by a thick, black, wispy shield of fog. This was not the night nor shadows at his command, but blackness itself devouring the ice shards whole.

A powerful gust of wind plunged into Naia. She planted her heels firmly in the wet soil, using her core muscles to stay upright. Ronin staggered backwards from it, his fingers curling to steady the blood briars weaved all around them.

“This is pointless, Little Goddess,” Cassian hummed. “Look around you. Do you not see what is happening?”

Naia could no longer disregard the ominous, turbulent clouds forming above them.

“Ronin!” she shouted, pointing towards the sea.

Ronin followed her gaze in the distance, where the silhouette of a tsunami emerged from behind the heavy sheet of the typhoon, heading straight for the island.

He cursed under his breath, lifting a hand towards the sky and began chanting an incantation in a language she did not understand. The sky lit up with a brilliant burst of white light, enclosing a thin veil stretching from the treetops to the shoreline.

Naia took off running. She snatched the syringe from Ronin’s hand, and lunged for Cassian.

Dodging her, he fluidly sidestepped to evade the needle.

She swung again and again. With each attempt, he stealthily maneuvered her with precise and quick speed. She didn’t dare let herself look at her child in his arms, or back at the tumultuous wall of water about to consume her father’s island.