There were different kinds of fear. Fear for oneself, and fear for others. Isolated as he now was, there was no one here for Kar to protect. He pushed himself to his feet, calculating.

  It had been expertly done—the way the raven-haired Herald woman had snatched Kar from the heart of the fortress. Her window to Focus without being nullified by his Encryst arm or armor must have been razor-thin. She would’ve had to have been watching him closely to pull it off.

  “I did not give you permission to move,” she said to him through gritted teeth. That peculiar accent of hers was jarring.

  Kar ignored her and looked toward the Causeway. He was beginning to hate the sight of its arching stone form. The Voidcryst key he’d made was still inserted at the base, right where he’d left it.

  He looked down at his Encryst arm. He’d come so close to closing the Causeway. He wondered if—with Ember’s Energia—he could succeed if he tried again.

  The woman’s fellow Heralds stalked to either side of her, ringing him in.

  White Encryst crawled over Kar as he forged. Ember wasn’t with him. That was a good thing—for the Prism. Kar still held close to his capacity of Ember’s power within him, though. He used it to repair and replace the parts of his armor that were missing. His right Voidcryst arm he left free.

  Kar planned to use it.

  One of the Heralds struck first, destabilizing the ground beneath him. Kar skipped left—anticipating it—toward the Causeway. He forged and snapped an Encryst chain toward the male Herald, but the man danced away, nimble on his feet.

  Their unique blend of Focusings were still a mystery to Kar. But he was fairly confident the Heralds couldn’t strike directly—not past the Encryst parts of him, anyway. It was the inverse of how ordinary Focusings failed against Shadowcryst and other forms of Voidcryst like Kar’s right arm.

  They could still hurt him indirectly, however.

  His raven-haired nemesis lifted and twisted her hands. Broken chunks of crystal rose around her, then compressed together violently into a sharp lance. She shoved her hands forward, and the shaping screamed toward Kar.

  It—and the shield Kar forged and raised—shattered apart on impact. Kar stumbled from the force of the blow and shook his numbed arm. The other woman—hood thrown back, short brown hair whipping—ripped her hands upward. Columns of stone and dirt surged from the ground in a circle around Kar, hemming him in.

  Chapped and cracked lips stung as Kar licked them. He made up his mind, then lowered and charged the closest pillar, even as the ground beneath him crumbled. The column broke apart on collision, and he staggered out of his makeshift cage. He was shocked at the ease with which he’d plowed through. His Voidcryst arm felt markedly stronger now.

  The Causeway loomed just ahead.

  The Heralds shouted at one another in their guttural tongue. The man vanished…

  …then reappeared directly between Kar and the base of the arch, right in front of the indentation where the key sat. Double thunderclaps echoed off the surrounding steps with his disappearance and return.

  Links of white Encryst were already snaking from Kar’s hand as the man completed his reemergence. Kar snarled as his intuition proved true, and forged a weighted blade at the end of his chain.

  It punched through cloth—into the Herald’s unarmored stomach—and the man grunted in shocked pain.

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  Something slammed into the back of Kar’s head. His helmet fragmented and came apart as he flipped forward onto his back. He rolled away from another dark shaping…

  …then the ground bucked beneath him and a pillar of stone and soil launched him skyward.

  Clumps and spears of voidcryst rubble pelted him mid-air, cutting his face and cracking Voidcryst skin. Kar slammed on his side, gasping.

  Black pin-points exploded across his vision. He blinked furiously and dragged himself to his knees. Then Ember-forged a new helmet. It immediately cracked apart—struck by another void shaping—and Kar was flung onto his back, farther from the Causeway than when he’d started.

  He’d burned through most of the Ember Energia he had left.

  Footsteps crunched on broken crystal. Raven-hair stepped into view.

  Kar’s Voidcryst arm twitched—voracious—and lunged of its own accord toward her.

  She sprang back, glaring as Kar lurched after her like a puppet yanked by invisible strings.

  Kar bared his teeth and fought for control.

  The ground shook. Glass rattled in the windows of the town above, then shattered. The Shade-Titan shouldered through the bones of a charred structure and skidded down the steps toward the central Causeway.

  The Heralds cursed, then blinked away thunderously. Leaving Kar alone with the monster.

  It slowed as it neared, massive scarred head angling toward him. It crouched low at the threshold, bracing one hand atop the archway.

  It intended to escape through the massive portal.

  Kar’s right arm thrashed harder, straining towards the only thing it could feed on now. The Shade-Titan.

  The colossal creature stretched out a cracked, fissured arm and closed its grasp around Kar, lifting him toward its face.

  Kar’s dark hand latched onto the Titan in return—and Absorbed.

  A contest began. Two hungry wills grinding against each other. Kar found himself an unwilling observer, not participant.

  What would happen if his dark side lost? What if… it won? He decided he didn’t want to find out.

  Straining, Kar reached his Encryst hand across and seized his other wrist. The effect was immediate. The Absorption—both directions, from his arm to the Titan and from the Titan to him—cut off like a severed line.

  Shock rippled through his Voidcryst arm. Kar took back control. He wrenched his right arm away from the Titan, then slammed his Encryst palm down in its place.

  Then he Absorbed.

  The Encryst of his arm amplified the ability, the same way it amplified Kar’s other Focusings and abilities. Why? How? He could only guess, but right now what mattered was that it worked.

  Kar sensed the Titan’s mind, even as he ambushed and stole its power. It was… scared. Confused even. Driven by rudimentary instinct.

  In many respects, the contact felt no different than interacting with his right arm. He experienced the same pressure of will against will, the same sense of something vast and hungry below.

  Kar’s eyes widened as he pressed his will into the Titan—just as he had his own Voidcryst arm—and took control. It felt like riding a storm, like being out on the water in a small boat amidst tempestuous waves. He stopped Absorbing, but didn’t release his grip on the Titan’s wrist.

  A precarious equilibrium settled between them.

  Kar nudged the Shade-Titan. Like you nudged a horse with your knees. It responded, kneeling down fully and stretching the arm that held Kar out.

  Toward the base of the Causeway.

  Another nudge, and its clawed fingers loosened. Kar stepped down, an Ember-forged band of Encryst and connecting chain dangling from the thing’s wrist like a crude tether. It allowed him to keep his connection to it, to maintain control.

  He stepped over toward the indentation and the voidcryst key still seated there.

  Void shadings flung by the Heralds hissed through the air toward him. They shattered against the Titan’s side as it leaned over at Kar’s silent suggestion, shielding him with its bulk.

  Kar didn’t stop to consider why he did it. He surrendered to intuition, half-remembering the way he’d made the Causeway respond before. Only, this time, he reached out with his Encryst hand.

  The Titan’s leash tugged where Kar had wrapped it around his arm.

  As he had done before, Kar willed the Causeway to close. The stone split apart at his feet—the Herald’s work—but he used the Dark Energia he’d stolen from the Titan to shadow-forge the ground back together.

  A feverish intensity gripped him as he concentrated; sweat—and blood—running down his face and neck.

  The Causeway groaned. Light rippled across the space within its arch. It was closing. Distant shouts and blasts rang out behind him, but Kar pushed it all away. He had to make this right, no matter the cost.

  He came up against the same wall he’d struck before—a hesitation, a stalling resistance.

  So he fed it something else. The last remnants of Ember’s Energia still within him.

  A resonant hum thrummed through the arch, and the darkness of the bore winked out. In place of deep shadow was only the open air of the Hub Realm—and a stiff, clean breeze.

  The voidcryst key Kar had made slipped free of its own accord and clinked against stone with strange finality—dull and spent.