AS HE PICKED HIMSELF UP OFF THE FLOOR, KALEN CONSIDERED the responses he had expected to his appearance: shock, disbelief, or possibly even acceptance. In all truth, when he saw Myrin send a bolt of magic at Levia, he should have known the wizard would attack, but it still caught him by surprise. Not even in Luskan had he seen Myrin so angry.
Also, while he had felt the sting of her magic before, there was a big difference between accidental strikes and a purposeful hit. His bones still shook from the blow.
Crossbows clicked and bolts zipped toward the group. Myrin knocked one aside with her shield spell, which shifted by itself to deflect another. They skipped like stones off her magic. Brace batted a quarrel out of the air, while Rujia grunted as one sank into her leg. Ilira simply swayed aside, her gaze locked firmly on Kalen and his axe. A quarrel skipped across where Kalen had been standing, fired slightly wide of Myrin.
“Hold your fire, by Torm!” Levia cried. “You’ll hit—”
Kalen didn’t hear the rest, because at that moment Myrin declaimed words of power, brought her orb around, and traced a curtain of fire between them and the Eye of Justice enforcers. Two more quarrels sizzled and popped like kernels of corn in the roaring crimson flames. The group was protected, at least for the moment—at least, from everyone but Kalen, who yet stood on their side. What was Myrin’s game?
Taking care to avoid attracting attention, Kalen got his feet under him and stood in a crouch. He closed his fingers around the haft of Sithe’s axe. Helm’s armor formed around him.
“Do we fight or retreat?” the deva asked Myrin.
“We fight,” Myrin said. “This is my home, and Elevar is my responsibility.”
Ilira nodded in approval.
Brace’s eyes lit up. “I hate to be the one to observe the ridiculously obvious, but retreat was never an option.”
“Ilira.” Kalen rose up like a vengeful specter, axe in hand. Smoke rose from his armor of faith. “Stand down. I don’t want to hurt you.”
They all turned to look at him, Brace nervous, Myrin aggrieved, Rujia implacable, and Ilira cold as frozen steel. “No fear,” the elf said. “You won’t.”
Myrin’s flames cast a dangerous gleam across Kalen’s axe and sent shadows dancing across Ilira’s silvery face. On the floor, Ilira’s shadow writhed, preparing for an attack.
Oh, but Kalen would attack. It was bad enough that this woman refused to face justice for her crimes—that she’d stolen away from the Watch of Waterdeep without so much as answering their questions. It was worse that she operated so brazenly in Westgate, laughing behind her anonymous gold eyes at concepts like law and order. But now … now she had turned Myrin—a soul of light and his best friend—against him. What lies must Ilira have told her? What fell magic must she have brought to bear upon his dear friend’s mind?
He would make it stop.
The weight of Kalen’s enmity fell upon Ilira: this upstart creature that had eluded justice too long. That ended here, in this hall, tonight. And so he swore to each of the three gods he served that she would fall this night, or he would die in the attempt.
The elf glared back, her hands curled into fists. The fiery barrier shivered as though under attack and began to wane.
“They’re dispelling the wall,” Myrin said. “Be ready—”
Kalen saw Ilira’s attention slip at Myrin’s voice and he charged, his axe trailing flame.
“Lady!” Brace split his magic rapier into two identical swords and tossed one to Ilira even as Kalen leaped at her.
She caught the rapier just in time to deflect Kalen’s overhead chop so that it screeched along the blade and slid wide. Riding his momentum, he leaped and kicked her in the center of the chest. Driven by his divine magic, she soared back toward the wall of fire, and he leaped after her without the slightest hesitation. The magic died away just as Kalen felt the heat of the flames, and the two skipped through. Kalen could feel the stunned silence from Levia and the others, but he had eyes only for his sworn foe.
Just before they landed, Ilira twisted around Kalen’s leg, knocking him off balance. When they slammed into the floor, Kalen tumbled three paces before he staggered to his feet. Ilira landed on her backside as well but rolled to her feet, her rapier in her outstretched hand. They faced one another, in the dead center of the hall, their weapons ready.
Ten paces away, Levia stepped toward them, but Kalen held up his hand to ward her off. Ilira was his foe alone.
“You will fall this night,” Kalen assured her. “I will put you down.”
Darkness pooled in Ilira’s gold eyes, turning them jet black. “You will try,” she said.
