Kallus didn't waste any more time.
They were fighting the creature inside her own territory, surrounded by her blood threads and mist. The longer they stayed inside the temple, the more the advantage shifted in her favor.
He grunted and slammed his trident into the ground.
"Logos Kymata—Truth of the Wave."
A roar thundered through the temple.
The ground trembled beneath them.
Then streams of liquid Aether erupted from the point where Kallus's trident had struck. They rose around him like walls of glassy water before surging outward.
Ithan barely had time to understand what was happening.
The waves swallowed the chamber.
But they didn't move randomly.
Kallus stood at their center, both hands gripping his trident as he exerted his influence over the rushing Aether. The currents bent around his teammates, catching them and carrying them toward the entrance without dragging them beneath the waves.
Lysandra received no such protection.
Every wave converged on her.
The first slammed into her hard enough to send her flying.
The second caught her before she could recover.
Then came another.
And another.
There was a rhythm to them.
Each wave struck with crushing force, the oscillating pressure passing through flesh and hammering into bone. Lysandra felt ribs crack. Her shoulder broke. Something inside her ruptured.
The relentless impacts overwhelmed even her senses.
Then everything went black.
When Lysandra regained consciousness, she was lying outside.
For a few seconds, she didn't move.
Her body had already begun repairing itself, broken bones shifting back into place as she forced herself onto her hands and knees.
Then she looked up.
Her temple—
The sanctuary of her patron god—
had been desecrated.
Stone had been ripped apart. Ancient walls had cracked beneath the force of Kallus's waves, and pieces of mosaics that had survived thousands of years now lay scattered across the grove.
Something inside Lysandra snapped.
Rage flooded through her.
She pushed herself to her feet—
And Ithan was already there.
His spear shot toward her chest.
Lysandra didn't move.
The mist did.
Every trace of mist around her suddenly turned crimson.
It rushed inward, condensing around her body just as Ithan's spear struck. The weapon slammed into the hardened mist and stopped inches from her chest.
Ithan's eyes narrowed.
The crimson barrier suddenly broke apart.
Not because he'd pierced it.
Because Lysandra had changed it.
The mist separated into hundreds of tiny needles. Blood suspended within them hardened their forms, turning each one into a solid projectile.
Lysandra's furious eyes met his.
Then she flicked her hand.
The needles fired.
Ithan found himself staring at a wall of crimson death.
But Benji was already moving.
The shield that he was, he shoved Ithan aside and stepped into the path of the attack.
The crimson needles struck him all at once.
Most shattered against his hardened skin. Others bounced away harmlessly, scattering across the ground.
Lysandra didn't stop there.
She turned and grabbed hold of a tree that had been torn from the ground by Kallus's waves. Her claws sank deep into the trunk, and with a display of inhuman strength, she lifted the entire thing as though it were nothing more than a stick.
Even the Red Jaguars hesitated at the sight.
Only for a moment.
Lysandra swung.
The tree tore through the air with enough force to make it howl.
Benji planted his feet and raised his left arm.
The trunk slammed into him.
It snapped.
The upper half went spinning through the air, crashing through several smaller trees before disappearing into the grove.
Benji remained standing.
And Ithan was already moving.
He landed on the remaining half of the tree still clutched in Lysandra's hands and ran along its length toward her.
Golden-white flames gathered around his spear.
Lysandra's eyes widened.
She released the tree and jumped—
Two arrows struck her in midair.
One buried itself in her chest, directly where her heart should have been.
The other punched through her head.
The force sent her flying backward until she landed on the roof of the ruined temple.
For a moment, she didn't move.
Then her hand reached up.
She pulled the arrow from her head.
Then the one from her heart.
Blood poured from both wounds, only to slow as flesh began knitting itself back together. Within seconds, the holes were already closing.
She wasn't dead.
Not even close.
Lysandra stared down at the Mystiques below.
Their teamwork was excellent.
Annoyingly so.
Every time she focused on one of them, another attacked. Every opening she tried to exploit was covered by someone else. The large one acted as their shield. The archers kept pressure on her from a distance. The one with the trident controlled the battlefield.
And then there was Ithan.
One mistake.
That was all it would take for those golden-white flames to touch her properly.
She couldn't allow that.
"Logos Haímatos Nēmata."
The blood beneath Lysandra's skin darkened.
Thin red lines rose along her fingers, stretching outward as though she were testing the tension of invisible strings.
