Charlie facing Karzi…

  The smoke behind me stirred.

  Footsteps. Soft, uneven.

  Tzaltheron’s head snapped around first; a low rumble building in his chest. Karzi tilted her head toward the sound, her grin sharpening like a blade being unsheathed.

  “Well now,” she murmured. “Another slave?”

  My stomach clenched. Not again. Not someone else. I turned slowly. My body was still half-locked in fear and saw… Lola.

  Her hair was windblown, streaked with soot, her uniform scorched from some fire spell, but her eyes… they were steady in a way that made everything else stop shaking.

  She crossed the shattered ground without hesitation, her own heels crunching over glassed stone. The heat, the smoke, the weight of Karzi’s gaze; none of it seemed to touch her. And for one absurd second, I thought she shouldn’t be able to get through.

  Karzi should’ve stopped her. The world should’ve stopped her. But she just kept walking, like nothing could stop her. When she reached me, she didn’t say a word. Just stepped close, too close, and leaned in.

  Her lips brushed my cheek.

  “Lady,” she whispered, soft enough that only I could hear, “you are not alone.” The words hit harder than any spell.

  For a moment, everything broke: the fear, the static, the hollow screaming inside my skull. My breath stuttered, my knees almost gave out, and the chilly edge of the world softened just enough to let me feel human again.

  Karzi’s grin faltered, only for a second.

  Tzaltheron’s chains rattled, the sound low and promising.

  And for the first time since she’d stepped from the smoke, I remembered I wasn’t the same barefoot girl anymore. I was ready to face her, and I wasn’t alone. I adjusted my crown. It wasn’t steady, neither was I, but it gleamed just enough to remind me what I’d become.

  Karzi’s gaze met mine across the rubble, lazy and amused, like a cat watching a cornered mouse suddenly find a sword.

  “Lola,” I said, forcing my voice to hold. “Support Tzaltheron.”

  She blinked, startled. “Who—?”

  “The big demon,” I snapped, rolling my eyes. “Try not to get eaten; he’s a drama queen. Push away Karzi’s gang and kill grandmaster. Tzaltheron, no mercy.”

  Lola’s confusion flickered into understanding, and she moved, circling toward Tzaltheron as he straightened to his full monstrous height, red light spilling from his cracks like liquid magma, and he smiled in delight.

  That left just me and Karzi.

  The woman who’d sold me. Owned me. And now, apparently, wanted to finish what she’d started. I raised my ice-sword, the frost along its edge whispering in the heat. “Let’s duel, you bitch.”

  Karzi’s grin widened. She reached up, brushing soot from her armor, then tilted her head back and howled.

  The sound wasn’t human. It rolled through the ruins, echoing off the shattered square, dragging cold through every nerve in my body. My breath caught, the old panic clawing its way back up my throat.

  No, not this time.

  I forced my hand steady, knuckles white around the ice hilt. The frost thickened, biting into my palm, grounding me. The howl faded, leaving only the hollow echo of its chill.

  Karzi and I stood in the crater where the Binding Stone used to be; a bowl of broken stone, twisted iron, and the faint stink of our battle with grandmasters. The air still hummed with demonic residue, but the magic was spent, summoning demons and empowering me.

  Just the two of us now.

  Skill level up. Now?! Cloudy, you stupid cloud! Lunaris needs to get that vacuum here to suck him off!

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  Karzi tilted her head, rolled her shoulders, the motion making her gilded armor glint beneath the smoke.

  The runes etched along the plates still pulsed faintly red, feeding off the fire magic that curled around her like a tame serpent. The axe in her hand wasn’t just a weapon. Its blade shimmered as if forged from sunlight trapped in blood.

  She was a magic swordsman.

  Like Yuki. But where Yuki’s magic was finesse, a dance of speed and perfect angles, Karzi’s was pure brutality refined into art. Every swing of her axe carried enough precision to split a mountain and enough recklessness to burn one down afterward.

  I had the gear, too. I hadn’t fed them good materials… since ever. Too busy running rebellions or saving slaves.

  A rookie oversight.

  Now, it was going to cost me. Karzi crouched low, fire blooming around her boots as she smiled. “Still relying on scraps, girly?”

  “Scraps,” I said, forcing the grin even though my stomach had knotted into glass, “but mine don’t bite back when I feed them.”

  She laughed. “Then you’ve forgotten how to keep them hungry.”

  The fire along her armor surged. It wasn’t just for show; it licked through the gaps, feeding into her movement, coiling up her limbs like living veins of heat. The axe ignited, a slow, molten glow that burned without smoke. She was charging a spell, but it wasn’t one of those fancy Tramar’s channelled barrages. It was herself.

  And then she came for me.

  I met her halfway.

  Frost flared under my heels, propelling me forward. The crater floor cracked and hissed where fire met ice, steam curling in great, blinding pillars. For a second, everything disappeared and then our weapons collided.

  The sound wasn’t a clang. It was a scream.

  Her axe hit my sword with enough force to make my bones hum. Sparks burst between us, fire and frost gnawing at each other in a messy, sizzling war. I felt the impact all the way down my spine; the shockwave throwing loose rubble outward.

  I braced, my shield arm trembling. The ice forming it melted from her heat before my eyes. I pushed, channeled mana, and refroze it instantly, frost crawling up my sleeve like a desperate vine.

  Karzi laughed. “Still patching yourself together, girly?”

  “I’m a responsible drinker,” I hissed, and kicked off a rock, twisting to swing again.