Myrin could not worry about Ilira. Instead, as soon as the wall fell, Myrin charged the nearest pair of crossbowmen, who were busy staring at Kalen’s incredible leap. In their dagger fighting lessons, Kalen had always told her to attack from surprise, and it paid off. Only one saw her, and only with enough time to widen his eyes and try to aim his weapon. She thrust her orb between the crossbowmen, and a wave of thunder knocked both men sprawling.
Pain seared into her back, partly absorbed by her gown’s magic, and she fell to one knee. Levia stalked toward her, her mace raised. “Last chance to stand down, Lady Darkdance.”
Myrin responded with another blast of thunder that sent Levia sailing away.
“Excellent.” Hessar appeared before her. “I feared you might surrender and spoil this.”
His fist—blazing with flames—swept up at Myrin’s chest, and she managed to absorb the brunt of it with her wizard’s shield. The force sent her a pace into the air, but even as she flew up, she brought the crystal orb between them to send flame sweeping toward Hessar. He caught the magic with a disc of blackness. She hung in the air as the magics strove against one another: her fires burned hot, but his shield was black nothingness, cold as the void. Her fire wavered.
Myrin gritted her teeth and saw in her mind the threads of the magic she had cast. She spoke the incantation again, slightly differently, and poured her heart and soul into the power. In response, the flames warped, becoming spellplague blue. Finally, the spells extinguished each other. Myrin’s fire burned itself out and Hessar’s shadowy shield flickered away into the air.
Myrin floated back to the floor, panting. She grinned at him. “Well?”
“Impressive,” the monk said.
Then Hessar whirled, brought around his foot, which was crackling with lightning, and slammed it into her chest. Pain lit in her as Myrin flew back through the air and skidded to the floor. She coughed blood, shook her head, and found herself staring at a pair of familiar crackling boots. Somehow, Hessar had stepped more than five paces in a heartbeat.
“Not impressive enough, however.”
Hessar reached down, caught her by the collar, and smashed her head against the floor. The world became a ringing nightmare of blurry forms. His eyes flashed yellow, like those of a wolf—or like Ilira’s eyes.
Again, it was Myrin’s feyweave gown that saved her, as it had with Phultan in the sewers. It blazed with light, and the man screeched and fell back, clutching at his face.
Myrin rose dizzily, her perceptions shattered. She tried to focus, as Ilira had taught her, and only thus did she manage to see Levia rushing back toward her, her mace held high.
Not that she could do anything about it.
Ilira’s first move was not to charge, as Kalen had expected. Instead, she sent her shadow racing across the floor toward him. It drew up into the room as it came on, a hulking creature with talons and wicked barbs of darkness. Kalen swept his axe around, coating the creature in gray flames, and it faltered before its talons could bite into him.
“You cannot flee,” he said. “Helm demands—”
“Who’s fleeing?” Ilira danced out of the shadow creature as though from a pool of water and kicked him in the face, cutting off his words.
He staggered and batted aside a thrust of her borrowed rapier, but she came back with another lunge that scraped off his conjured armor. Gods, the woman was fast.
He drew on a trick Sithe had taught him and slipped his mortal shell for just an instant. Ilira stabbed at him, but the steel cut nothing but gray flames as he passed, wraithlike, through the elf. Behind her now, he sent the deadly axe scything for Ilira’s neck, but she compressed down into her legs and ducked. Kalen saw an opportunity and struck at her face with the butt of the axe, but she threw up her sword arm to block his attack. The stout handle struck her arm with a wet thunk, and she rolled away with the force of the strike. When she stood up, she grasped her arm with a wince and transferred the rapier to her left hand.
“Ambidextrous,” she said.
Kalen wasn’t listening. Divine fury surged in him at her attempt to flee. He called upon the Threefold God and shot across the intervening distance. Ilira barely dodged his downward cut and the axe sank into the floor. She deftly cut open his arm—which he couldn’t feel—then somehow twisted Sithe’s axe out of one hand, spoiling his leverage on the big weapon. She had skill, he had to give her that.
