The heretics’ headlong charge shattered against the bulwark of the tomb’s guardians. Their blazing fusion blades clanged off ancient armor, jinsei flared as they desperately activated techniques, and their blood splattered the walls from floor to ceiling. From the outset, the melee was horrifically lopsided, and the invaders were not prepared for a pitched battle against a superior force. Half of my mother’s squad died before they recovered enough to pull back from the surprise attack. The survivors watched the giants, weighing their orders to kill me against near certain death.
The bad guys weren’t the only ones in trouble, though. The two titans closest to the tomb’s inner chamber had their sights on me. Their blades roared as they tore through the air, forcing me to drop almost prone to get below the arcing tip of the leading attack. I rolled away as the second blade chopped down. Despite their size, the titanic defenders were astonishingly fast. By the time I bounced back to my feet, they’d already recovered from their attacks and were coming after me again. This time they coordinated their swings so their blades came at me simultaneously. One scythed in from my left at knee height, while the one sweeping in from the right side was aimed at my shoulder.
With so little room to dodge the attack, and no way to parry swords twice my size, my options were limited. My serpents exploded out of my aura and lifted me a yard off the ground. I twisted as I rose into the air, flattening my body and tucking my fusion blade tight against my side. My feet hit the wall at waist height, and I ran between those scissoring weapons as fast as my legs could carry me. Every step I took felt like my last. If I’d miscalculated, I’d be dead before I knew what hit me.
A blade hammered into the serpents before I could retract them. The impact hurled me into the wall and spun me around until I couldn’t tell which way was up. My hip bounced off the flat of a blade that sliced through the air beneath me, and the collision hurled me up and back toward the tomb. The blade above me clipped my shoulder in a blast of blinding pain. My Thief’s Shield peeled some of the force from the sword strike, saving me from certain death, but the blow was so powerful it still sent me crashing into a wall with enough force to drive the wind out of my lungs and left me on my hands and knees, desperate for breath.
With no time to regain my feet before the savage titans could attack me again, I reached out for the abundant freezing aspects. There was no time for a delicate spell, so I leaned into brute force. I aimed a hand at each of the titans advancing on me and willed my serpents to help save my life. The talisman I’d stitched into my thread limited the number of aspects I could call, and I had a split second to wonder if that had been a deadly mistake.
The tomb’s defenders raised their weapons overhead as they flanked me. In less than a breath’s time, they’d hack me into bloody chunks.
The freezing spell coated the black metal cages around the giants’ joints with frost as the blades fell. I screamed and urged my serpents to work faster and thrust every aspect I could find toward my targets. Jinsei burned out of my core as I pushed my body and spirit past their limits.
A single blink of my eyes seemed to stretch out for an eternity. My cheeks burned from the freezing wind that swirled around me. The breath I pulled through my nose crackled and snapped with deadly frost. This was it. Either I’d been fast enough, or I was dead.
Both blades slammed into the wall just above me with a deafening crash. The freezing spell I’d cast had turned the black cages around the giants’ wrist bones brittle. That wouldn’t have done much alone. But those weakened bars were no match for the tremendous weight and velocity of the massive weapons they supported. The joints had shattered, throwing the defenders’ aim off just enough to save my life. Now their blades were stuck in the wall, and they each had a bum arm in the bargain.
It was time to get out of there before they recovered and went on the attack.
“The gate!” I shouted as I scrambled back into the tomb. “Abi, get us out of here!”
My friends were still stunned by what had happened. The silver scales had fallen from their eyes, only to be replaced by confusion. The tomb’s aspects left them paralyzed.
I used nearly all the jinsei I had in my core to sprint across the circular chamber in the blink of an eye. My serpents lashed out at my friends’ auras. The mechanical, supernatural serpents pulled at the aspects, but they were sticky and stretchy as melted caramel. They’d never clear four auras in time.
The giants reached the tomb’s door. They ducked their skulls to fit beneath its arch, and their enormous feet crashed down onto the metal floor with such force I felt it through the soles of my boots.
“The gate, Abi!” I shouted.
When he still didn’t respond, I whispered an apology, stepped in the center of their group, and activated the Thief’s Shield.
The technique ripped the negative aspects out of my friends’ auras and rammed them into mine. My serpents faltered, their joints clicking and popping as they searched for targets that had simply vanished. The crush of dread and shame aspects nearly flattened me under their combined weight. I clung to the truth, that these feelings weren’t mine, that I hadn’t done anything wrong, but it was a losing battle. The darkness pulled me down. I was drowning in it.
“Gate,” I gasped.
Freed from the tomb’s oppressive feelings, my friends sprang into action. Eric
