Song vibe: Burn It – Agust D ft. Max

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  AUGUST

  The Courtyard, Firestone

  "It’s over, Gorda,” August called, stepping forward. Thunder swallowed half his words, but his voice carried enough. “You’re surrounded.”

  She laughed, sharp and humourless, waiting for the thunder to pass before replying. “Surrounded?” Rain streamed down her hood as she looked around. “I sense only three.”

  Good. She senses Maxine, too. Clearing the guards worked.

  “You have two choices,” August said. “Surrender to Nox’s mercy—or face me.”

  Above: August sees the facestealer up close.

  "You're not as powerful as you think, Hylander," Gorda said. "Everything I've planned is set in motion."

  "If it comes to blood, I won't hold back," August replied. "Even though you are a woman."

  Gorda’s smile thinned, her face, once beautiful, screwed up into an ugly sneer. She turned her head slightly toward the facestealer.

  August felt it then—the shift.

  Not a spoken command. Not magic shaped into words. Emotion.

  Hatred—raw, focused, murderous—poured from her into the creature. The same force he felt in the spawnpits, when a spawnlord bent lesser horrors to its will. Control not through obedience or fear, but through overwhelming intent.

  The facestealer responded instantly.

  It shrugged off its stolen cloak—his cloak—and drew twin blades. Moonlight glowed along wet steel as it advanced, water dripping from the edges like blood.

  Lysander fired. At the instant before release, his face twisted, as if a spike drove through his skull.

  The arrow veered wide, clattering harmlessly against stone.

  “She’s—” Lysander gasped, clutching his head. “She’s in my mind—”

  The facestealer crossed the distance in a blink—too fast for a human—targeting the weakest.

  Maxine's blade snapped up just in time, steel ringing as she caught the thrust inches from her throat. The impact drove her back a step—but she held, then countered.

  "August, I can't stop—” Hands shaking, Lysander notched an arrow and aimed it towards August. His face contorted with hatred, though his hazel eyes pleaded with him to do something.

  August acted without hesitation.

  He slammed up his mind shield—the same spell he used against spawnlords. Blackened flesh tightened across his hands—stopping at his wrist—as the spell fed on his own lifeforce, but the cool, hard barrier locked into place around his thoughts.

  In the pits, I had endless flesh to draw from. Here—it’s only me.

  "I can't do much else with the mind shield up," August said, drawing his blade. “I'll get close. End it the traditional way."

  “Then we’ll hold it off.” Lysander dropped his bow and drew his knives, moving in to flank the creature.

  Maxine’s arms shook as she blocked another blow. The creature snarled and kicked at her. She rolled, avoiding the blow and Lysander took her place, blade arcing low.

  Trust them.

  August did not look back; he advanced on Gorda.

  She’s mine.

  She laughed.

  Bootsteps splashed through puddles—guards from the outer gate. August snapped his head around and saw two Firestone guards charging in from the gatehouse, swords already raised.

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  ”My lord! We saw lights in the sky, why—”

  “Help me!” Gorda cried, pitching her voice sharp with panic. “He’s trying to kill me!”

  The guards charged; their steel came down hard.

  Tsek. We cleared the area. Her power reaches further than I thought.

  “I don’t want to kill you,” August warned, meeting the first blow with a ringing parry. Another strike followed—fast, desperate. Sweat broke across his brow, the strain compounding—maintaining the mind shield, holding Gorda at bay, restraining every lethal instinct he had.

  They’re being controlled, he thought. I won’t spill their blood.

  August stepped inside the guard’s swing and drove his blade into the narrow gap beneath the shoulder plate. Not deep—precise. The man cried out as his arm went slack, sword clattering to the stones.

  Gorda laughed, shifting towards the gate.

  The second guard was already on him.

  August turned the next blow aside at the last possible moment, steel shrieking as it slid along his blade. He moved close—too close for a killing strike—and shoved the man back with his shoulder instead, forcing space without finishing it.

  Sweat burned his eyes. Every correction cost him time. Every restraint narrowed his margin.

  I swore I’d never use blood magic again.

  “Shield their minds, Hylander—or are you too weak?” Gorda mocked, circling closer to the unguarded gate. Her fingers closed around the chain, iron scraping softly as she began to pull.

  “August—” Lysander warned, bow again in hand.

