[Bloodlust status in effect.]

  [Sanity debuff activated as a result of Bloodlust status. Sanity level decreases at a 100% faster rate.]

  [Cumutive Bloodlust and Influence debuffs: 200% increase in Sanity redu rate.]

  [Sanity: 82%]

  I gasp in a breath as my surroundings return to me. Had I stopped breathing? Perhaps I couldn’t while ed in such bliss. There are people screaming, but they are distant and unimportant. Ambrosia wafts through the air, and I try to find its source, but there’s something hampering my breaths. I cw at the obstru c my nose and mouth, and rip it away. Better.

  “Nye! No, don’t take that off—Shit. e on, Quell. We have to run.”

  Us, run? No! We will stop them here so the others run. We will fight and win!

  Yes. Yes, I am full of so muergy, all pent up and twisted inside me, like a spring desperate for release. I o move. I need more of that sweet high that’s already, faintly, fading.

  [Sanity Level: 77%]

  “I slow them down.” Light fshes behind me. “Now let’s get the fuck out of here!”

  “No! We ’t leave them. They need my help. Nye, please. Listen to me!”

  I look for the voice, and find a wall has appeared behind us. A few of the approag soldiers are on our side, gng around in surprise, but the rest are out of sight. A girl has her hands raised, pointing toward the wall. But she’s not the source of the voice I’m looking for.

  I find the prince. Quell. He looks relieved when we make eye tact. I frown. What is he holding?

  My blood whips around me, parrying a blow that had been aimed at the bay head. I gnce back, curious. A soldier stands there, spearhead caught in a of bloody lines. He’d clearly recovered from his surprise while I was distracted. The Aegis nudges my mind. Now is the time fhting, not standing!

  I snap my hand out and grab the attag soldier’s chest piece. There’s not even time for him to gasp as I go down to a knee, flipping him over and smming him into the ground. He doesn’t get back up. Words and numbers fly through my mind, but I ighem. When I let go of the crumpled soldier, my hand is covered in blood. I run my tongue up a finger, and am rewarded with another addictive burst of energy, strength, and huhe Aegis revels iaste, too. We need more.

  [Sanity Level: 72%]

  “Fuck. It’s too te, Quell. They’re gone. If you try to help, you’ll only get caught in the middle.”

  The middle… we were in the middle of something. I try to remember what I had been doing before this. I tilt my head up, and a purple symbol is painted in the night sky overhead. The Moonfall sigil. Ah, yes. I look back down; the others are staring at me with fear. Why? There’s… something nht. Something itches at my mind.

  My gaze returns to Quell. He looks so worried. I don’t like that. The thing in his hand is… a knife. Right. I’m supposed to protect him. That must be it. That must be the source of the wrongness I’m feeling. I o elimihe threat to him. The Aegis agrees with this. Eliminating threats is good!

  Then that’s what we’ll do.

  I leap into a, crag the stone as I jump. Liz shrieks as we blur past her, but we pay her no mind. Quell is the only one who matters.

  He lets out a startled squeak when we nd in front of him. I my shield arm behind him to catch him before he falls back, at the same time plug the bde from his throat and tossing it away. The dagger ctters to the street somewhere behind us.

  “Careful,” I say. “You might cut yourself.” And for some reason, the words make me ugh.

  “Nye?” Quell stammers. His plexion obscures his blush, but I still feel the heat of the blood spreading through his face. His neck. “You’re—this is a bloodlust. Okay? We o get out of here.”

  “Yes. A bloodlust. I know.” Maybe I should care, but I don’t. I like this feeling. I don’t want it to end. My eyes are locked on Quell’s neck. A small line is cut across his flesh, blood only just starting to bead. The knife must have nicked him after all. It isn’t deep. But the smell is intoxig.

  “You know?” Quell trembles. He’s trying to act stoic, but his body betrays him. I feel the pulse of his heart as it beats faster. “Yes, you’re coherent. That’s good. But we really should, ah. Get going. And you let go of me while you’re at it. You know, you’re, ah, very close.”

