Only quick reflexes saved Mithra from being skewered through the heart. She turned as Mildred struck with his sword, taking the blow on the left arm. Blinding pain erupted from the wound and she almost vomited from the pain; the bone in her upper arm exploded into tiny shards, cutting through muscle and leaving the arm in tatters. The pain was worse than all the wounds she’d suffered in the last month combined.

  Purely on instinct she reached for a sword with her other arm, but the movement was sluggish. She sagged.

  Duncan caught her. He pushed Mildred away violently and a wall of flame erupted from the ground, separating him from the aggressor.

  “Mildred, stand down!” he yelled over the roar of fire. “She’s one of ours, dammit! What do you think you’re doing?!”

  “We have our orders, sir,” Mildred said, his voice all business-like. “Merely following them.”

  The mildew smell intensified.

  Duncan threw her to the ground. Her shattered arm hit the sand first and she screamed, blacking out for a second. When she came to, Mildred was standing over her, Duncan a few steps back.

  “You’re right, Mildred,” Duncan said. “My mistake. Proceed.”

  Stupid, so stupid. Mithra knew the Guardians could be manipulated. She even took it into account when considering what to do. But then she saw Duncan, and all caution flew out the window. She hadn’t entertained the idea that her uncle could be turned against her for even a single second. And she was going to pay for it, now.

  Mildred raised his sword. Desperately, Mithra tried reaching for her own again, or at least rolling out of the way, but she couldn’t. Her muscles twitched as she commanded them to act, but they didn’t move. Not only her arm, but her whole body was inoperable. Why? How? She tried cycling her healing mark to little effect and only then noticed it. The woman, Vin, was weaving some spell. There was foreign divine energy invading Mithra’s body through her open wound, seizing her body and stringing it up like a puppet. She fought for control over her own bloodstream, but was too slow. The sword was already coming down towards her neck.

  Mildred’s hand disappeared in a spray of blood. Half a breath later the sound of an explosion almost deafened Mithra. The man didn’t scream, just sucked in a sharp breath and fell to his knees, clutching the stump in shock.

  “Snipers!” Duncan roared. “Lucas, barriers up!”

  Lucas made circular motions with his hands and the air around him swirled, kicking up a cloud of sand. Guided by the man the wind picked up speed, the sand rushing together with it. Another explosion threatened to blow out her eardrums, but this time the bullet didn’t find its mark, redirected by the Shaper. It struck the ground, plucked out of the air, and kicked up a flurry of sand and gravel.

  Leah had saved her life, again. Mithra redoubled the mental tug of war over her body, but Vin was too firmly rooted in her bloodstream by now. She had to try a different approach. She let skin grow rapidly over her ruined arm, not bothering to let the mark repair everything properly. Scar tissue formed and then was opened back up by shards of bone, but Mithra just poured more power in. More and more skin piled up on her arm, until, finally, she could feel the woman’s control slipping.

  The pain was worse, now, and this time Mithra did vomit briefly. Her arm looked like a club made of flesh, a misshapen, cancerous thing. But it wasn’t bleeding, and without direct access to her bloodstream the divine energy of the woman couldn’t find any purchase, sliding off her in a wave. She could move.

  A sizzling sound. Smell of burning flesh. Duncan had cauterized Mildred’s wound and turned to her.

  “I’m sorry, Mithra,” he said. There were tears in his eyes. “I’m sorry. It’s for your own good.” He threw a ball of fire at her and she shielded herself with the mess of flesh that used to be her arm, struggling to raise it because of the added weight. There was no burning pain—the nerves in the skin weren’t attached to anything—only the smell of cooking meat.

  That, and the mildew. Mithra focused on her mind mark. If she could overcome the priest’s magic, she could free Duncan from his orders. She felt the energy in her neck and reached out a tendril towards her uncle. He didn’t shield himself in any way, responding with another lick of flame instead. The blood inside her shell of dead skin boiled, but her magic found purchase in Duncan’s mind.