Then the ground began to move.
Ithan heard something beneath them.
A hand burst through the soil.
Then another.
Bodies clawed their way out of the earth all around the grove.
Some still wore merchant robes. Others were dressed in the battered uniforms of mercenaries and soldiers. Most were merchants, their clothing stained with dirt and dried blood.
The missing travelers.
The missing caravans.
There were at least a dozen of them.
And every corpse had thin threads of blood attached to it.
Lysandra moved her fingers.
The dead moved with them.
Ithan tightened his grip on his spear as the corpses rushed toward the squad.
Now he understood what she was doing.
She couldn't fight all of them at once.
So she wouldn't.
The corpses forced the others apart as Kallus shouted orders and the squad broke formation to deal with them.
Lysandra's eyes never left Ithan.
That had been her plan from the beginning.
Separate him from the others.
And now she had him.
She landed beside him, crimson mist gathering around her arms.
Ithan stared at it.
That display of raw elemental power...
He had seen something like it before.
"You're a Vrykolax, aren't you?" Ithan said.
Vrykolax. Monsters that wore human faces. Creatures of the night, sometimes called night devils because most couldn't walk beneath the sun. They were immortal beings, and some were said to have survived since the Age of Heroes.
Lysandra tilted her head.
"Hmm. So you know what I am."
"I've had my share of encounters with your kind once or twice before." Ithan leveled his spear at her. "So tell me. What does Archon Damarchos want?"
"Who?"
"No need to pretend you don't know who I'm talking about." Ithan glanced toward the ruined temple. "This temple belongs to Dionysus. God of wine, madness, and frenzy. He also happens to be the patron god of the Vrykolax and the Dionians."
His eyes returned to the crimson mist curling around her body.
"And that mist of yours is an Aspect belonging to the Mystery of Dionysus, isn't it? Did Damarchos share his power with you?"
A smile slowly spread across Lysandra's face.
"You sure are knowledgeable, aren't you, Torchbearer?"
Ithan's expression hardened.
"And that name. Torchbearer." His fingers tightened around his spear. "There was only one man who ever called me that."
The flames along his weapon flickered.
"Tell me, creature. What are you doing here?"
Lysandra's smile disappeared.
"My name is Lysandra Vareia, servant of Archon Damarchos, leader of the Dionian Confederation." She studied him for a moment. "The Archon told you five years ago, didn't he? That he would keep an eye on you, Ashborn. And that, in time, he would come for you."
Her crimson mist drifted lazily around her.
"Stories of the Ashborn have reached us even within the Dionian Forest."
"So he sent you to watch me?" Ithan asked. "And you decided to attack helpless people along the way?"
"How else was I supposed to make you leave that iron-walled city you Imperium folk love hiding behind?"
Ithan went still.
"So I was your target the entire time."
"Everyone in the Iron March has heard about the Ashborn mercenary who hunts monsters along the frontier." Lysandra spread her arms. "What better way to draw you out than the prospect of human lives being taken by monsters in the woods?"
Ithan gritted his teeth.
His knuckles whitened around his spear.
Golden-white flames crawled along the shaft, gathering around the spearhead until they extended beyond the blade itself.
"Logos Pyros—Truth of the Flames."
Ithan invoked the first Logoi Art of his Mystery.
The flames erupted brighter than before.
Heat flooded through him.
His body burned from the inside as his Mystery pushed against the limits of what he could withstand. Ithan controlled his breathing, forcing each breath into a steady rhythm as his vital force reinforced his body against the strain.
Lysandra's expression changed.
She could feel it now.
The resonance coming from those flames.
Every instinct she possessed screamed the same warning.
Those flames didn't merely burn flesh.
They burned something deeper.
She could not allow them to touch her.
Crimson mist immediately wrapped around her body, thickening until it formed a dark red layer of protection.
Then she vanished.
Ithan barely saw her move.
One moment she stood several feet away.
The next, she was in front of him.
Her claws swept toward his ribs, surrounded by a massive claw of condensed blood and mist.
Too fast.
Ithan couldn't react in time.
Something shot past him.
Clang!
A trident caught the blood claw before it reached his body.
Kallus stood between them, a guttural grin spreading across his scarred face.
Frost erupted from his weapon.
Ice raced across Lysandra's conjured claw before Kallus twisted his trident and shattered it.
Lysandra recoiled.
"You!"
Her eyes darted toward the others.
