“Set a course for Northvel,” Pirin told Alyus. “By the time we arrive, the siege will be underway. We’ll need to be cautious.”

  Then, as the airship rose into the sky and turned back toward the Elven Continent, Pirin glanced at Nomad. “I need to get ready for what’s next. We’re going to be facing Lord Three, and—”

  “You’re going to be facing Lord Three. If I was there, I’d only be dying.”

  “Yes, I’ll face him. But even if I’m a Wildflame, he’ll have decades of power accumulation over me. I’ll need every advantage I can get. Can you teach me to use my inner world…or corespace, or whatever you call it?”

  “There will not be time to use a full inner world, but I have an idea,” Nomad said. “I figure, with the help of your Whisper Hitch, you might be able to use it for storage.”

  “Storage?” At first, Pirin’s chest deflated. It wouldn’t grant him an extra boost in power, anything to help him against Lord Three?

  But he shut those thoughts down quickly. If he could hide away a weapon, or an extra tool, and surprise the Wildflame with it? It could be exactly what he needed.

  “Then let’s get to work,” he said.

  ~ ~ ~

  Myraden and Kythen ran as fast as they could to the harbour, unconcerned about hiding themselves. They both used a fortification technique, speeding up their legs and sprinting as fast as they could. Ice and gravel whirled past beneath, and trails of crimson sparks burned in the air behind them.

  Harmkvord’s harbour was a small port for fishing boats and light cargo transports. The only evidence of ships, though, was a burned-out wreck skewered on the northernmost pier, the ice-brick and cobblestone piercing through its bow and holding it in place over the years. A tattered sail still fluttered in the breeze like a limp flag.

  Myraden and Kythen sprinted along the wharf, trying to make themselves as visible as they could to the Aerdian marshal’s airship. She waved her arms and launched a crimson arc into the sky.

  The airship, now only a few miles away, adjusted course. Sailors clung to its spars, adjusting the sails, and its gondola glowed with rune-shielded lanternlight. The coxswain spun the rudder wheel, and the ship turned toward the wharf.

  Myraden sprinted to the tip of the pier, then glanced back up the slope, up the street she’d sprinted down.

  The Red Hand faced Lord Two with a broad, wide stance, but he kept his sword in its sheath. If she understood right, he was harnessing as much Reign as he could, preparing to cut before he even drew the blade.

  Lord Two flashed forward in a puff of purple tyrrh-shrub leaves. He moved without moving, and appeared uncomfortably close to the Hand. With a swipe of his chain scythe, he slashed at the Hand’s neck, moving almost too fast for even her Blaze perception.

  But the Red Hand was already leaning back, and though he wasn’t as fast as a wizard, it didn’t matter when he could simply anticipate the blow.

  A second was coming. Two dropped the chain of his scythe and unleashed a palm strike, and a venomous, acidic scorpion Essence blasted through the air. It would’ve struck the Hand in the chest had he not drawn his sword.

  His Reign sliced right through the strike, then slashed a deep cut along the lord’s hand. Spurts of glowing magenta Essence deflected around the Hand, spattering the snow and cobblestone and eating through it. Anything the venom touched turned to black ash and washed away in the wind.

  Lord Two stumbled backward, gasping, and the Red Hand pressed forward, unleashing faster but less powerful strikes. Lord Two blocked each with his chain scythe.

  The fight continued in that tempo, with Lord Two vying for a single, deadly strike, and the Red Hand anticipating it all and dodging it, while making light cuts. Lord Two flashed from place to place, with only a mild one-second interval between each dash. He never moved more than ten feet on the short intervals, though it seemed if he waited more than five seconds between using them, he could travel farther.

  Passing through objects? He never dashed straight through the Hand, and never in a position that he’d cross over the Hand’s blade. No matter how fast, he must have still retained some physical presence as he moved.

  The Red Hand knocked the chain scythe out of his hands with a burst of Reign, but Lord Two activated a fortification technique, and his veins glowed deep purple. He manifested scorpion claws on his hands, gauntlets of shimmering magenta, and lashed out punch after punch, unleashing a flurry that the Hand could only stay far away from.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “My lady!” called a voice from behind and above. Sails rippled, wood creaked, and the airship’s envelope luffed. The ship was twice as long as the Featherflight, and its main hull had a diameter twice as wide. To compensate, it had a second set of sails halfway along the hull.

  The wind blowed from the ship’s stern, washing it across the harbour, and just over the light sheets of ice forming in the bay. If she wanted to jump to the ship, she wouldn’t have much of a window.