  And leaning closer. A single drop of blood spills from the wound, trailing slowly down his neck. The world narrows to that cut. His drummi. I breathe deep, and am rewarded with the heady, tantalizing smell of blood. “I don’t want to.”

  “O—oh?” Quell grabs my arm, and I feel him attempting to push me away while he tries to retreat. But the Aegis is a wall at his back, and I’m much strohan him. “What is it you want?”

  It’s driving me mad. My breath prickles the skin on his neck. “I want to rip your throat out.”

  Blood rushes through his body again, and his Adam’s apple bobs up and down as he swallows. “I’d really rather prefer if you didn’t.”

  Quell tenses up as I lean in. I run my tongue up his neck, and he gasps as I lick away the drop of blood.

  The hit is instantaneous, fillih more of that jittery, overflowing energy that only makes me hungrier. And it would be so easy to take it. Only the most insubstantial film of skin separates me from what I want. Quell’s fingers dig into my arm as my fangs graze his throat.

  “N-Nye, don’t!”

  My mind is buzzing. A pain behind my eyes is growing sharper by the moment. Words are dang in the peripheral of my sciousness. Something about a role.

  My Role Requirement. Yes, that’s the source of this pain. But it shouldn’t be punishing me. He’s not in any real danger. I’m his Knight, after all.

  “I wouldn’t.” I huff out a ugh, pulling away. “I ’t.”

  Quell’s teeth are ched, his body tight, hands braced against my arm and chest. His fear stirs something in me. Wanting his blood and not being able to take it fills me with a possessive desire. It’s driving me crazy. This building energy is begging to be unleashed, and I’m desperate for more.

  But there is more, of course. No one’s as entig as Quell’s, but it will sate my thirst all the same.

  “Run,” I tell him, and for a moment I picture him fleeing like prey, me chasing after, and I’m filled with the thrill of the hunt. But that’s not what I meant. I try to focus.

  “I’ll stop the soldiers here.” I let him go, aumbles back. I smile ironically. “After all. I must protect the Prince.”

  “Nye—”

  A sword crashes into my side, and the Aegis only partially deflects the blow. There’s more strength behind this attack tha one. As my attacker yanks their sword back, a hot line sears ay side, and then I smell my own blood. I snarl, turning to face my oppo.

  Darian faces me grimly, stance low, grip tight. “I guess now we’ll find out how you fight when you’re not holding back.”

  “Darian, stop!” Quell cries. “Don’t kill them.”

  “They just tried to kill you,” she growls.

  “They’re lucid,” Quell says. “They held back. They break out of this!”

  The captain eyes me uainly. “Ear, Xamireb—take the prind go.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  “Wait—no! Let go—Darian, please! Don’t kill them. I owe them my life—I owe them—”

  I dispassionately gnce his way as Ear and Xamireb drag him dowreet. They’re not a threat to him. My Role isn’t stabbio a. Good. Now I —

  Darian attacks again, while I’m not looking, but I see it through the Aegis. It shes its whips around her sword, but she cuts through them, sending a spttering of blood to the street. My blood. An eager fire sears through me; the Aegis and I are burning for a fight.

  I grin as I turn back to her. “That’s twice you’ve tried to stab me in the baot very sp.”

  She narrows her eyes. “You are lucid. Then you should be able to end this.”

  The Aegis scoffs. Why would we want to end a fight? Let go of such power?

  “We don’t want it to end,” I say, agreeing with the Aegis. Why had I ever disagreed with it before? I ’t remember. This is what both of us are made for.

  “It will end,” Darian says. “By your own willpower, or my forow is the time to choose.”

  I ugh. She actually thinks she beat us. Sure, she has training and a higher level on her side. But I have the Bloodlust and the Crimson Aegis.

  Impatient, the shield urges me on. Enough talk! It wants to fight—I want to fight. We lu Darian.

