The Final Strife

“Yes, congratulations. That was quite a scene in there.”

Sylah ignored her and pressed her ear to the door.

Talons grabbed her around the wrist. “Stop that. Have you no respect?” Gorn’s face was rounder than Sylah had ever seen it.

“Get off.”

They stood there staring at each other, civility peeling back to reveal a bitter hatred beneath.

Sylah broke the silence first.

“I’m going to my room, then I’m heading out.”

“Her room. You’d do well to remember that.”

Sylah wanted to scream and shout, to tell Gorn the riotous truth that she was the one who belonged more than anyone else.

Her arms began to twitch. Her legs followed shortly after. She closed her eyes and tried to calm her beating heart.

Breathe. She needed to breathe or she’d have a fit right there in the hallway.

When she opened her eyes, Gorn was gone.

—

“You’re early,” Jond commented as he followed her into his own apartment. They had long since moved their bloodwerk lessons to his room since the water tower wasn’t a great bed.

“Uka kicked me out, and I ran away from Gorn before she could give me any errands.” She grunted. “Ah, I’m going to have to start again.” She wiped the blood off the glass bulb she was working on.

“What are you doing?” He sat cross-legged on the bed next to her.

“Since Anoor taught me how to create runelamps, I’ve been wondering how they could be used in combat.” She redrew the series of runes she’d been tinkering with. “And I realized, if I increase the pressure of Ba, and funnel the rune through a series of sequences that refine the light into a beam, I can…” The bulb exploded into a bright beam of light, but no glass shattered. It was gone in seconds.

“Fuck, Sylah, I can only see black spots now.”

“That’s the point. It’s for combat. Next up I’m going to add shards of glass.”

He began to grope around like a blind person, his hands brushing her breasts.

“Is that your nose, oh wait…I’m too high.” He pulled up her skirt and slid his hand lower and lower. She laughed, her breath rumbling deep in her lungs.

Her toes curled when his fingers unfurled. She lay backward, letting him roam within.

“What’s that?” The axe lay on its side in the corner of the room.

“What?” he murmured into her upper thigh. She pushed him off her and reached for the axe.

The handle was crafted out of tio root, a dark wood that was worth more than gold. Gold also laced the double blade in swirls, adorning the deadly steel with sunlight.

Of course, it was perfectly balanced.

“When?”

“Last night.”

“Five weapons left, then.” She couldn’t tear her eyes away. “How?”

There was no arrogance as he told her how he’d tracked the food suppliers for days, eventually infiltrating the building underneath a food trolley and up the dumbwaiter.