Kalen clapped a hand on Ilira’s left arm to restrain her. She turned, meaning to slip his grasp, but growing up a beggar boy in Luskan had taught Kalen long ago how to grapple with the most agile opponents. He ripped her sleeve, revealing a length of porcelain shoulder, and locked his arm around the lithe elf to pull her close against his gray armor. At his touch, gray fire spread from his fingers to her, burning Helm’s sigil into her shoulder. She gasped in pain and tried to pull free. Instantly, he could feel her, as though the brand tied their souls together.
“There is no escape,” he said, panting for breath. “You cannot flee justice this time.”
Her black eyes shot to his face and her breast heaved against his chest. “Again,” she whispered. “Who’s fleeing?”
Ilira nodded over his shoulder. Kalen did not have to look; he felt it. Her shadow—forgotten in his pursuit—wrapped itself around him in an ice-cold embrace. Instantly, numbness filled his limbs, as when his spellscar manifested, and apathy filled his soul. He released Ilira, but when she tried to scramble away, the divine brand flared up, and she gasped and fell. Her eyes turned gold, as though his power had shocked her shadowdancing powers out of her.
Let go, a deep, masculine voice said in Kalen’s mind. Rest …
The desire to surrender swelled in Kalen, but he could not give in. Not when Myrin relied upon him—not when justice had yet to be done.
“No.” Gray flames rose around Kalen, scalding the creature away.
Grasping her burning shoulder with one hand, Ilira thrust the rapier at him, seeking to take advantage of the shadow’s distraction. Kalen spun Sithe’s axe and knocked her attack wide. She pumped her arm with blinding speed, as though conducting a choir, and she almost beat his defense. Without the powerful enchantments on Sithe’s axe, she would have run him through.
“There is no escape and no victory,” Kalen said through the spinning shield he had formed with the axe. “Drop your sword.”
Ilira lunged at him again. Her blade cut open his calf before he knocked aside her sword. He could barely feel the injury, but it served to distract him. When he saw her eyes turn black—the shadow made manifest—he realized distraction had been her plan. She rolled around Kalen, but when he cut downward with the axe, she had vanished into his shadow.
At first, panic filled him and he gazed around wildly, at a loss for where she might have gone. But he felt the burning call of the mark he had left on her flesh, sounding like a signal horn from the center of the hall. There, Ilira had appeared in the shadows of the garden, to lurk near the marble platform. She screamed as the mark burned her.
Enough of this game of hunter and hunted. Kalen would beat her down with the strength of the Threefold God. At his prayer, he felt power infuse his limbs, and when he ran toward her, he moved faster than any man should have been able. By Helm’s magic, she could not escape. He leaped onto the platform, the axe raised high.
“Zhavaht,” she hissed.
With a shudder, the platform rose. Kalen staggered at the unexpected movement, and the axe sank into the marble between Ilira’s legs. She looked at it a heartbeat, her shoulders heaving.
“Foolish,” she said, panting on the marble. “I can dance away, and leave you here.”
“Foolish,” he said with a smile. “To think the shadows will hide you.”
And with that, he summoned the full radiance of his faith. His armor burst off him and soared outward in a shining beacon of light, so bright it burned the shadow from her gold eyes. The blaze of light dispelled all the shadows on the floating chunk of marble, illuminating the two for all to see. It left Kalen unarmored, but took away Ilira’s shadows as well.
“Well, damn,” she said, hefting her rapier.
Kalen ripped his axe out of the platform, and they were fighting again.
Myrin saw doom bearing down upon her in the form of Levia Shadewalker, and no spells to save her came to mind. It had been days since she’d consulted her grimoire—not since the morning after the lair of Night Masters—and her mind felt muddy from Hessar’s magic-infused strikes. Had he worked a spell upon her to leave her befuddled? She couldn’t hear, either.
A blade appeared between them, however, and Rujia strode out of a portal of flickering light. It was, Myrin thought, a window to the Feywild or something of that nature. The deva met Levia’s charge with a lance of magic, making the priestess stagger. She groped around for Rujia, seemingly unable to see her standing not two paces distant. Myrin recalled the vampire redirecting that very magic toward her in the sewers, and now she knew how it worked: it made Rujia—and only Rujia—invisible to the one struck.
The deva raised her sword to take advantage of Levia’s confusion.
“Stop!” Myrin shouted, hearing herself only dully as though through water. Her ears were splitting. “No killing in my house!”
Rujia struck, but Levia had anticipated the blow and blocked. Even though she couldn’t see the deva, she managed to keep her at bay.