  It’s nothing like our sparring sessions. The Aegis’s blood es at her from every angle, and she’s a blur of movement, cutting them away like vines in a jungle. She knows to avoid my shield, so she keeps trying to e at me from the side, wheeling, spinning in different dires, sistently keeping me on my toes. She’s so fast, I barely have a ce to nd a hit. She’ll go for the feet, just to turn it into an arc toward my head. She’s not fighting to win: she’s fighting to kill.

  I activate Repel, a pulse of energy knog into her. It barely has any force—it’s only absorbed a couple hits from the previous guards—but it’s enough to make her stumble. I use the opportunity to close the gap.

  The stone shifts beh my feet, and I crash to the street. Darian steps over me, sword raised.

  Ty at that game. I call my Attuned blood bae, lifting it from where it spshed over the street when Darian had severed the Aegis’s limbs. I turn them into darts usiic Hardening, and spear them through Darian’s side.

  She shatters like a pane of gss. The fractured pieces of Darian scatter into motes of light, winking out before they’ve even reached the ground. I roll onto my side to see Liz and the real Darian sprinting away.

  Rage boils up inside me. Tricked! They tricked us! How dare they? Cowards! They’re running when they should be staying to fight. Have they no honor? We won’t let them escape. We still need our victory.

  A shadow falls over me. Someoeps in the way of the reg forms of my oppos, and I bare my teeth, looking up.

  A group of soldiers has surrounded me, ons leveled toward my head. The wall that had bisected the street is now gone. Another illusion.

  “Lay down your shield, Duneshade,” one of the soldiers says. “Surrender yourself, and your life will be spared.”

  Surrender?

  Something in me snaps. Blood slices out from the Aegis—it nces up from the street—it stabs from the open wound in my side. I flip the shield over me as all of their ons e down, and I hear screams as my blood hits its mark. One falls. The others reel.

  I sweep the Aegis around me, crag into shins as I spin to my feet. My Attuned blood spins around me as I seethe, orbiting red razors mirr er. They wanted us to surreo surrender!

  The soldiers try to fight back. The Aegis Devours any ons they throw at us, and I cut through flesh with my Attuned blood. I’ve never moved like this. I’ve never practiced this kind of magic. Everything I do is on instinct, driven by the Aegis’s thoughts, following its dire, buoyed by its desire for victory. It bees hard to tell if I’m really moving my blood, or if it’s the Aegis. Maybe there’s no difference. I lose track of where my mind ends and its mind begins. The shield feels like aension of me, our moves synized. We’re of one mind, one body, one soul.

  I crush the Aegis into the chest of a soldier, and the Aegis drinks in the blood that bursts forth. The Aegis severs a sword arm before it strike me, and I grab the on, throwing it back at its owhere’s blood on my tongue. Someone’s ne my mouth. Bliss p through me as I sughter the st of them.

  The Aegis crows at our triumph. I stand there, basking in the warmth of our victory as our enemies lie at our feet. The streets are covered in gore. People are shouting and screaming. There’s a otion down one of the streets. Oh, are there more ing to challenge us? Let them e!

  But a weariness is settling in my limbs. For all the ecstasy of the blood, I still feel the tolls of the battle on my body. I’ve closed my wounds, scabbed over my cuts. But pain and fatigue is threatening to creep in.

  The Aegis pays this no mind. We still fight! Nothing stop us.

  I wearily agree. But my enthusiasm is waning.

  The Aegis presses against my mind. No! We ’t give up. Blood. More blood will help!

  Of course. Blood. I love blood.

  The Aegis shares some of the blood it’s absorbed, pushing more into me through the li’s stabbed into my arm. I gasp, electric euphoria c through me once more. I straighten, reenergized, ready for anht.

  But… is that what I want?

  Of course! Of course, we want to win!

  I shake my head, but my mind is full of static. My skin crawling like it’s covered in ants. I step back, and my ankle rolls on the limb of a sin soldier. I catch myself before I fall, but my head is tipped toward the ground; I’m fronted with the horror of my as.