  His arrow snapped loose, slicing through the rain toward Gorda’s hand. She recoiled at the last instant—the shaft thudding into the timber beside her, close enough to draw a sharp breath from her throat.

  The facestealer did not hesitate.

  It surged toward Lysander, twin blades like quicksilver in the moonlight.

  Maxine stood in the way, blades blocking. The creature crashed into her—taller, heavier, stronger. She twisted, missing the worst of the blow.

  But steel slipped through the narrow gap in her leathers, opening her arm in a shallow, precise cut.

  “Poison,” Maxine hissed. "Don't let it cut you..."

  August parried another blow. In the corner of his vision, he caught Maxine staggering back as dark blood spread beneath the rain. She slammed her shoulder against the wall and tied off her arm with brutal efficiency, jaw clenched, breath forced slow as the poison’s spread was choked down.

  Lysander reacted—abandoning defence entirely.

  Blades flashed in his hands—fast, fluid, unpredictable. He did not meet the creature’s strikes head-on; he slipped past them, redirected, baited counters that never quite landed. He fought like wind—never where expected, never still.

  Above: Lysander fights the facestealer.

  August’s jaw tightened.

  My vows mean nothing if everyone dies.

  This was all he could do without dropping the shield.

  He reached into the guards’ minds—not thoughts, not memory, but the simple, brutal network beneath it all. Blood. Pressure. Flow. He pulled for a moment—like a surgeon, delicate in the way only he could do—cutting the blood flow to their brains.

  Both guards collapsed at once, bodies striking stone—unconscious, but alive. The black rot on his arms crept only a little bit higher.

  You’re next, Gorda.

  He turned that same spell toward her—

  —and hit resistance.

  She laughed—not in surprise or pain—in amusement.

  Her will shoved back against his, dense and anchored, her control threaded deep through her own flesh. She wrenched free of his attempt to control her and hauled the chain down hard.

  The gate groaned open.

  She’s protecting herself—far better than I expected.

  If I can't break her mind, then I'll break something else.

  “Lye,” August warned, already moving towards the chapel. “Now.”

  He dropped the mind shield.

  The pressure pressed down on him instantly—Gorda’s will, filling them with despair, with hate—with the desire to turn on their allies.

  Lysander felt it and dove—rolling clear as the facestealer’s next strike cut empty air where his head had been.

  August did not hesitate.

  He reached—not inward, but outward—seizing the fire still burning inside the chapel walls. Flames hissed as he tore them free, bending them through rain and wind alike, dragging them across the courtyard and slamming them into Gorda.

  Fire engulfed her.

  She screamed—raw, broken.

  Above: August burns Gorda.

  Her concentration was shattered. She collapsed, rolling across the wet stone as rain fought flame, steam screaming into the night.

  In the same instant, the facestealer faltered, its borrowed will snapped loose. Its face shifted, bulbous nodules forming under the skin as it transformed.

  Pulling its cloak over its face, it turned to withdraw into the keep—and found its escape cut off. Lysander stood in the way, blades ready. It stepped backwards, as if to retreat and stumbled on the wet stone.

  Lysander surged forward, blades moving low and high in rapid succession, driving the creature back step by step, forcing it to defend, to retreat, to think.

  August turned back to Gorda.

  The rain had quenched the worst of the flames, but the damage was done.

  The stench of burnt flesh and hair hung thick in the air.

  Her cloak lay in smoking tatters. The skin of her wrists, ankles, and face was blistered, blackened, raw. She gasped on the ground, eyes wild—still alive. Still dangerous—and she'll live, just never with the same face.

  Then her magic hit him.

  Not a strike—an engulfing, crushing mental weight. It closed over him all at once, crushing thought, drowning instinct, flooding his mind with her pain, her fury, her hunger to survive.

  August did not re-raise his mental shield.

  He pushed back by instinct alone—pure blood magic—raw force against a tide that threatened to pull him under.

  The world collapsed inward—and he was dragged into her mind without warning.

  Fye. Too far. Too fast. No finesse.

  Thoughts splintered around him—fractured memories, hunger, ambition, resentment burning white-hot. He felt the strain immediately. One wrong pull and her mind would tear itself apart.

  I shouldn’t be in here. But I am. So I’ll take everything she knows.