Rali and Warcry were back on their feet, recovered from the eardrum-shattering effects of Grave Wail, but like me all they could do was stare at Kest with their mouths hanging open.
Dead Reckoning showed a silver life point shining in her skull, right where the blue-white one had gone out.
She was alive. How was she alive?
“That is mine.” Kest aimed her bloody palm at the Bailiff. “And you’re wearing it wrong.”
With a sharp motion, her fist snapped closed and the Heartblood Crown crunched through the Bailiff’s wrist.
His dismembered hand dropped onto the grass with a wet slap. He followed it down, letting out a howl of pain and clutching his ruined stump to his stomach.
The blood-soaked metal bracelet shot into Kest’s grasp.
“It goes like this,” she said.
She thumped the Heartblood Crown to her chest with enough force to drive its barbed spikes into the skin around the bullet wound. The bracelet whirled, boring into her chest like a hole saw.
Kest grimaced as it tore into her. Rolling silver leaked out of the bullet hole in the center of the bloody circle. The liquid cinnabar climbed up her shoulder and flowed down her stump to re-form her prosthetic arm.
Flesh and bone filled in the bullet hole and repaired the chunk of her torso the bracelet had tunneled through to get to her heart. Within seconds, every scratch and bruise from the fight had healed, too. Her tan skin glowed, flawless in the silvery light of her strange new Metal Spirit. The lace patterns in her eyes darkened until they were almost completely black, then faded back to their regular thickness.
“Okay,” Kest said when everything on her had stopped moving. She let the brilliant silver aura dissipate. “He’s all yours, Hake.”
Winning the Battle, Losing the War
ONE THING YOU CAN SAY for the Bailiff. He didn’t beg for his life or pretend to be sorry. He knew it was over, and he stayed true to his contrary nature right to the end.
I released Sudden Death, returning my life energy back to where it belonged, then reached out with Damnation. Before, I’d wanted the Bailiff to suffer, but now that the bloodlust had faded and Kest was standing there alive, I realized that would’ve been overkill. What he had coming after death was an eternity of paying for his sins. I didn’t have to add torturer to my conscience on top of everything else just to feel like I’d gotten enough revenge.
The Bailiff tipped up his bowler hat with one blood-soaked, webbed finger, then flashed me a wide brush-toothed grin.
“See ya in hell, Smart Boy.”
Damnation closed around his airy gray life point and consumed it in a wave of black and turquoise fire.
The Bailiff screamed, then slumped over on his side, oozing wrist stump flopping in the grass.
There was no agitation in his corpse, no chance of a vengeful ghost rising from his remains. Damnation had finished the job completely. The Bailiff was dead and gone.
Metal fingers laced through mine. I pulled Kest into my arms, squeezing her tight and burying my face in her hair. She smelled like blood and welding and herself.
“You’re really okay?” I asked without lifting my head up. “This isn’t some kind of... mental breakdown where I think you’re alive and you’re not, right? Everything from the last few minutes really happened?”
“Of course it did, you goof.” She turned her head and caught me on the mouth.
Her lips were cold, but not death-cold. I could feel how soft she was and the pain from the knife scars in my messed-up side and the low constant burn of the Dragon script tattoo. This wasn’t a dream.
I pulled away first.
“But I saw you die,” I said. “Your life point disappeared.”
She shook her head, her tangled hair brushing against my face.
“I think it was close,” she said. “But some of my blood splashed onto the Crown when the Bailiff shot me, and it was trying to decide which one of us to accept as its master. Things were starting to fade out, and I thought, ‘Okay, well, I’m definitely dead.’ Then suddenly, I could see two paths stretching out in front of me—Rigid or Malleable—and I knew if I could survive long enough to advance, the Heartblood Crown would pick me. The only way to create a patch that wouldn’t tear out with the next heartbeat was to use rolling silver, so I chose Malleable. Now here we are.”
The grass rustled behind me. Dead Reckoning showed Warcry’s burning red life point and Rali’s Spiritless orange approaching. I didn’t want to let go of Kest so soon after I’d gotten her back from the dead, but I forced myself to let go and step back.
“So you’re not just Ten,” Warcry said, “but invincible, too? That’s well class, Stumpy.” He bumped her on the arm with the side of his fist.
Kest did that thing she always did when she was trying not to gloat—lifted her chin and wouldn’t look any of us in the eye.
“I think the Crown was leaning toward me the whole time,” she said. “What self-respecting iron artifact is going to choose an Air Spirit over a Metalhead?”
I expected Rali to jump in and congratulate his twin for finding the vein and discovering the true essence of Metal Spirit and all that vague ethereal stuff he usually came up with when talking about cultivating, but he didn’t. His face pinched into an expression like someone had kicked him below the belt and he’d just hit the trying-not-to-barf-and-die stage.
“She’s not the only one who advanced, is she, Hake?” he said.
His voice was quiet, but I could feel the undercurrent of threat humming through it like electricity. I hooked my hands in my back pockets to keep from backing up a step.
“No,” I said, trying not to sound like I was bracing myself. “She’s not.”
“Don’t tell me you advanced, too, grav.” Warcry grinned and hit me with a barrage of punches to