  I did this…

  We did! We should rejoice!

  Oh, God. I ’t get in anht. I have to get out of here. I have to run.

  The shield’s urging turns to frustration. We ’t run. To run is to admit defeat!

  “I already lost,” I croak. I blink rapidly, trying to break through the Bloodlust. Quell said I could choose to end it. Darian said it just takes willpower. I press back against the Aegis, f its oppressive presence away. As its influence peels away, I gradually bee aware that its will has been clouding my mind. F its desires onto me. The shield tries to fight back, but it’s not as strong as it was before.

  [Bloodlust status effeded.]

  “It’s over,” I say, panting. I feel hysically, emotionally. But I fought it off. “You lost.”

  No! The Aegis thrashes in my mind like a toddler throwing a tantrum. No! It ’t lose. It doesn’t lose. Victory is everything!

  Desperately, it pushes more blood into my arm. I roar as the Bloodlust reactivates and hits me again, dizzying, scattering my thoughts.

  See? We are of one mind this way. This is how we should operate! At peak strength. With the same goal—

  “My goal is not the same,” I hiss, g at my head. The new wave of soldiers has reached me. They’re fanning out, giving me and the gory streets around me a wide berth. There’s so many. If I fight, I’ll kill a lot of them. But I’m tired. I’m battling the Aegis. This time, even with the Bloodlust, I’ll be taken down. And I ’t fall here.

  The Aegis tches onto that thought. Yes! We will not be defeated—

  I ’t fall here, I think, tg onto that thought. I have other people to live for. I o find my brother.

  I have to protect Quell.

  I crouch, scraping my cws across the bloody ground.

  “Steady,” one of the soldiers calls.

  I wipe a smear of blood ay tongue, and another spike of energy hits me. I fixate on the numbers and words in the er of my vision, f them bato my awareness, g my way through the mental fog to make them make sehere. The arrow.

  “On thr—”

  I burst into motion before they have a ce to t down. The soldiers in front of me are so startled that they stumble back, clearing a path. I race past them, fighting the instinct to draw my cws through their flesh as I go. I run, p everything I have into each step, leaping inhumahs, crag the ground where I nd, pivoting and wheeling down side streets.

  My movements are not subtle. People scatter before me—scream after I’ve passed. I take a turn too wide and crash into a stand, obliterating the wood like it was toothpicks. The Aegis is mad, trying to retrieve its trol, but it spent too much of its energy in the fight. Its influence is dwindling.

  I don’t pletely fight it off, though. I let it keep its grip on the Bloodlust, I let it tio feed my frenzy. If it ends now, I’m not sure I could go on.

  The arrow takes me to the city walls. in sight, and I don’t have time to look. I keep up my speed, then jump. I don’t make it all the way to the top, but I sm the Aegis into its surface, embedding it a foot deep ionework. I draw my other hand back, hardening the Attuned blood in my hand, and stab it into the wall.

  Skin splits, and so does the stone. I wrench the Aegis from the wall and stab it bato the masonry above my head. It takes three more times to reach the top. Pain is ng up my freehand, but I don’t look at it. A nearby guard lets out a startled cry, but I ignore her. I jump, and when I e down, it’s ba the desert once more.

  They’re not far ahead of me. I’m not sure how much time has passed, but they’re on foot, which means they might as well be crawling. Following the arrow, I leap over a cluster of boulders, skid down the side of ahen hill, and stumble through loose sand, which eats up my waning energy with every step. I’m breathing hard now, my head swimming for airely different reason.

  The arrow is leadio a sandstone formation. There are voices. Someoeps from behind one of the rocks. I ’t even make out who it is, but it doesn’t matter. I wrest the st vestiges of trol from the Crimson Aegis, and I stomp the st of the Bloodlust out.

  Pain and exhaustion rush in to fill the void. I hit the ground, and then I feel nothing at all.