Kumi chanted and swayed behind me. She drew the rain together into an orb of water suspended between her hands and sent it to my side. It soothed my pain and stopped the blood loss. My flesh started to heal, and my energy level rose.
“Traitor!” Labu screamed at her. “You choose an outsider over your own brother!”
“Please, Labu,” Kumi said. “Think about what you’re saying and doing. You’re helping in our father’s murder.”
“Father is lost to us already. He doesn’t care about his people, just about meditating on his Path of Peace. Something has to change.”
“There are other ways to do that.”
“This is your fault.” He pointed his spear at me. “Putting ideas in her head. Drawing her favor away from her own people.”
“Just choose a side,” I spat. “In an ideal world, you could have both the clan and the guild. But Cadrin has taken this too far. He has to be stopped. Let me past you!”
Labu’s scream turned to one of incoherent rage as he charged. I called upon my Frozen Armor power to fix the gaps in my protection as he closed in. Lightning flashed when our weapons collided. The whole world was lit for a moment in dazzling white light, and our weapons locked together. I flung out my hand and blasted him at point-blank range with Untamed Torch.
Labu was thrown back, and his barbed spear skittered along the dock before dropping into the water. He staggered back with a hand to his chest where my magic had scorched him. He’d managed to weather a blow from a fireball, but his scaled flesh was blistered.
“See?” he said. “This one brings fire to the land of water. He would burn away our traditions and replace them with his own.”
“Enough words,” I said.
This time, I drew upon wood as well as fire and formed a flow of ash down my arm and out into the world. A black cloud ran from my hand, swirled through the air, and wrapped itself around Labu. He choked, gasped, and tried to stagger clear, but I kept the cloud moving with him so that he couldn’t breathe clearly or see where he was going. Step by uncertain step, he went closer to the edge of the docks.
In better conditions, I would have kept the cloud up until he fainted from lack of air. But the pouring rain carried the black dust down with it and formed dark stains across Labu’s tunic. In a few moments, my Ash Cloud would be gone entirely.
I ran at him, but Labu heard me and raised a long Ice Spear. He flailed wildly to hold me off as the remnants of my Ash Could fell away in black trickles down his chest. I brought my sword down and melted through his makeshift weapon. Frozen slices of spear tumbled to the ground with a bell-like tinkle.
Labu retreated further down the docks as he held his arm out. A tiny sliver of ice appeared in his hand before it melted away.
“Looks like you’re out of juice,” I said.
He stumbled over a coiled heap of rope, righted himself, and took another step back. I walked toward him as he finally managed to produce a frozen spike the size of a dagger. He raised the pitiful weapon, but I knocked it aside.
The back of his foot hit the edge of the dock, and he stopped. Waves crashed around him in the howling wind, but he stood steady on the brink, as if the ocean itself held him up.
I sheathed my blade, brought my hands together, and gathered all my Vigor into a fire pathway. An Untamed Torch coalesced between my hands. It grew in size as I fed it more Vigor. Then, I used Flame Empowerment to grow it into a blazing inferno I could hardly contain.
Labu blinked the last of the ash water from his eyes just in time to see what I had made.
I hit him with the biggest damn fireball I could.
The blast struck him in the chest so hard that it hurled him from his feet. He hurtled out into the darkness, carried on a trail of flame that was extinguished as man and magic splashed down into the sea.
I stood on the dockside for a moment to watch for any sign of Labu’s return. It was hard to make out what was happening out there. Waves crashed wildly in the storm wind. Night was falling, adding to the darkness the clouds had caused, making it almost impossible to see anything away from the land and the lights that glowed in the windows of the guild house.
Kumi walked up beside me and clutched my arm.
“Did you kill him?” she asked in a hushed tone.
“He healed from a thorn, but a fireball like that is something else. It had to be done.”
“I know,” Kumi said. “But you didn’t kill him. The sea is our protector. I’m sure she’ll look after him and bring him home.”
I wasn’t so sure, but I didn’t have time to feel remorse or wonder whether Labu still lived.
“Are you still wounded under there?” she asked and tapped at my armor.
“Not seriously. It can wait until we get back to Qihin City.” I scanned the path leading from the guild house to the docks for any sign of my friends. I couldn’t see them, and I was starting to get worried.
“I must help Father,” she said. “Please, help me find a boat.”
My friends would have to handle themselves, at least for now. “All right,” I answered.
We marched along the docks, looking for vessels that hadn’t broken free, become flooded, or been smashed against the stones.
“There,” Kumi said as she pointed to one of the smaller boats, like the one that had first brought me to the island. “I know how to steer that.”
We grabbed hold of the ropes and hauled the boat in toward the dock. It was