The corpses she had summoned were gone.
In their place stood a massive pillar of ice, a dozen frozen bodies trapped inside it.
Kallus had expended a considerable amount of energy freezing them all at once, but he'd done it for one reason—to reach Ithan as quickly as possible.
And he'd heard enough of their conversation on the way.
This bloodsucking demon served the Dionians.
That was all Kallus needed to know.
He attacked.
His trident became a blur, frost trailing behind every thrust and slash as his battle art drove Lysandra backward.
Ithan moved with him.
He swept his spear around and attacked from the opposite side, golden-white fire carving through the air as the two closed in on her.
Lysandra's eyes darted between them.
She understood their strategy immediately.
The trident wielder was fast.
Faster than the Ashborn.
But his Mystery wasn't what frightened her.
Frost could hurt her. It could restrain her. Perhaps, given enough damage, it could even incapacitate her.
But it couldn't truly kill her.
The Ashborn could.
And yet Ithan was physically weaker than she was.
That decided it.
Lysandra suddenly turned her back on Kallus.
She went straight for Ithan.
Ithan's eyes widened.
He hadn't expected her to ignore the stronger fighter.
But his body was already moving.
He thrust his spear toward her chest.
Exactly as Lysandra expected.
The crimson mist between them twisted.
It condensed into a violent current and slammed sideways against the spear, knocking the thrust away from its intended path.
Kallus attacked her exposed back.
With a sweep of his trident, he released a barrage of frozen shards, each one aimed to impale her.
Lysandra sensed them coming.
Mageìa answered her will.
The crimson mist surged behind her, rapidly condensing into a defensive barrier.
The frozen barrage struck.
Ice and blood mist exploded across the grove.
Ithan felt himself thrown through the explosion.
His back slammed into a tree hard enough to crack the bark.
Blood burst from his mouth.
He dropped to the ground and slid against the trunk, struggling to stay conscious as pain tore through his chest. Several bones were broken. He could feel it every time he tried to breathe, sharp fragments digging into something they weren't supposed to.
His lungs.
Ithan tried to take a deep breath.
Pain answered him.
His breathing became short and uneven.
That was bad.
Without control over his breath, Ithan couldn't properly regulate his vital force. And without that, efficiently using his Mystery became almost impossible.
Forget fighting at his best.
Right now, staying conscious was difficult enough.
He forced his eyes open and looked through the drifting mist.
Kallus and the Vrykolax were still going at it.
Kallus's trident moved so quickly that Ithan could barely follow it. Every thrust flowed into a slash, every slash into another thrust, each movement carrying Kallus's intent to kill.
Lysandra matched him.
Her claws struck against the trident again and again, deflecting its blades before they could tear into her. Sparks and fragments of frost scattered with every collision.
Neither gave the other room to breathe.
The others moved to help.
Lysandra was already ten steps ahead of them.
Her fingers curled.
Mageìa answered.
Blood erupted from the ground beneath the squad, splitting into dozens of thin threads that shot upward before anyone could properly react.
"Logos Haímatos Págis—Blood Snare."
The threads wrapped around their arms and legs.
They pulled tight.
In an instant, the others were trapped.
The spell Lysandra had conjured did more than restrain its victims.
It fed on them.
The blood threads piercing her prey began drawing out their vitality, transferring it back to Lysandra. With every passing second, her strength returned while Kallus was forced to expend more and more of his own.
He could feel the difference.
The Vrykolax was getting stronger.
He was getting weaker.
Kallus tightened his grip on his trident and reached deeper into his relic, drawing on its power to replenish what he had lost.
"Logos Syllogí Págou—Gathering of Ice."
The air changed.
Moisture gathered from across the battlefield. Mist, water droplets, and even lingering traces of frost were pulled toward Kallus's trident, converging on a single point.
Cold condensed around the blade.
Kallus thrust.
A concentrated blast of frost erupted from the trident, freezing everything in its path.
But Lysandra was ready for him.
She slammed her palm against the ground.
Crimson mist rushed beneath her hand, spreading outward in the shape of a glowing sigil formation.
The earth rumbled.
A massive wall of stone erupted between them.
Kallus's attack struck it head-on.
Frost exploded across the barrier, instantly freezing the stone. Cracks raced across its surface as the sheer force of his attack threatened to tear through it.
Kallus inhaled sharply.
He needed a moment.
Just one breath to steady himself and recover some of his strength.
Lysandra didn't give it to him.