  She and Kythen sprinted to the end of the pier, then leapt toward the ship’s gondola. It was a larger, more robust gondola than the Featherflight’s, and aside from a captain’s station and wheels, it had large, sliding side doors with repeating crossbows mounted on the inside. Two Aerdian archers sat on swivelling chairs behind the crossbows, and they aimed high up the hill at Lord Two.

  As if they could do anything.

  But, through the sliding side doors, there was room for both her and Kythen to climb aboard.

  She leapt, her legs wheeling, having pushed off with Essence and her fortification technique, and landed heavily in the archers’ compartment of the gondola.

  Two soldiers welcomed her aboard, and she nodded graciously to them. Even though they were Aerdians, clad in ambersteel plate and flowing orange underrobes, they bowed and stepped back, allowing Marshal The?mir through.

  The elven marshal passed through a door between the captain’s station and the archers’ room, and turned to face Myraden. He ducked under the rounded doorframe and gripped the wall to keep his balance as the airship swayed.

  Myraden gripped a net hanging from the ceiling—designed for deploying soldiers to hold on to—and Kythen spread his legs to keep his balance.

  “Is your friend coming, my lady?” Marshal The?mir asked.

  “No,” said Myraden. “He is holding them off so we can escape. We need to get out of his sight, and far enough away that he cannot chase after us.”

  “Understood,” he said, then motioned to the soldiers. They heaved the side door shut, leaving only an angled window with a view outside. “Welcome aboard the Count Ellyar, miss. You wouldn’t happen to know where my Aerdian army is gathering?”

  She grimaced, then said, “If Pirin succeeded, he’d have taken control of Vel Aerdeil. The bulk of your army will be mustering there.”

  “Very well. Then that is our destination. It is time to see my nation reunited once more.” He turned away and passed through the door back to the front of the gondola, then called, “When the throne blooms, we will travel to Northvel.”

  Myraden nodded absently, then leaned closer to the window slat. Her breath steamed against the glass, fogging it up, but she saw enough.

  As soon as the archers’ compartment door closed, the Hand changed. His swipes came slower, and he stopped favouring his bad knee. He left a deep cut along Lord Two’s side, but it came at the cost of his own shoulder. Acid melted his flesh into black ash.

  Then, with a shout and a glance back at the airship, he prepared for one final slash. He brought the sword down hard and fast, and at the same time, opened himself up to a fatal, fortified fist strike.

  He left a deep cut along Lord Two’s leg, and the man staggered, but his fist still snapped forward. It caught the Hand in the chest, and in an instant, it caved in his ribs and crushed his lungs.

  Both men staggered back, but only the Hand collapsed. His body spasmed, and Lord Two limped over to him, before finally driving his fist into the Hand’s skull, shattering it.

  Myraden clenched her fists. Kythen let out a low, sinking bleat, and she couldn’t stop her eyes from growing misty.

  The Hand hadn’t been like Kal, and certainly not like her father, but…

  A good man in the end, said Kythen.

  She sighed. “A good man.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Pirin adjusted his cycling pattern for the third time in an hour, opening and closing the right channels to achieve the effect he wanted, then concentrated on the Whisper Hitch. He pressed his hand into Gray’s forehead while holding the misty orb of her consciousness, then shut his eyes and drew himself into the bond.

  It wasn’t as hard as he thought, and unlike before, he didn’t have to go unconscious to do it.

  After a day of practicing, he’d gotten rather efficient at pulling himself in and out of the blank white plane where Gray stood.

  Pirin mapped out the interior of the space. It was small. He couldn’t reach all the way up without brushing his hands against an invisible ceiling of force, and to walk side-to-side in the space was nearly impossible. It was only four paces by four paces. Barely larger than his void pendant, though even sending his consciousness into it put a strain on his soul. A spiritual weight settled near the top of his spine, along the back of his neck.

  If it was for storage, it’d definitely improve as he did, but for the moment, he doubted it had the capacity to store as much as his void pendant, despite having more apparent volume for matter.

  “Hello!” Gray exclaimed, then offered a wave, though it was more of a flop of her arm, like she was trying to move her whole wing. “For the eighty-seventh time! Do you think you’ve practiced enough?”

  As he’d practiced eighty-seven times, he drew himself out of the corespace, then said, “I think so, Gray.”

  They sat in the cargo hold, him right beside her nest, and Nomad standing on the lattice walkway wrapping around the cargo platform.

  “I think I’m ready for the next step,” Pirin said. “I need to draw something in and out of it without putting my consciousness into the space.”