  She could see it—a strand of foreign magic, weaved around his brain. A working so complex she had no chance to understand half of it, much less circumvent it. She spared a thought to what would happen if she tore it down through brute force. Would Duncan’s mind survive intact?

  It didn’t matter. As soon as her magic touched it, the divine energy retaliated violently. Mithra’s mind was pushed back and she struggled for control, again. But her mark, as weakened as it was from the crash already, dimmed and failed. The tendril of her magic snapped like a cut string.

  Mithra struggled to get up, to get away. A wall of wind and sand stopped her.

  Leah smashed through the barrier. She barreled into the Air Mage, her knife red as she pulled it out of his guts. With her other hand she pointed a gun at Duncan and shot. The bullets were faster than thought, but he was ready. Before she even pulled the trigger, he’d already pointed a hand at her. Fire sprayed out of it and the bullets melted mid-air, losing their momentum and hitting the ground.

  A gust of wind threw Leah off-balance. The Air Shaper was holding his intestines in place with one hand and gesturing wildly with the other. Another gust of wind pushed Leah back.

  Duncan crouched on one leg, the other extended forward. He dragged it in a half-circle through the sand, motes of fire rising where his foot passed. They hung in the air for a split second and shot off, leaving only an afterimage behind.

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  Mithra hissed in pain, the fire drilling charred holes all the way through her side. At least they weren’t bleeding, cauterized instantly. Leah got hit by the motes too, but her steel armor took the blow well, turning red. She retaliated with her gun, but the bullets melted away again.

  “Fucker,” Leah uttered. She tried to close the distance, but another gust of wind stopped her. “You’re annoying.” The coiled metal of her legs unfolded with explosive power and she soared through the air, but Lucas was ready. He slammed a wind blast into her from above, throwing her to the ground.

  Mithra finally managed to unsheathe her sword. She hesitated. Duncan and Lucas were focused on Leah now. That left Vin and Mildred to her, and thank the Gods for that. She wasn’t sure if she could bring herself to hurt Duncan, even with everything happening. Mithra turned to face the other two instead.

  The Guardians weren’t sitting idly. Vin helped Mildred stand and he was clutching a knife in his only hand. His sword was nowhere to be seen, blown away together with his hand. He shot her one, hate-filled look and slashed himself with the knife, opening the veins Duncan so carefully cauterized moments before.

  Blood flowed freely, but it didn’t hit the ground. It formed into needles around Vin. They shot towards Mithra, turning her abdomen into a pincushion. She could feel the blood dissolving inside her body, forming a connection for the woman’s magic to work through. Mithra clamped down on it, healing the tiny wounds with ease.

  She closed the distance to the woman and, using her arm as a battering ram, threw her to the ground to disrupt her shaping. With her sword she struck at her legs, foregoing lethal strikes. Vin didn’t deserve to die. The Priests that manipulated her did. The woman rolled, dodging the sword, and got back to her feet. More blood battered Mithra, this time wide crescents biting deep into her, but as soon as the wounds opened, she closed them.

  Vin was nimble, but without access to Mithra’s blood she couldn’t do anything. Solidified blood rained down on Mithra from all angles, but as long as she kept healing, she was safe. She pushed the shorter woman back further, scoring a deep slash along her side. Blood welled, but Vin reabsorbed it immediately. The wound didn’t seem healed, but it wasn’t bleeding either.

  Mildred was to the side, blood still flowing from his veins to pepper Mithra with projectiles. He looked pale. Vin looked at him, hesitated, and the pour stopped.

  “Take it all, Vin,” Mildred said, seeing her pause. “I’m no use anymore anyway, not without my sword hand.” He saluted with a stump. “Death to the heretic.”

  With a yell, Vin pulled. Mildred’s skin went beyond pale, now deathly white. Within seconds he was exsanguinated, falling to the ground a shriveled husk.

  Vin kept screaming. Scarlet red armor settled over her, a bloody sword solidifying in her hand. Mithra watched as the woman screamed a cry of pain, of loss, of hate. She watched, as the sword made from a Guardian’s freely given blood cut through her own weapon. She watched, as Vin battered her with the remains of her comrade, screaming her throat raw the whole time.

