“Isn’t this nostalgic?”
The deep voice sent tremors of fear through Josef’s body, and his back seized up in remembered pain. Josef gritted his teeth and fought it down, the pain and the fear, until his body was still again, a weapon waiting for use, just like his sword. Firmly back in control, Josef opened his eyes and glared at the Lord of Storms. “Where’s Eli?”
“I don’t know,” the Lord of Storms said. “And I don’t care. I’m here for her.”
He raised his arm, and as his hand stretched out, the lightning crashed again. But instead of fading, the light condensed into a long, curved, blue-white sword. Its hilt rested against the Lord of Storms’ palm, and its tip pointed behind Josef at where Nico lay against the ledge.
“Move, master of the Heart of War,” the Lord of Storms said, hand closing on the blue-wrapped grip of his blade. “While you still can.”
Josef said nothing and held his ground.
The Lord of Storms’ eyes narrowed to silver slits, shining in the dark. “I’m not here to play, swordsman,” he growled. “I live for a good fight, but today is business only. Move.”
“I’m not playing,” Josef said. “And you’re not taking her. Not while I draw breath.”
“Those terms are acceptable,” the Lord of Storms said. “I have no problem killing you.”
Josef bared his teeth. “I think you will.”
The Lord of Storms laughed, a harsh, cracking sound like lightning ripping through a tree. “Really?” he said, grinning wide. “I must have hit your fool head harder than I thought last time if you’ve forgotten how things ended.”
“I’m not the man you fought then,” Josef said, boots crunching as he ground them farther into the snow. “And I won’t move.”
The Lord of Storms regarded him in silence for several moments, and then his broad shoulders arched in a shrug. “As you wish, swordsman.”
He swung his sword up, and Josef felt a flash of fear as the blue-white blade whistled through the air. Then he forced the pain away, focusing instead on the heavy feel of the Heart in his hand. Just as he had done in Osera, he threw himself into his blade, giving himself over to the Heart and accepting the sword in turn. Their wills met and began to resonate until the Heart was no longer a weight in his hand but a part of his arm. The scarred black metal became an extension of his own heart, his own soul, binding them inextricably together in one purpose: to cut the enemy.
After all—the Heart’s voice was Josef’s own—even lightning can be cut.
“Impossible.”
Josef blinked. He didn’t realize he’d spoken out loud until he heard the Lord of Storms answer. The Lord of Storms grinned at his confusion and flipped his sword around, stabbing the tip through his black coat and into his own chest.
Josef flinched instinctively. From where he stood, it looked like the man had just skewered himself, but the Lord of Storms wasn’t cut. As the blade met his chest, it became lightning. It forked inside him, lighting up his body like a cloud until the Lord of Storms removed it, turning the glowing tip toward Josef’s own chest.
“I am the storm,” he said. “The first and greatest of the Shepherdess’s servants, the star of storms, bound together from the greatest storm spirits by the Lady herself at the dawn of creation. To cut me would be to cut the Shepherdess’s own will.”
Josef raised his chin. “There was another man who told me he couldn’t be cut,” he said defiantly. “I took off his arm.”
The Lord of Storms’ jaw clenched in fury, and the glowing sword shook in his hand, its tip leaving jagged trails in the dark. “I see your arrogance finally matches that of your sword,” he said, his voice as tight as a wire. “Come then, boy. If you’re so eager to die, I will not stop you.”
Josef’s answer was to lift his sword, sliding the enormous blade forward as he set his feet in first position. The Lord of Storms watched him move through slitted eyes, and then he was gone.
It was the same as before, that terrifying speed, the sword that moved like the wind and came from anywhere. But this time, Josef was different. He might not be able to see the Lord of Storms’ movements, but he could feel them through his sword like the Heart’s metal was his own bone. His sword moved without thought, rising to meet the Lord of Storms’ blow before the swing could flicker back into existence.
When the Lord of Storms appeared at Josef’s left, the Heart of War was waiting. The lightning blade struck the Heart’s scarred, black edge with a squeal of metal. The impact nearly sent Josef to his knees, but he forced himself to hold, and then, feet digging into the icy rock, he began to push back. He had one fleeting glimpse of the Lord of Storms’ astonished face before the League Commander vanished in a swirl of cloud. He reappeared instantly on Josef’s right, his glowing sword falling toward Josef’s unguarded thigh.
Even as he saw it, Josef knew there was no time to dodge, and he caught himself saying good-bye to his leg before he remembered what was at stake. The Heart was buzzing in his hands, and Josef had the distinct impression the sword was screaming at him, demanding to be let in. Josef surrendered at once. His body went slack, his fingers relaxed, no longer holding the Heart but being guided by it, his arm following the black blade as it would follow his hand.
What happened next was the fastest thing Josef had ever seen his body do. One moment he was wide open below the Lord of Storms’ swing, the next the Heart was there, an iron wall between him and the glowing blade. Now it was the Lord of Storms who had no time to change course. The swords met with a crash, the blue-white blade pulsing as it ground against the Heart’s black barrier.
Push up.
The command pounded through Josef like a shot of adrenaline, and before he’d even processed the words, his body obeyed. He shot up, bringing both swords with him in a great upward lunge. Caught off balance, the Lord of Storms had no choice but to rise as well. His sword slid along the Heart’s blade, leaving a trail of sparks that faded into forked crackles, but the Heart of War was rolling like an avalanche now. With all of Josef’s weight behind it, the black blade shot upward, throwing off the glowing sword like water before slicing into the Lord of Storms’ neck.
The blow was so fast Josef didn’t even realize what he’d done until he began to fall forward. The stroke’s power flowed through him and vanished, leaving him overextended. He slammed his leg down at once, turning and steadying himself in one motion as he looked back.
Behind him, the Lord of Storms stood frozen, his sword flung out at his side. The blue-white blade was flashing wildly, flickering between steel and lightning, but Josef hardly saw it. His eyes were locked on the Lord of Storms neck, or what was left of it. There, right at the jugular where the Heart of War had passed, flesh gave way to roiling clouds shot through with forked lightning. Above that there was… nothing. The blow had taken his head clean off.
A surge of triumph nearly brought Josef to his knees, but the joy was smothered almost immediately. As soon as he saw what the Heart had done, the clouds on the stump of the Lord of Storms’ neck began to rise and coalesce. They swirled together, forming long, dark hair, pale skin, a long, hard nose, and a pair of silver eyes flashing with smug triumph.
“I warned you,” the Lord of Storms said, his voice warped as his mouth rebuilt itself from the clouds. Josef got one look at the man’s white, white teeth coming together in a smile before his lips re-formed, and then the world exploded into pain.
Josef choked and fell forward, gripping his chest. In front of him, in the space that had been nothing but empty air not a second ago, was a white hole. Through it, the Lord of Storms’ pale hand was gripping the hilt of his sword, the blade of which was shoved through Josef’s ribs.
For one long, breathless moment, Josef could only stare at his blood dripping down the blue-white blade and think how impossible it was. The Lord of Storms was behind him with both arms at his side, sword in hand, and yet that was the Lord of Storms’ hand in front of him, and his sword. Josef was still trying to work his mind around this when he was interrupted by the hateful sound of the Lord of Storms’ laughter.
“You humans really are blind, aren’t you?” the commander said, walking around to grin at Josef with his fully re-formed head. “You knew I wasn’t human. You’ve seen me remake myself, seen me pull swords out of the air, and yet you still expect me to have only two arms just because that’s what your flesh eyes tell you?”
He threw out his arms in a welcoming gesture, his sword hanging lazily from his long fingers. Meanwhile,
