“Such harsh words,” Cadrin said.
He flicked his new whip and again my Flame Shield turned the slender lash into a burst of icy shards. Cadrin’s face crumpled as he summoned yet another of the icy whips.
“Who are your fancy friends?” I asked.
“The masters of this guild,” Cadrin replied. “By far your betters.”
“I am a master in my own guild,” Faryn said firmly. It was only because I knew her well that I could tell how hard she was working to maintain that bravado so far from the familiarity of home. “These two are heirs to one of the empire’s greatest generals. We can match anything you have. Ethan, discipline the peacock.”
“Yes, Master Faryn,” I said without expression.
I surged to attack Cadrin, but he sidestepped at the last moment and disappeared through a doorway. His whip lashed out as I adjusted my path. It struck my exposed flesh again and caught me on the back of the hand. Cadrin’s laugh echoed through the hallway as I shoved through the doorway and entered a dormitory.
Neatly made rows of beds lined the walls as I sliced through the head of another whip attack. Cadrin retreated down the center of the room and drew his serrated sword as he went. His elaborate robes disappeared beneath a layer of spiked Frozen Armor.
“It’s a shame your Vesma isn’t here to entertain us,” Cadrin mocked. “I’m sure she’s delicious. Tell me: what does it sound like when she screams?”
I’d had enough shit from the foppish sadist. I was going to break him down a piece at a time, as fast as I could.
I sent a stream of Untamed Torch over the beds and filled the air with smoke.
Cadrin jumped aside from a burning bunk, and an Ice Spear appeared in his spare hand as his Frozen Armor hissed into steam.
I pulled a spiked Plank Pillar out of a blazing mattress, and Cadrin flung his frozen spear into the wall and leaped up onto it. It wouldn’t hold for long. The burning beds around us would see to that. Cadrin’s favored ice attacks would lose their teeth the moment he tried to use them.
“Oh, dear, is our aim off?” Cadrin cackled as he summoned more spears and flung them into the walls as makeshift stairs. He leaped, swung one-handed around one, and landed on another not far from my head.
Cadrin’s blade slashed down at me. I parried, twisted aside, and fired another Untamed Torch. He jumped off his perch, landed with a roll on the far side of the room, and sprang to his feet in a doorway. Heat haze rippled around us, and a curtain to his right ignited.
“You really are a one-trick pony, aren’t you?” he said. “Just throwing fire around in hopes that you’ll finally set something worthwhile alight.”
“I don’t need anything more than fire to kill you,” I said.
“Said like the weak product of a weak guild.” Cadrin hurled an Ice Spear as he turned to get out of the blazing dormitory. I batted it aside with the Sundered Heart and chased him while smoke trailed after us.
A teaching room full of chairs and desks barred my way while the crackle of ice and steam hissed through a door at the far end. My friends were giving as good as they got. Spears, whips, and blasts of ice hurtled through the doorway in a flash of swirling water and whirling leaves.
“You’re a mockery of a disciple,” I said. “You’ve betrayed your fellow students and turned a noble institution into something selfish and corrupt.”
“I’m helping turn this guild into something pure.” Cadrin turned to face me. “Something righteous.”
He’d apparently had enough of running. I brought the Sundered Heart up to parry a lancing strike. Our blades clashed, separated, and sliced chunks out of each other’s armor.
I drew blood from Cadrin’s shoulder and sent him reeling with an elbow to his chin. Fear fluttered through his eyes as he fell back. But his weasel-like speed and cunning made him too difficult to pin down. The Sundered Heart skated past his armor as he scrambled over the ground and into the outside hallway.
Another ice whip caught hold of my armor as he went and hauled me after him. A sting of pain hissed through my shoulder, and I shattered the barbed lash with the Sundered Heart.
I stormed into the hallway and found my friends as they fought for their lives. Faryn used her dagger to parry a master’s trident before she sprayed him with a faceful of Stinging Palm. He laughed as the thorns glanced off his frozen helmet, and he gripped her hand in his icy gauntlet. Faryn buckled beneath the pain, and her dagger dropped from her hand.
Cadrin could wait. My team needed my help.
I came in from the side like a runaway train and smashed my shoulder into the enemy master. He swore as I drove him into the wall and ripped the air from his lungs with a single impact. Smothering Leaves whirled around us as a punch hit me in the eye and forced me to draw back. The leafy whirlwind staggered the trident-wielding master blindly into the wall behind him. I kept the piercing trident at bay as the master froze the cutting leaves around his face.
I called a Plank Pillar out of the wall behind the master and forced it to widen. The growing wooden wall punched him in the back and shot him toward me. I turned his trident aside, went low, and caught him around the legs. I lifted the lecturer off the floor and smashed him into the tapestry behind me. Faryn waved, and the tapestry turned into a mass of strangling threads as the plant fibers bent to her will. The master was locked in place and couldn’t avoid my sword when I rammed it straight into his heart.
“Water masters are among the most delicious to kill,” Nydarth whispered. “Give me more, Swordslinger.”
Sparks flew to my left as Kumi