Brace kneeled over Myrin, shouting something at her—a healing insult, perhaps. Warmth surged through her—Brace’s words worked their magic even if she could not understand them—and she got to her feet with his help.
She saw that the gnome and the deva had made short work of the other Eye of Justice enforcers. Two men lay bleeding on the ground while a third slumped against the wall, seemingly senseless. A fourth man wandered aimlessly, babbling to himself in a disconnected tone. Myrin recognized an enfeebled mind, and wondered which of them had done that: Brace with his bardic magic or Rujia with her tricks?
Myrin sought out Kalen and Ilira, who had taken their fight to the rising platform. There they clashed like angels of light and darkness, and the duel offered no indication of which angel was winning. Finally, her hearing returned with a shock, and the world rushed back into ears.
“—all right?” Brace was asking. “My lady, are you—?”
“Fine,” Myrin said, her voice strange and distant. “Help Rujia.”
The deva was holding her own well enough against the priestess, although it was clear she fought only to delay her rather than to defeat her. Levia constantly swiped through empty air, while Rujia kept directing the same blinding magic at her. Blood oozed from Levia’s nose.
Likely, it would have gone well enough if Brace hadn’t intervened.
“Stand away, you horse’s-ass-faced wench!” the gnome shouted.
Levia stopped swinging at the dancing Rujia and instead focused on Brace and Myrin, whom she could see quite well. “What did you say to me?”
“I’d say you were as ugly as my horse’s rear end, but as I’ve no such beast, I cannot,” Brace said. “Also, to make such a claim would be to insult both my hypothetical horse’s hindquarters and the posteriors of worthy steeds everywhere.”
Levia’s eyes narrowed, and the room began to tremble. Rujia stared a warning at Brace.
“She looks angry, Brace,” Myrin said. “Very angry.”
The gnome continued unabated. “And honestly, do you never even try to do anything with that raven’s nest you call hair?” he asked. “Cyric have mercy.”
At that moment, a bright light shone overhead, dazzling them all. Myrin looked up and beheld Kalen and Ilira illuminated by gray flames. Myrin’s heart leaped once more, and for a moment, she couldn’t think. She wasn’t sure which of them she wanted to win.
Then Levia loosed a cry of fury, and the ground around them rocked. A crack split along the stone from the priestess to Myrin, throwing both Rujia and Brace sprawling aside. The wizard murmured the words of her levitation spell, and hung in the air as the tremor ripped a chasm beneath her. Levia glared.
“Do you have any idea how much coin that will cost to fix?” Myrin asked. She inspected the ruined floor. “Well, not that I do either, but still!”
Myrin started to cast another spell when shadow wrapped around her like a fist. She glanced over her shoulder, following the trail of magic, to where Hessar stood near the wall.
“Mother Mystra,” she said. “Wait—”
Then the shadow hand dashed Myrin against the floor, grinding her into the stones beside the crack Levia’s magic had left in her floor. She wriggled but could not move—could not escape or breathe. Pain gave way to panic and her whole body quivered against the floor. The pressure built and built and she wanted to cry out, but she had no breath. Then something tore inside her middle, and pain ripped through her anew. The hand relaxed, only to grind again. This time, there was no fear but only a dizzy sort of weakness.
Myrin looked up to see Levia standing over her, Hessar on the other side. “Do you yield?” the priestess asked, her mace raised. Hessar’s expression was disappointed.
In her dizzy madness, Myrin grinned through bloody teeth. She could not speak to cast magic, but she could feel the blue fire surging within her, begging for release. Her spellscar wanted to manifest—to destroy all those who would endanger it. And just then—seeing Rujia and Brace lying senseless on the floor a few paces away—she couldn’t see a reason to deny it.
A shield of flame surged around her. A vision flashed through her minds of the threads of magic that formed the spell—of the weave loosening. The flames turned blue, and the burned away the shadow like a thick mist. Hessar took an uneasy step back, his yellow eyes widening, and Myrin lashed at him with a surge of crimson flame. The monk tried to dodge, failed, and collapsed screaming to the floor. Myrin grinned in fierce joy at seeing his pain. This was not like her, but she did not care—it felt so right.
She directed another golden bolt toward Levia, but realized the woman was not even looking at her. Instead, she stared up in shock at the platform upon which Kalen and Ilira fought.
