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“Now!” shouted Virelle, even as she spun to the line of supes on our right. Dark tendrils of aether shot from her hands, wrapping around four throats and crushing them before they could react. But shields sprang up from the others, fast enough to deflect her spell.

All across the room, supes were pulling weapons and manifesting their shields.

Virelle’s own was a darker black than Kara’s, and Dacien’s was tinged with red.

Moreau’s nimbus was grey and gold, giving a hint of his greed-based magic.

All three of them had eyes glowing a deep, demonic red, and horns like Kara’s, adding armor to protect their heads.

I drew my dagger but pulled solely from Kara to create my shield, reluctant to show my true Aetherborn nature. She’d dropped her glamour, her tail and horns manifesting as her skin tinted a shade darker. Iyoni shimmered in white.

And then the left wall exploded inward in a roar of shattering concrete.

Breeze-block debris flew into the room, a few pieces glancing off the shields of Moreau’s men. They’d been far enough back to avoid real injury, but dust and splinters rained down in the blast’s wake.

A dozen of Virelle’s guards rushed through the hole they’d made, and spells began to fire as they targeted the enemies before them, who turned to defend themselves.

It had been mere seconds since Moreau’s command and Virelle’s shouted response, and he was still watching me, waiting for me to attack Dacien.

His strongest guards were ringing him. There was no easy way to reach him.

Marietta Kye had manifested wickedly curved shadow blades in each hand, a gleam of anticipation in her eyes, and a chilling smile. But she didn’t move either, waiting for Moreau’s command.

Unable to reach Moreau, I sprang at Dacien, dagger before me in what was very obviously a telegraphed lunge. I didn’t intend to hurt him, and assumed he wouldn’t just stand there and let it hit. Would it break our covenant if he did?

But I didn’t need to worry. Dacien deflected it easily, demonstrating some martial proficiency as he used the momentum of my attack to spin me around, shoving me off-balance toward the closest of Moreau’s personal guard.

Thanks for the help.

“Pathetic,” Moreau scoffed. “You’re weak, warlock, and I’d hoped for so much more.” He took a pace back, his next words a shout. “Kill them all!”

That was well timed. I caught my balance on the shoulder of the man who’d reached out to help me, thinking I was on his side, and Moreau’s words arrived about the same time as my dagger.

He gasped as it penetrated both his shield and chest, driven by my strength and aided by the shadow aether on the blade.

He slumped against me, held up by my weapon.

And all hell broke loose.

Magical attacks shot across the room in searing colors of ice blue, fiery orange, light, and shadows. I ducked instinctively, a spell bursting on my shield but failing to penetrate. Another struck the body of the man pinioned by my dagger, and he barely twitched, already dead from my strike.

Dacien leaped for Moreau, his hands turning into claws that sent off sparks of aether with each strike on Moreau’s shield.

Kara’s whip cracked out, looping around the neck of the guard nearest me even as he turned to attack.

He choked, fingers scrabbling at the shadows at his throat.

I pulled my dagger from the chest of the man I held, shoved his body toward Marietta Kye, and spun, burying my dagger in the chest of the man Kara had distracted.

Marietta moved faster than I expected, one of her swords slashing against Dacien’s unguarded back, half-stopped by his shield but still drawing a gasp from him. He spun away from Moreau, back arching in pain.

But the assassin hadn’t stopped there. She leaped the lifeless man I’d pushed her way, both swords descending in a strike toward my head.

Instinctively, I reached for Iyoni’s bond to strengthen my shield, her white celestial aether blending with Kara’s black demonic nimbus. My shield jumped in power, the marbling effect distinctive as both parts merged seamlessly.

But her blades never hit. Iyoni was there, parrying with her sword of light.

She moved fast too, pushing away one of Marietta’s blades and turning the move into a strike of her own.

A jet of light shot from her other hand, and I felt a momentary twinge of jealousy at the control and ease with which she fired it.

Marietta parried her strike and twisted away, Iyoni’s magical attack deflecting off the edge of her shield. She bared her teeth, recognizing a challenge worthy of her attention, and came in with a flurry of blows.

Somewhere behind me, Virelle was fighting off three of Moreau’s guards, taking steady paces back beneath their onslaught, but still getting in her own attacks with a vicious-looking black steel sword she’d pulled from God-knows where.

