Panic set in as Kar tumbled toward the ground, the sky swapping places with the ground over and over in a dizzying spin. He had no Energia left to Focus. He managed to snake his left hand into the pocket where he’d placed his shards. If he could just reach one… there, he felt it. He grabbed hold of that shard and squeezed tightly, but before he could draw on and use its Energia—he slammed pack first onto wet sod. His mouth gaped open in agony and shock, but he made no sound-he couldn’t. Somehow though, Kar still gripped the shard inside his pocket. He instinctually drew on it, and all of its Energia rushed in, partially mending whatever had been damaged.

  Rain drops splashed in his eyes; Kar turned his head aside—blinking furiously—and groaned. Sharp aches still stabbed him all over.

  That had hurt. More than getting his arm severed, or his head burnt or raked by claws. But he was alive. Which meant he didn’t have the luxury of lying about.

  Kar dragged himself to first his knees, then feet. He heard the chinking and scraping of crystal on crystal as cryst-soldiers rushed across the inner grounds of the fortress toward him.

  Distant blasts and muffled shouts rang from above. Kar craned his neck to look up to the battlements and saw his companions fighting for their lives, their figures distant specks. It looked like he was about to do the same. Kar backed up slowly as he was surrounded, shrugging the pack off his back. He brushed up against the rough stone of the wall and stopped.

  Rain ran down his forehead. He wiped it away and tried to count the cryst-soldiers facing him. He quickly gave up and took a deep, steadying breath, then pulled out a fresh shard and held it in his left hand.

  The soldiers halted, weapons at the ready. What were they waiting for? Their ranks parted then and an armored figure stepped forward from their midst. It was a Valorcryst, like Erio and Tharn.

  “You are the Marked?” The relatively short and stocky Cryst asked. He sounded skeptical, a metal blade bared in hand, no helmet or mask covering his head. His facial features were disconcertingly human.

  “I am.” Kar said, trying to think of what he could possibly do here. He flexed his shadowcryst arm in anticipation and the Valorcryst’s eyes were drawn to it.

  The Cryst snarled and raised his blade, the point now angled toward Kar, “You serve the Void!”

  Kar tensed up, prepared to fight.

  Just then fire fell from above. The Valorcryst leapt away as the flames swept over the front rank of soldiers. Kiya landed next to Kar—Lore hanging from her neck—while Tharn and Erio both slammed upright nearby.

  As if on some silent command, the cryst-soldiers all charged Kar and his sudden reinforcements.

  Erio strode in front of Kar, his lance sweeping and stinging in a whirlwind pattern like a maelstrom. Kar realized then just how much the Valorcryst had been holding back when they had fought him in the hall. Cryst-soldiers were felled by his lance or fell back before it.

  Tharn waited in the wings to Erio’s right, ready to strike down those who tried to circumvent the Lancer, while Kiya and Lore planted themselves to the left. This felt wrong to Kar. He felt his blood rising; he wasn’t fearful—rather indignant. He shouldn’t need to be protected anymore. That reckless spirit which had driven him to pursue the Scorpios settled upon him once again. He suspected this had something to do with his Shadowcryst arm, but in the moment he didn’t care.

  He sucked in the Energia from the shard in his hand, all of it at once, and allowed it to suffuse him. He was operating on intuition, but had begun to understand that every time he used a different ability, he had to Focus in a slightly different way. He couldn’t explain why what he did worked. But all of it was tied to the way Kar mentally pictured things occurring. In a way it seemed he was willing things into being based on what he wished them to be, manifesting them into reality. And at that moment, he wanted a weapon. A weapon like Erio’s. No, he wanted to be a weapon like Erio.

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  Voidcryst coalesced into Kar’s hand in the form of a crystal lance; long, sharp and darker than night. Black crystalline armor then formed around him, fitted to the shape of his chest and body, but styled closely after what Erio wore. And finally, a helmet closed around his head, a narrow slit across the face-guard for his eyes to see.