  She parried lazily, as if she were testing a child’s reflexes. Every strike I threw, she met with maddening ease. Every time our weapons clashed, she pushed harder, faster, the grin on her face growing wider.

  She wasn’t fighting me. She was toying with me.

  Fire rolled off her like breath. The heat burned through the cracks in my clothes; the air itself was blistering.

  Thanks cloudy, why she can wear proper armor, and I have to wear… this?!

  I tried to douse it with frost, forcing my mana through my veins, summoning freezing mist. The steam exploded between us in a hiss that sounded almost alive.

  Okay, I look cool af.

  Nevertheless, Karzi came on.

  I slashed at her leg, frost trailing my blade, she sidestepped, laughing. I lunged again, feinting high, she pivoted, bringing the axe down in a brutal arc that smashed through a boulder I’d been about to use as cover.

  Chunks of rock flew past me, one grazing my shoulder hard enough to send a jolt of pain through the clothes. My health bar dipped in the corner of my vision.

  Perfect.

  “Bit slow,” she said, stepping over the rubble as though walking through a field of flowers. “Was that the legendary speed you bragged about? Or did running from slavery dull your edge?”

  My chest burned. I didn’t know whether it was fury or humiliation. Maybe both. “Funny,” I said between breaths, “I don’t recall you fighting anyone who wasn’t already half-asleep or tied up.”

  Her grin sharpened. “And yet you still submitted to me.”

  She came at me again, faster this time.

  Too fast.

  The crater lit up in flickering bursts of flame, every swing of her weapon carving heat through the air. The ground cracked and melted beneath her feet. I darted left, then right, forcing frost to follow, leaving frozen trails in my wake; a slippery maze of ice to slow her momentum.

  It didn’t.

  She crushed through it as if it weren’t even there.

  The axe met my sword again. The impact rattled my teeth. My blade chipped; shards of ice flying like glass. I pushed mana into it, regenerating it mid-swing, re-forging it from the shards, but she’d already stepped back.

  “Still mending your toys,” Karzi mocked, flicking her wrist to fling off droplets of molten metal from her axe. “You always wasted your magic on keeping broken things alive. I heard about certain dwarven girl.”

  The words hit harder than the strikes.

  “Leave Dhriti alone!”

  The next one came from the side, a horizontal sweep that I barely parried. My sword howled under the strain, frost exploding outward in craggy waves. The recoil sent me sliding back over cracked stone, heels grinding for purchase.

  Steam rolled around us, thick enough to drown the sky. I could barely see her silhouette, but her voice still carried. “Do you know what you are, girly?” she called out. “You’re a spark. Pretty for a moment. Gone with a breath.”

  “Funny,” I called back, panting. “You always talked like someone compensating for… everything.”

  “Bravery.” She emerged from the mist, eyes glowing faintly. “Bratty slaves, oh, how I miss the early days.”

  She rushed me again. Fire coated her armor, molten and furious. The sheer heat warped the air, making her look like a walking mirage. I braced, forcing mana into my limbs, reinforcing bone and sinew with frost. The cold burned from the inside, matching her heat.

  I met her head-on.

  The impact cracked the ground between us. A shockwave of fire and ice blasted outward, shredding the remaining rubble into dust. Steam screamed into the air. My sword shattered again; I rebuilt it mid-motion, stabbing through the fog, but she was already gone.

  Something hit my ribs. Pain bloomed white. She’d circled around impossibly fast and slammed the butt of her axe into my side. I staggered, gasping, and she laughed, full of delight.

  “Oh, that one felt familiar, didn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” I spat blood and frost. “You hit harder than HR.”

  She twirled the axe. “I told you once to learn from pain.”

  “I did.” I lifted my sword again, frost swirling onto its edge. “That’s why I’m still standing.”

  Her grin softened into something worse. “Not for long.”

  She lunged again; a blur of fire and steel and smoke. The heat burned before she even struck. I threw up an ice wall; it shattered under her weight. I rolled under her next swing, frost biting into the ground, then slashed upward, catching her across the pauldron.

  The frost hissed on contact, steam bursting. Her armor dimmed for a second; a crack in it the enchantment repaired quickly. I saw it. She saw that I saw it.

  And her smile widened.

  “Oh, clever girl,” she growled like a wolf. “You think you can win? You think this is even close?”

  “I don’t need close,” I said, breathing hard. “Just enough to hurt.”

  She laughed again. “Then by all means… try.”

  The next clash was pure chaos. Fire and frost collided in a storm of blue and red. We moved between the broken monoliths of the crater, using debris as cover, as platforms, as weapons. Each swing sent chunks of molten stone flying. I jumped from a fractured pillar, brought my blade down; she caught it mid-swing, turned it aside with her gauntlet, and kicked me in the chest.

  The world flipped. I hit the ground hard enough to dent it. My lungs screamed. My vision blurred as I forced the Healing spell to repair me once again.

  And above me, her silhouette burned against the smoke.

  Karzi looked down, smile serene. “Still trembling,” she hissed. “Still mine.”

  I forced myself up, sword trembling but steady. “You sold me once,” I rasped. “Try it again.”

  Her grin widened, eyes gleaming like coals. “I don’t sell broken things, girly.”

  She raised her axe. Fire gathered, red and gold, a sun being born between her hands.

  Everything shimmered, the ground, the smoke, even the horizon… bending around Karzi’s fire like the world itself was afraid to look directly at her. My lungs screamed, my mana bar flickered, and my sword arm trembled like a glitching animation frame.