Myrin looked, and gasped.
Glowing as fiercely as a gray star, Kalen brought the axe sweeping in, but Ilira ducked under it. They traded blows, moving each other back and forth across the rising platform. She proved damnably good at eluding his strikes, but he could tell she was tiring. Her attacks came slower, and she rarely struck through his defense, let alone cut him.
He’d shed his armor to produce the gray glow that surrounded them, but he felt no less protected by Helm’s power. He was learning how to dodge Ilira’s attacks—exactly where and when to move—and her rapier slid barely past his body. He knew how to move much as Sithe had done when first he’d seen her fight. The armor of faith worked both ways, he realized—either way, his faith was protecting him.
The platform rose from the hall out into the Westgate night. The Shieldmeet festivities lit the city with a thousand, thousand lights, and the effect was dazzling. As they drew up into the night sky, fires burst in the air around them—the product of hedge wizards and alchemists adding special magic to the celebration. Kalen’s light was the most impressive display of all.
“I have the power of a god behind me,” Kalen said as they fought. “What do you have?”
“A weapon.” Ilira eluded his next attack, caught his arm, and twisted the axe from his grasp. It fell, scything end over end, and cut into the floor far below. Deadly, but useless.
Ilira smiled at him and raised her rapier. “Regretting the decision to chase me yet?”
Kalen held out his arm as though to ward her off with an unseen blade. Gray flames tingled around his hand. Ilira pursed her lips, smiled, and lunged.
Vindicator appeared between them, a blade far longer than Ilira’s borrowed rapier. Her eyes widened at the suddenness of it and she managed to twist aside so that it plunged into her stomach, rather than her heart. She tried to gasp, but merely gagged in shock. The rapier fell from her limp hand and skittered off into the night.
They stood like that, locked together by the sword. Then Ilira staggered back and fell to her knees at the edge of the platform, clutching her stomach. Blood seeped between her fingers.
“Devious,” she said. “I … approve.”
“Bane bugger your opinion.” He put the point of Vindicator to her face. “Yield now, and I promise you will have justice.”
“Justice,” she said bitterly. “I’m innocent, in case you’re wondering.”
He shook his head. “Innocent folk don’t run.”
“Well.” She coughed. “I suppose you’ll just have to finish me then.” Her gold eyes blinked wetly at him and a smile crooked her lips. “Come, Saer Shadow. Finish me.”
He lowered the sword and stepped forward. “I bind you by the authority of the Eye—”
She caught his collar in one hand, his neck in the other, and pressed her searing lips to his.
“Kalen!” Myrin cried, at the same time Levia uttered the name in similar terror.
They looked at one another.
“Upstart bitch!” Hessar rasped from the ground. A shadowy spear appeared over his hand, and he hurled it at Myrin.
Myrin deflected the bolt of magic with her orb—into which the spear dissipated harmlessly—but Levia smashed her mace into the back of her head. Without the shield, Myrin would certainly be on the ground, her skull caved in. Instead, she merely fell to one knee, dazed, as Levia staggered away, batting at blue flames that licked at her sleeve.
Blackness abruptly surrounded her, illumined in the orb’s strange blue light. Myrin watched in despair as shadow magic stripped away her fire shield. The spell didn’t hurt her, but she got the sense that it could have. The monk appeared before her, gazing down with that same supercilious smile, as though he were a master chiding a student with a glance.
“Do your worst,” Myrin said to him. “I’ve fought far greater foes than you.”
He smiled as if to say he doubted that.
Then, surprisingly, he nodded at her bandaged hand and winked at her. “You’d best use that now.” He vanished back into the conjured darkness.
What did that mean? Did he know?
No choice. Myrin grasped the edge of the bandage in her teeth and ripped it free.
The darkness faded, and a pair of hands grasped Myrin roughly by the collar. Levia.
“What is going on?” Levia looked up at the platform, unable to utter another word.
Myrin unwrapped her hand as quickly as possible behind her back.
Their kiss lingered.
Ilira pressed herself into Kalen, her body hungry for his, and he found his own appetite rising to match hers. Her tongue flicked along his lips, and he parted his teeth to allow her in. His glow dimmed as his focus shifted. They kissed and kissed.
And there was no fire.