One of her guards was already down, the other trying to reach Virelle as he was attacked from two sides by the greater numbers we faced. He fell a moment later, a sword piercing his side.

To the left side of the room, Virelle’s men engaged that half of Moreau’s forces, but I didn’t spare a glance their way.

Instead, I activated Farron’s ring, summoning the buckler, and launched myself at Moreau.

But his third and final guard intercepted me, half-shifted into a were-hybrid form, arms lengthening and terminating in razor-sharp claws, his face stretching grotesquely to accommodate a snout with rows of inch-long teeth.

One hand grabbed my wrist, holding my dagger out of the way, his claws biting into my skin.

He tried to grapple me, his shield pressing into mine, causing aether to shard off into the air around us.

His jaw opened wide, aiming for where my neck met my shoulder, and I didn’t wait to see if he could get through my shield.

My arm was outside the press of our bodies, the buckler too large to squeeze between, but I thumbed the ring, deactivating it, and shoved my hand into his throat.

Then I hit the ring again.

The buckler reappeared, manifesting in the same space he occupied, and I wasn’t sure what would happen. But he reeled back with a roar of pain, a gash on his face and neck where the edge of the aether disc had cut him.

Kara was there an instant later, shoulder-barging him away, following up with her whip.

Iyoni had Marietta engaged, both of them exchanging blows too fast for me to follow.

I left them both to it, trusting they could handle themselves, and ran for Moreau.

He was fighting Dacien, and Kara’s father was clearly struggling against the more powerful demon, and hampered with the injury Marietta had inflicted.

He was on the defensive as Moreau attacked with a glimmering black short sword in one hand, a medieval-looking sai in the other—three pronged, the center one longer than the others.

Moreau was fast. In the time it took me to cross the half-dozen steps to him, he’d landed a flurry of blows on Dacien, who barely blocked with his clawed hands.

Moreau’s sai glanced off Dacien’s next desperate attempt to parry, penetrating his shield and piercing his shoulder.

Kara’s father cried out in pain as Moreau reversed his grip on his short sword, ready to slice it across his nemesis’ throat.

I borrowed from Kara’s technique, leading with my shoulder, crashing into Moreau’s side enough to deflect the blow. Partly, anyway—it still sliced open Dacien’s cheek as he jerked his head back, ever so close to losing an eye.

Moreau hardly missed a beat. With a single step, he regained his balance, spinning around toward me. His eyes widened as he noticed my black-and-white marbled shield. “Kill the warlock’s bonded!” he screamed, even as both blades flashed out.

Oh, hell no he didn’t go there. Where was Kara? Was Iyoni defenseless?

I couldn’t afford to look, barely catching his sword on my buckler, more by luck than design.

Trusting to my heightened speed, I slashed at him, but he was faster still.

He parried with his sai, trapping my dagger in its prongs.

With a twist of his wrist, the weapon was torn from my grasp to go skittering across the concrete floor.

He didn’t hesitate in following up, both blades working together as I danced backwards. I’d have been dead in that moment if it weren’t for my increased speed and the buckler held before me.

Moreau had decades of combat experience on me, while I’d been betting on my dagger and the element of surprise—and I’d lost both of them.

Kara’s whip snaked out, catching Moreau’s arm. He turned, cutting through the shadows with his sword.

Then Iyoni was there, her blade slashing down on Moreau’s head.

He twisted with impressive agility, his sword rising to meet her blow, light meeting dark. Sparks of aether rained down from the strike, making Moreau’s shield flicker where they struck.

But Iyoni’s gambit had opened her to Marietta. The assassin struck, her blade only slowed by Iyoni’s shield, stabbing through and into her back.

“No!” The cry was ripped from my throat, grief laced with anger, and without thinking I launched myself at Marietta, buckler held like a battering ram.

It knocked her staggering, and I was on her in an instant, fists pummeling into her with all the strength and speed I had.

A blow to the head, another to her chest. Stunned, she tried to raise a blade between us, but I batted it away with the buckler and attacked again as fast as I could.

I was leaving myself wide open, but there was no way I could match her skill.

My only chance was to hammer her into submission before she could recover.