“Can you clean up the rest?” I asked Mahrai.
She snorted. “Do you even need to ask?”
I channeled Flight and raced upward to confront the Augmenters. Their jaws dropped as I landed on the platform beside them, and Scorching Lashes appeared around their hands a moment later.
Strength flooded my muscles as I adjusted my physical pathways. A flaming whip snapped toward my neck, but I caught it around my hand. Pain flared around my skin, but my new resistance to fire kept my flesh untouched. I yanked on the fire whip, pulled the Augmenter stumbling toward me, and caved his head in with my warhammer. His corpse hit the edge of the platform and rolled off it a moment later to the valley floor below.
The second Augmenter snarled a curse and fired off an Untamed Torch at my chest. I created a small Smothering Mist between us, catalyzed it with raw Vigor, and used it as a shield. Steam clouded the platform, but I knew exactly where my opponent was from his howl of pain. I emerged from the steam like an avenging nightmare, grabbed the Augmenter by the robes, and effortlessly threw him over my shoulder with one hand.
The Augmenter crashed to the floor of the elevator with a winded huff, and I shoved my warhammer against his throat. The scalded flesh of his face tightened into a grimace as the steam cleared around us. I put a little more weight into the hammer and gave my opponent just enough breathing room to talk.
“Where’s Jiven?” I demanded.
The Augmenter cracked a smile, despite the Immense Blade at his throat. “Gone.”
“Who’s at the castle?”
“The instruments of your destruction,” the man hissed.
He spat on my face and grabbed my arms with flaming hands. My bracers took the brunt of the heat, and I raised the Demure Rebirth into the air. The Augmenter wasn’t saying what I wanted to hear, and I wasn’t about to waste more time with him.
I activated Ground Strike and gave the blow some extra punch from the environment around me. The whole platform came apart in a shower of splinters. Chains snapped as the shockwave of the technique rippled upward and tore through the steel like paper. I leapt off the falling platform, dodged a whizzing pulley, and caught myself in the air with Flight.
I watched Mahrai smack a spear out of the last guard’s hands before Vesma burned through him with a burst of Untamed Torch. The sheer heat of her attack vaporized the guard’s flesh, and his armor drifted away in a cloud of cinders as I landed beside them.
Vesma looked over the battlefield at the corpses of the guards and grimaced at the carnage. The smell of burning flesh was almost overpowering. Charred corpses let off trails of smoke, and a few small grassfires flickered in the dying light at our feet.
“That was—” Vesma began.
“Easy?” I finished for her.
“Yeah,” she said quietly. “We really have come a long way.”
Mahrai gestured at the broken elevator and then up at the top of the mountain. “How are we going to get up there?”
I glanced up at the castle above us and shrugged. “We’ll fly.”
“You and Vesma might be able to, but it’ll take me forever to climb up. And it’s not like there’s a lot of handholds either.”
I scooped her up into my arms without a second thought. Mahrai yelped as I took to the sky and levitated upward at a steady rate. Mahrai’s earthy scent washed over me as she clung to my neck and peered down at the ground. The curve of her firm breasts pressed into my shoulder, and I couldn’t help but notice the little gasp she gave as we ascended toward the castle. Fire streamed from Vesma’s feet and propelled her up to meet us, and we soared up to the castle walls together.
“Gods,” Mahrai breathed. “This is really fucking high.”
“Just hold on,” I assured her. “You’ll be fine.”
Stone walls drowned us in shadow as we drew closer to the castle. The original architects had carved it straight out of the mountain, and every inch of it was washed smooth from centuries of weather and rain. Vesma pushed on ahead of us, and with a final effort, we flew up past a tower and landed on a parapet.
Shouts of alarm echoed through the huge outer courtyard. Weapons clanged as a set of guards sprinted up a curving staircase toward one of the towers. A torrent of fire burst from the windows, rolled down the stairs like an ocean tide, and consumed them like kindling on hot coals.
I dropped Mahrai beside me and sprinted along the wall to get a better look. I’d only ever seen Augmentation of that power from Xilarion. But surely he hadn’t heard of all of this yet. Unless the missing monks had gathered here?
A man-sized creature of flame strolled out onto the stairs and raised a hand toward us. He was the one who had vaporized the guards who had been coming up the stairs.
I recognized the form. I had seen it during the Radiant Dragon tournament all those months ago.
“Hamon?” Vesma whispered.
It definitely looked like him. A living, breathing fire elemental.
Hamon Wysaro tilted his head in a kind of idle curiosity as I reached for my Vigor and readied myself for yet another fight against my old nemesis.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Instinct took over. Flight’s flaming streamers spun around my feet, and I leapt off the battlements toward Hamon. I pulled the Demure Rebirth from my harness as the air rushed around me, and Hamon’s eyes widened in surprise.
I crossed the distance between us in the blink of an eye. I hit Hamon in the chest like an avalanche, and he shot back through the doorway into the tower. I