Blood threads snapped out of the ground.
Kallus reacted, but exhaustion had already slowed him.
The threads twisted around his arms, legs, and torso before pulling tight.
He grunted and tried to tear himself free.
Then the threads pierced his skin.
His body stiffened.
It felt like dozens of needles stabbing into him at once.
Then came the draining.
Kallus felt his vitality being pulled from his body through the threads. His grip weakened around his trident. His breathing grew heavier as the strength he'd been trying to recover was stolen almost as quickly as he could gather it.
On the other side of the battlefield, Lysandra straightened.
More color returned to her skin.
The wounds covering her body continued to close.
Behind her, the frozen wall of earth began to crack apart under the lingering force of Kallus's attack.
She didn't bother looking back.
Her attention had already shifted elsewhere.
To Ithan.
Ithan clawed his way across the ground.
Blood dripped from his mouth, leaving a trail beneath him. Every breath sent another spike of pain through his chest, but he kept dragging himself forward.
Toward Lysandra.
The flames inside him burned hotter.
His blood felt like it was boiling beneath his skin. Normally, that heat brought nothing but pain.
Now, it was the only thing keeping him conscious.
Lysandra looked down at him.
"You're a tenacious one, aren't you?"
She grabbed Ithan by the throat and lifted him from the ground, bringing him to eye level.
His hands weakly closed around her wrist.
"I wondered what the Archon saw in you. What he could possibly want from you." Her eyes studied his face. "But now I think I understand."
Her gaze shifted toward the golden-white flames still flickering weakly around him.
"Those flames of yours... there's something familiar about them. Something similar to the flames of the Ashen Field."
Her lips curled into a smile.
"Very dangerous."
She pulled him closer.
"I wonder what other secrets are buried inside you."
Her eyes darkened with curiosity.
"Perhaps I should see for myself."
Lysandra opened her mouth.
Fangs extended from beneath her lips.
Then she sank them into Ithan's neck.
His body went rigid.
Ithan felt something invade him.
It wasn't simply blood being taken from his body. He could feel his vitality—his very essence—being pulled toward the Vrykolax with every passing second.
Lysandra tasted the blood of the Ashborn.
And the moment she swallowed—
The world disappeared.
Her consciousness was dragged somewhere else.
Somewhere deep inside Ithan.
Lysandra opened her eyes.
Mountains stretched before her.
An endless range of jagged peaks made up Ithan's inner world, disappearing into a horizon she couldn't properly comprehend. Above them hung a dark orange sky, scarred by distant storms.
Something moved behind the clouds.
The shadow of an eagle's wing.
Lysandra stared upward for only a moment before something else seized her attention.
A Titan.
It was chained to one of the mountains.
No—
That wasn't right.
The mountain was insignificant compared to it.
The being was simply too vast for her mind to comprehend. Its true scale refused to fit within her perception, so her consciousness did the only thing it could.
It made the Titan smaller.
Twenty feet tall.
A lie her mind created so she could look upon something that should have been immeasurably greater.
Chains bound the Titan to the mountain.
And floating above it was Ithan.
Or something that resembled him.
His body was made entirely of flame.
Not one flame.
Many.
Different colors burned together within his form, overlapping without consuming one another.
Lysandra stared.
Then one of them moved.
The red flame.
As she continued draining Ithan's vitality in the outside world, the red flame separated from the others.
It drifted toward her.
Lysandra instinctively stepped back.
Too late.
The flame touched her.
Agony.
There was no warning.
No heat.
No gradual burning.
Pain simply erupted through her consciousness.
Lysandra screamed.
She had lived for nearly six hundred years. She had been cut apart, pierced, frozen, burned, and subjected to wounds that would have killed ordinary beings many times over.
None of it compared to this.
Because whatever had touched her wasn't burning her flesh.
It was burning something far deeper.
Back in the real world, Lysandra threw Ithan away from her.
He struck the ground hard and rolled several feet.
Lysandra barely noticed.
She dropped to her knees and vomited, her entire body convulsing as the blood she had nearly swallowed burned her from the inside.
She knew the taste of Curseborn blood.
It was foul. Bitter enough to make most Vrykolax recoil. But Lysandra had lived for nearly six centuries. She had fed on Curseborn before and learned to endure the bitterness when necessary.
This was different.
This was beyond anything she had experienced.
The Ashborn's blood carried something within it.
A Truth.