Kalen had seen Ilira burn a man’s face half away with a kiss. An innocent touch had been enough to burn his own fingers. And for one horrible breath, he thought she was doing the same thing to his face and he simply could not feel it.
But this time, there was nothing. Instead, it was simply a kiss: not tentative like Myrin’s kiss or ravenous like Fayne’s from a year ago. Those had been great kisses, but this …
Ilira kissed him in such a way as to make him love her.
Then the moment broke, and Ilira pulled away. “You.…” She stared confusedly at his face, then touched her lips. “Gods of the Seldarine, you’re not burned.”
Levia stared blankly up at the platform, her mouth wide in an expression of horrified amazement. Myrin thought she could see tears welling in her eyes.
“Kalen taught me something,” Myrin said, the bandages falling away.
Levia looked back at her, eyebrows raised.
“One should always attack by surprise if at all possible,” Myrin said. “So … surprise?”
She grasped Levia’s wrist with her scarred hand, and blue flames rose from the touch. Ilira’s stolen spellscar tore apart Levia’s flesh, sending her screaming away from Myrin. She fell on her backside, cradling her burned arm.
Myrin looked up, her blue hair swirling in the winds of magic. “Kalen.”
Hessar was still there, rushing back toward her. Whatever amnesty had briefly hung between them was now gone, it seemed. His fists and feet blazed with dark energy.
Myrin stretched out her scarred hand, which glowed with silver-white light—Torm’s light, drawn from Levia. A searing ray shot out and struck the man full in the chest, and he shrieked and fell away. He reacted to the assault the way he had when her gown’s radiance touched him: it seemed to pain him deeply. He turned and fled.
She wanted to go help Kalen, but she couldn’t leave Rujia and Brace alone where Levia might capture them. She drew out her orb and called to mind the awful spell she’d used in Luskan, when she’d plunged an entire cavern into darkness through which her companions had still been able to see. Rujia and Brace could escape in that. Inky blackness surged from her, and the hall became absolutely dark once more. The power was run through with veins of blue fire.
Next, Myrin called upon her persistent levitation magic and surged into the air. She pierced the darkness but pulled up short, her heart thundering. The platform was descending, and she saw why: no one stood upon it any more.
Locked together, Kalen and Ilira were falling right toward her.
Their hearts beat in unison as Kalen crouched over Ilira, and she pressed herself into his embrace. The silence drew out between them.
“Gods.” Ilira touched her lips with tentative fingers. “I’ve not kissed a man in a century—not without killing him.”
Kalen’s mind felt fuzzy. “You meant to kill me, did you?”
“I did.” Ilira glanced over the side of the platform, into a roiling mass of darkness. “Although perhaps this will do.”
She wrapped her arms around him, kicked in the side of one knee, and they both slipped from the platform, flailing as they fell through the night sky.
Kalen’s insides rushed upward. He wanted to vomit. “You’re mad!”
Ilira threw back her head and laughed, a melodious, wild sound that filled the night around them. Ilira sounded not terrified but exhilarated.
They hurtled past Myrin, who was flying toward them, then plunged toward the darkness.
“Do you want to die?” Kalen demanded of Ilira. “You’re killing both of—”
As soon as they hit Myrin’s conjured shadows, which swallowed Kalen’s light, Ilira’s eyes turned black as death. She danced into the shadows, taking him along.
For one disorienting heartbeat, the world blurred into a shadowy version of itself, and then he was slammed against a solid wall. His bones rattled.
They started to fall again, and Kalen realized that Ilira had teleported them against the high wall of Darkdance Manor. Before he could do more than gasp for air, Ilira shadowdanced once more and slammed him again into the ceiling. Vindicator jarred loose from his nerveless fingers and vanished into the mass of darkness. Then she did it again, and again, and a fourth time, hammering him against one wall and leaping over to hit the opposite wall.
“Wait—” he said, and she slammed him into the floor. “Stop—”
They hit once more, and Kalen lay reeling on the floor with Ilira standing over him. She grasped his collar and pulled him up so that her black eyes blazed into his gray ones. She said nothing, only stared at him, her shoulders heaving. As he watched, her eyes slowly returned to gold, and emotion flooded her face: something deep and long ago buried, only now awakened.
“I—” Ilira tried to speak but could only cough, sending blood leaking down her chin. He must have cut her deeply indeed.