  He wasn’t manifesting something that was a part of him this time like he had with his arm. This was different. It was separate. But with everything fully formed, and its weight settled upon him, Kar felt an overwhelming thrill surge through him. It was as if something deep inside had finally been unshackled.

  Kar stepped forward alongside Erio, his new lance lunging toward a cryst-soldier. It pierced easily through crystal armor and skin and to Kar’s surprise he realized he could sense the Energia within the Cryst’s shard all the way through the haft of this weapon. That power called to him, and he took it as his own, as he had with the great Scorpio. Energia surged into him as the cryst-soldier he’d struck spasmed, then collapsed. It traveled up the length of the lance and suffused him in that now-familiar way.

  Kar realized then what was happening. He was taking Energia and converting it into something else, something he didn’t even have a name for. He couldn’t hold onto whatever it was indefinitely; it yearned to be focused, to be forged into something new, to be made manifest. Part of Kar wondered what would happen if he denied it that. That thought sparked fear within him on a primal level he didn’t understand.

  His mind raced as he tried to think of what he would do with the power that filled him, and then Kar saw Tharn, and remembered that great shield of his he had wielded. Kar pictured a shield like that on his left arm, and with a satisfying rush the power surged out of him and coalesced into a dark shield of crystal.

  Kar’s heart thumped in his chest. He suddenly felt stifled in this armor, its weight heavier than he had anticipated. He took a step and staggered. The surrounding cryst-soldiers didn’t seem to notice though, they fell back before him as if terrified, stumbling over one another to distance themselves from Kar and his shadow armor.

  Something smashed against his helm then, driving Kar to his knees. He panicked, and whipped his lance in that direction, trying to fend off whatever had attacked him.

  He struck nothing but air. He couldn’t see a thing with this on his head, how did Erio and Tharn do it, were they seeing at all? Frustrated, Kar grappled with the helmet and ripped it off, casting it aside.

  He saw the javelin just in time to raise his shield and block it. Was that what had struck him just now? More followed, and Kar was forced to hunker down beneath that onslaught of flying shafts. He cast about, looking for where the others were. Erio and Tharn were both engaged in combat with other Valorcryst, the short stocky one from before and at least two others that Kar could see. Kiya and Lore were still backed up against the wall, fighting frantically against a squad of cryst-soldiers. Kar backed up towards them, careful to keep his shield up.

  Aldwin and the others arrived then, blasting down from the battlements above. They landed next to Lore and Kiya and immediately drove back the enemy cryst attacking them. Kar hurried to join them, but Derek didn’t recognize him at first. Kar’s friend errantly Focused a blast toward him.

  He braced himself, ready to be thrown back, but nothing happened. The Focusing dissipated a span or so away from Kar’s voidcryst armor, unraveling before it could strike. It reminded Kar of the way the Governor Destry had Annulled their Focusings, though this appeared to work in a slightly different way. He didn’t have time to contemplate the anomaly.

  “We can’t stay here!” Lore shouted to Kar, ignoring his stunned expression and the black crystal he now wore. He could barely hear her over the din of fighting. But she was right, this had become absolute chaos, nothing like he’d imagined when proposing this plan.

  “Give me your shards!” Kar yelled.

  “What?” She shouted back.

  “Your shards! I need them!” he repeated, dropping his shield to the ground.

  She reached in her pack, then tossed a handful of shards his way. Kar snatched them out of the air, dropping one by accident. His armor covered his chest and legs, but his arms and hands were uncovered.

  Kar repeated what he had done moments earlier, consuming and holding the Energia from the shards inside himself, then imagined another shield on his arm. It took shape and hardened, and Kar tossed it to Lore. She stared at him for a beat, then shouted, “Give me a hammer! I lost mine!”

  Could Kar do that? He didn’t see why not. He shrugged then made the attempt. A wicked looking war hammer materialized in his left hand and he tossed that to her as well. With an impish grin Lore snatched it out of the air.

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