Something fundamentally opposed to her very existence.
And like a fool, she had willingly opened herself to whatever monstrosity was buried inside him.
Lysandra coughed violently.
Blood splattered across the ground.
At the same time, the threads binding the others went slack.
Then they broke apart.
The Mageìa she had cast over them collapsed with her concentration, releasing the Mystiques from her control.
Lysandra stumbled backward, one hand clutching her stomach as more blood poured from her mouth.
Then she noticed something on the ground.
Ithan's blood.
It was boiling.
Tiny red flames flickered across the pools of blood he had left behind, burning without consuming them.
Lysandra stared.
The bastard possessed tremendous vitality for a mortal.
But that vitality itself was dangerous.
Her eyes shifted toward the other Mystiques.
They were recovering.
She had nearly drained them dry, and if she'd had another few moments, perhaps that would have been the end of it.
The Ashborn had spared them from that fate.
Now Lysandra was the weakened one.
And she no longer had the strength to feed on them and restore herself.
They, on the other hand, almost certainly had ways to recover.
Sure enough, Kallus was the first to move.
He planted his trident against the ground and forced himself back onto his feet.
Lysandra made her decision.
She leaped backward, coughing up another mouthful of blood as she landed high within the canopy of a nearby tree.
Crimson mist immediately coiled around her.
Within seconds, it thickened enough to hide her completely.
Kallus tightened his grip on his trident.
Part of him wanted to pursue her.
Finish the bloodsucking demon while she was weakened.
But he knew better.
They were exhausted, wounded, and still standing in territory she knew far better than they did. Chasing an immortal creature into the forest under those conditions was asking to get the rest of his squad killed.
Instead, Kallus turned toward Ithan.
The Ashborn lay motionless on the ground, his body covered in flickering golden-white flames.
He looked terrible.
He had lost too much blood. Several bones were broken, and judging by his breathing, Kallus suspected at least one had punctured a lung.
"Don't worry, Ashborn." Kallus crouched beside him. "Hold on. We'll get you back to the city and patched up in no time."
He looked over his shoulder.
"Benji. Grab him."
Benji moved immediately.
Ithan barely registered the large man's hands lifting him from the ground before he was pulled onto Benji's back.
The golden-white flames continued to flicker around his body.
Voices became distant.
The forest blurred.
Then Ithan finally stopped fighting to remain conscious.
And gave in to the darkness.
****
Ithan was back among the mountain's jagged peaks, but something had changed.
The sky was no longer the dark orange he remembered. It had become a vast, churning expanse of black clouds, alive with lightning currents. Brilliant bolts tore across the heavens, crashing into the mountaintops one after another.
The Titan who had once been chained to the tallest peak was gone.
In his place stood a spear.
It was large and ornate, its dark-blue shaft wrapped in intricate silver metalwork and etched with celestial sigils that glowed beneath the storm. At its head, curved silver blades framed a brilliant blue crystal. From the core extended a long crystalline spearhead, blue-white lightning constantly crawling across its surface as though the storm's fury itself had been trapped within the weapon.
Ithan approached the weapon, his hand slowly reaching for the lance's handle.
Before his fingers could touch it, someone seized his arm from behind.
Ithan turned—and found himself staring at another version of himself.
This other Ithan was made entirely of flame, his body burning with different colors that twisted and flowed into one another. His white eyes blazed with the heat of the sun.
The flames suddenly surged outward.
They crashed against the storm radiating from the lance, fire and lightning colliding with enough force to engulf the mountaintop in brilliant white light.
Ithan awoke.
He was back in the Red Jaguar Company's healing center, his body wrapped in bandages and aching from head to toe. His thoughts were sluggish, the remnants of the dream still clinging to his mind.
Kallus sat beside his bed, quietly reading a book.
The moment Ithan stirred, Kallus looked up from the page, one eyebrow rising.
"Your tenacity continues to amaze me," Kallus said, closing the book and dropping it onto the table beside him.
"So am I." Ithan shifted and immediately regretted it as pain shot through his body. "What about the others?"
"They're all right. Not many injuries, unlike you." Kallus leaned back in his chair. "They'll be glad to know you're alive."
"How long have I been out?"
"A couple of days."
Kallus stood and stretched, rolling the stiffness from his shoulders.
"When you're ready, we should go out for a drink, Ashborn." He glanced around the healing center with obvious distaste. "Being stuck in this damn place isn't good for my soul."