Finally, the darkness dissipated, and as it did, Levia appeared behind Ilira, her mace held high. But her shadow fell across them, cast by the glowing light of Vindicator two paces away. The elf’s ears pricked slightly, not unlike those of a cat. Even as Levia struck her head, Ilira threw herself down on top of Kalen and danced into her shadow. The world spun crazily again.
They appeared by one of the gargoyles atop Darkdance Manor, tumbling out of a shadow cast by an exploding firework. They hit the sloped roof together and bounced apart. Ilira tumbled without control, seemingly senseless from Levia’s strike. Kalen reached for her, but she slipped out of his grasp and he skittered and rolled down the shingled roof toward the edge. He managed to roll over onto his stomach and dig his fingers into the shingles to no avail. Indeed, he left a trail of blood where the shingles tore his skin.
“Not tonight, Helm,” he prayed.
Gray flames spread around his hand and Vindicator appeared in his grasp. He raised the blade into the air and stabbed it down. The shingles and the wood beneath parted easily enough, and the blade cut a path down the roof with an ugly groan. Ilira rolled past him. Unless he did something, she was going to fall to her death when they reached the edge.
Perhaps it was the thought of Myrin and how it would hurt her.
Perhaps it was his vow to protect the innocent and bring justice to the darkness.
Or perhaps it was the kiss.
Regardless, Kalen reached out and grasped Ilira’s bare arm. Instantly, smoke rose from his bare skin on hers, and he knew that whatever had suppressed her spellscar before had worn off. He gritted his teeth and prepared for the heat that built against his own protective scar. For what seemed forever, they fell together, blue fire dancing from her skin to his, Vindicator blazing as it tore open Myrin’s roof.
Then they reached the edge. Vindicator thunked against a crossbeam, halting Kalen with an abruptness that made his arm creak. The impact jarred his hand loose of Ilira’s arm, but he snatched out and caught her gloved forearm. He heard more than felt his arm strain past the breaking point, but his spellscar let him hold her.
How long they hung that way—Kalen just over the edge, Ilira limp in his grasp—he could not say. It might have been breaths or hours.
Then hands closed around Kalen’s wrist and he looked up into Myrin’s terrified face. She helped him push Ilira onto the roof, then pull himself up. He and Myrin sat panting in the warm Westgate evening.
“Kalen. Are you well? I—” Myrin trailed off, eyes wide.
Without even realizing it, he’d summoned Vindicator out of the roof and back into his hand. The blade seemed as pure and sharp as ever, for all its haphazard trip through her roof.
“I have to take her,” Kalen said, pointing the sword at Ilira. “You know that.”
Myrin shook her head. “She’s no threat to me—I swear by Mystra and all the gods.”
“Mystra is long dead,” Kalen said.
“So is Helm, but he still means something to you.”
Kalen coughed. “I have to take her.”
Myrin’s eyes burned. “Are you really Kalen, or are you just Shadowbane?”
He stared at her. “I—”
“And I’m your shadow,” Ilira said.
The elf—who must have awakened during their moment together—swept Kalen’s lower foot out from under him. He tried to catch himself, but with his numbing spellscar he had no balance. He slipped off the roof out over the Westgate night.
Myrin felt a crushing weight on her chest, as though her heart had stopped and would never start again. “What—what have you done?”
Ilira started to respond, but at that moment another voice cried out in rage and fear. Levia came running down the roof toward them, away from the obediently floating platform.
“Myrin, it’s well.” Ilira coughed into her hand. “You have to take us—”
She faltered and fell into Myrin’s arms. The wizard furrowed her brow, stupefied as to what was happening. When she brought up her hand, it glinted with wet blood in the moonlight.
Red-black blood trickled between Ilira’s lips and over her chin, and her flesh smoked where Kalen had marked it with Helm’s sigil. Her eyes seemed vacant and opaque, their gold luster faded to a muddy yellow. The color reminded Myrin of Hessar, when he had looked at her through the shadows. She brushed the comparison aside and held Ilira tight in her arms.
From higher up on the roof, Levia declaimed words of power, and the air before her shaped itself into a hundred scything blades, which came roaring down toward Myrin.
Myrin didn’t know what to think, but she understood what had to be done. She opened her shadow door and pulled herself and Ilira through it just as the blades fell upon them.