A faint echo of my Eclipse nature’s anger flared inside me, furious that it had been banished, and even angrier that I was about to replace it.
Another stitch, another, another. The slow jinsei in my stomach was nearly gone. That was okay. There’d be enough to finish this. There had to be.
Another stitch.
The sounds of combat rang out behind me. Fusion blades hummed and clashed together with pure, crystalline chimes. Someone screamed, someone roared, and pulses of anger and fear aspects flashed through the arena in furious waves.
Time was up.
I kept stitching. This was no time to stop. If I could do this, then maybe, just maybe, I could still win.
And I could use the Empyrean Flame’s reward for something greater than merely healing myself.
I’d stop the dragons.
And the heretics.
And the Inquisition.
The pieces of a vast puzzle clicked together in my head. Their grooves and notches fell into place and revealed a new picture to me. I stitched again and again until the Machina’s core seeped through its boundaries. The scrivenings that held it in place within the metal cube that housed it came apart like spiderwebs, and a luminous orb emerged from within the wreckage of my mother’s greatest invention. It was pure and white, clean and without flaw.
It was the most unnatural thing I’d ever seen, and I was about to make it a part of myself.
“Stop,” Trulissinangoth shouted. “You’ve lost, Jace.”
“I know,” I said. “But I’m not playing the same game as you anymore.”
The dragon unleashed a gout of flame in my direction. Its deadly power raced toward me, and I knew when it reached me, I was dead.
There was only one stitch left.
I pulled the thread of jinsei tight as golden flames roared over me, and in the split second before I was devoured by the dragon’s attack, I was healed.
I was hollow no more.
I was something new.
Something no one had ever seen.
New serpents burst from my back to intercept the flames. These were not smooth and sinuous, but mechanical and angular, like the legs of a praying mantis. They extended around me in a protective shell and plucked burning aspects from the dragon’s fire. In a fraction of a second, all those fiery aspects were part of my aura. The jinsei passed harmlessly over me, and I inhaled it into my core.
“Impossible!” Trulissinangoth threw herself at me. Her fusion blade appeared in her left hand in midair, and she spun it around her wrist so quickly it snapped like a bullwhip.
Her furious attack was shockingly fast. There was no time for me to summon my own fusion blade, and barely time for me to slide away from Trulissinangoth’s weapon before it could slice through my chest. I was still processing the change in my core. Mounting an offense was out of the question.
The dragon’s blade was a deadly hurricane around me. The darting tip and slashing length moved with such precision and speed it was all I could do to stay out of its reach. Trulissinangoth’s face twisted into a feral snarl as she focused on the singular task of destroying me.
It was an astounding display of skill and natural power. And it was exactly what I wanted her to do.
“So close, and yet so far,” I goaded the dragon. “You’re not even fast enough to catch me when I’m wounded.”
My risky gambit paid off, and I hoped it wasn’t a terrible mistake.
She came at me with even greater fury than before. Her brutal assault left me with only a split second to dodge away from her flashing blade and gouts of flame. If I let down my guard for even a moment, she’d run me through. Not even my new core could save me from that.
“Are you holding back?” I needed the dragon to put everything she had into her attacks. My only hope of finishing this before my wound incapacitated me was for her to go all out.
Trulissinangoth responded with a wordless cry and came at me like an avalanche. Her onslaught seemed like it would go on forever, as unstoppable and inexorable as waves battering a beach.
And, had I not witnessed her training firsthand, I might have given in to despair at the sheer power she brought to bear against me. But I knew the truth, and that gave me strength.
After what felt like an eternity of dodging and darting out of death’s path, I saw the slightest hint of weakness in my foe. A blazingly fast strike whipped past me like a falling star. The tip of her blade bounced off the stone floor and sent sparks shooting into the air. Her next attack went wide and was ever-so-slightly slower than the one before it. Her chest heaved as she gulped air.
This was what I’d waited for. The dragon’s jinsei was almost gone. Without it, she wouldn’t be able to stand against me.
Trulissinangoth knew that, too. She focused her will and drove her weapon at me in a straight-line thrust that flashed like lightning.
But, as fast as that attack was, I was faster. My serpents clicked and ratcheted into place and deflected the blade before it could touch me. One long, spiked serpent shot forward and pierced the dragon’s hip.
Trulissinangoth screamed and twisted away, leaving blood hanging in the air between us like a broken thread. She clasped her hand to the wound, and silver sacred energy sealed its clean edges. The pain wouldn’t subside so quickly, though, and she winced with every step.
“You won’t kill me,” she said. “You can’t.”
She came at me again, sloppy now that her jinsei was nearly gone. This time my fusion blade was ready for her. It appeared in my hands, clean and clear, like a sliver of