  That, even more than her own uncle trying to kill her, shook Mithra. The Guardians, whom she idolized her whole life, laying down their life not to protect the Veil, but to kill her. In their minds she was the threat. The abomination. The heretic.

  Anger welled, and spilled over into hate. The Priests perverted heroes to serve their own twisted goal. They were going to die for it.

  But to get her revenge, she had to survive first. Vin was coming at her with a vengeance. Mithra’s sword was on the ground in two pieces. She dodged the next strike coming her way and retaliated with her misshapen arm, but it bounced off the gruesome armor. Even when she managed to jam a knife into Vin’s abdomen, it was turned away by solid blood. Vin’s sword on the other hand cut deep into her flesh. Mithra healed the wound in panic, but the woman wasn’t trying to take control of her blood anymore. She was going for the kill directly, fury rolling off her in waves that made Mithra sick.

  An animalistic screech pierced the air and Vin disappeared. It took Mithra a second to piece together what had happened and see Menace flying away with the woman in his massive beak.

  Mithra didn’t have time to go after the animal to save Vin. A wave of heat hit her, fire smoldering on her back. She turned, but the attack wasn’t aimed at her.

  A few feet away, Duncan moved as if he was dancing. His motions flowed from one stance to another as a pillar of flame descended from the sky. Lucas, one hand still on his eviscerated abdomen, was gathering air and pressing it into the fire. And in the middle of the blazing inferno was Leah. The sand under her turned into red-hot sludge, and further away from her, to glass.

  An inhuman scream, like metal scraping on metal, drowned out even the roar of the flames. Leah emerged from the blaze, her steel armor dripping to the ground. She walked forward, one agonizing step after another. Her fingers melted together as she pointed them at Duncan.

  He stumbled back, disbelief painted on his face. He redoubled his effort, pouring even more fire out of the sky. Leah fell to her knees.

  Mithra took her chance, with Duncan completely focused on Leah. She grabbed her uncle from behind and put a knife to his throat. He put up surprisingly little resistance, almost like he wanted to be stopped. The inferno ceased.

  “Please, don’t make me do this,” she said. “Please, uncle.”

  “You’d betray the Veil?” Duncan said, his voice entirely too calm. “Throw away your life? Your family?”

  “I beg you,” Mithra choked out through the tears, “Look around you. Your friends are dying. Please, just go home. Save them.”

  Duncan did look around then, as much as he could with a dagger pressed into his neck. He saw Mildred’s dead body and recoiled visibly. Something in him seemed to break and the all encompassing mildew smell let up. Mithra reached out with her mark sluggishly, the energy hesitant to obey. The Priest’s lattice was still there, but it seemed dimmer somehow, flooded by intense grief and pain.

  She let go.

  “Vin, stand down,” Duncan said. “Keep Lucas’s guts in, please.”

  Mithra spun, shocked to see Vin standing behind her, with a crimson sword poised to strike. Her blood armor was gone and her torso was in tatters, held together only by thin strands of blood. Menace was buried partially in the sand a few feet away, his wing bent at an odd angle. He was whimpering in pain. She didn’t hear them crash over the roaring flames.

  “No,” Vin said. “She made me kill Mildred. She almost killed you. I’m not standing down.”

  “Yes, you are.” The tenderness in Duncan’s voice was surprising. “Please.”

  Vin lowered her arm, and the sword unraveled into bloody thread. It stitched Lucas’s stomach together in seconds. Vin was still staring at Mithra, hate in her eyes.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing,” she said, and turned away. Duncan looked once at her retreating silhouette, even more grief pouring out of him, this time tinged with sadness.

  He met Mithra’s eyes. “I will be back,” he said. A threat. A promise. Without another word, the Guardians left.

  Mithra didn’t watch them go. She knelt down next to Leah, the molten steel on the woman solidifying in strangely beautiful patterns. It glistened in the sun in sync with her shallow breaths. She put her intact hand on the woman’s shoulder. It burned.

  “Let’s go to your Enclave.”