The prince parried her Dragonhammer attack with nothing but the God Arm and a flat palm. He struck her in the nose with his raw strength, not his gifts. If he had used the God Arm, her head would have split from her neck and ended the fight on the first blow. Despite having just stabbed her in the heart, he struggled to make the killing move in such a violent way. He wanted to prolong the battle longer, coax her into a gentle surrender or possibly even do what he failed to do the first try—turn her to his side.

  Bianca, of course, recognised that he could’ve ended her life so quickly. She used the momentum of a hammer swing to hop over a large city wall, and Stroke did the same. They circled a muddy pond filled with human corpses, the fish feasting on the humans as if they were snacks thrown in for them to dine on.

  They both made one promise to themselves from that moment forward. They both lacked the patience for a calm discussion, so they agree each blow would be harder than the last.

  He can heal any harsh blows with the God Arm, but it will take time, Bianca thought. I can’t let him defend himself after a good strike. I need to pummel him, force him to either heal or attack. As long as Godwin stays in hiding with the second God Arm, I have a chance to win. Please, Stroke, yield. I beg to the gods that you will yield. I don’t want to kill one of my only true friends.

  She wished she’d spoken those words aloud. Instead, she made a show to bring her tri-braids to the front, resting their lengths against the red cloth of her sleeveless coat. She undid one quickly with a single hand. “No one mourns Harren.” Her fingers trembled at the second one, and Stroke hid pain in his eyes. She slowly undid the braids, leaving only one, central braid. It pained her that only moments ago she was so close, and now he was so far. “I will redo it if you come back to me.” She raised her hammer one-handed, the living head of the dragon roaring in excitement for battle. The blue runes glowed brighter, ready to face the legendary God Arm. “You will always be my friend, no matter the outcome.”

  “You shouldn’t be alive,” Stroke snapped. “The fact that you get to survive death, and Runaya does not, is proof this world is cruel.”

  Bianca stared at the bodies in the muddy pond between her and the prince. They were so little, so much life ahead of them, but now they floated still, some pale from drowning and others pink from the flames melting their skin. In her whole life, she’d never felt so low and in despair, not even when the news of her parent’s passing was whispered into her ear by Killian Entrail all those years ago. Bianca didn’t feel like a hero any longer, and that made her angry. She narrowed her orange eyes and gritted her teeth, gripping the Dragonhammer so hard her knuckles turned pure white.

  She threw the hammer across the pond and hit the prince in his naked chest. He allowed the strike to connect, curious as to what the blow would feel like when protected by the power of the God Arm—unfortunately for the young prince, Bianca’s weapon was of another world and didn’t care about the workings of his gifts. His ribs shattered and cracked on impact, his skin bursting open, exposing the pink, stringy muscles hiding under the flapping slabs of flesh. The wound sealed quick with the healing of the God Arm, but Stroke still felt tremendous pain. With no chance of using it as a weapon to defend himself, Bianca summoned her hammer back and cross the waters using the momentum of a swing.

  She landed close to the prince with a grunt, ducking under his blind swing and punching his neck. She grabbed the prince by his curly teal hair and poked a finger into his pretty blue eyes, the ones he’d been given by his mother’s own face when he was born. She pushed deep into the squishy ball, digging her fingernail into his pupil and crushing it like a grape in a cup. The young prince cried tears of red as he seized her by the lone braid. He whacked her nose with a firm headbutt, then swung her over his shoulder, spinning her by her deep-orange locks and throwing her into a cobble wall at the end of the path.

  Her back throbbed with pain. Unlike Stroke, she couldn’t heal her injuries at will. She caught her breath quick, summoning the Dragonhammer to her grip. She held the grip close to the head, stroking the living dragon head and making it purr with joy.

  Stroke healed his own eye, catching a glimpse of Death, who watched from the shadow of a tree. He raised his godsteel sickle, the red shine of the metal glowing beautifully under the red flames of the above Sentinel. “Don’t blink,” he warned. “If you do. I’ll cut off your head for betraying me.”

  How cute, Death thought. My eyes do feel a little dry, but that is no issue for a conqueror. I wonder if he still would’ve gone mad had I had enough power to heal that ritual girl when I found her at Caron… no time to ponder on closed paths, just got to keep my eyes on him while I study the way he fights.

  The Sentinel above turned a vibrant green. “Don’t feel fear, my love,” said Runaya’s sweet, loving voice. “If you must kill more, then kill who you must. If you must see this city turn to ashes for our new world… let it burn, my love, let it burn.”

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  “That is not the Runaya I know!” Bianca surprised the prince with a sudden attack. The jaws of the Dragonhammer locked onto his throat and pierced deep. He coughed blood, Bianca raised him into the air and slid her grip to lowest point of the handle, slamming him to the cobble path with a restrained strength. She did the same a second time, but then the prince gripped either side of the dragon’s jaw, snapping it open and freeing himself. He struck Bianca with a backhanded slap imbued by the God Arm’s power. She landed in the pond with the bodies, struggling, clawing at the corpses to stay afloat.

  “I can’t swim!” she yelled, inhaling water. “Stroke! I can’t—” Her head bobbed under the water, the bodies sinking as she held onto them. She was saved by Death, who cast Aleion’s chain across the length of the water. He reeled her in like a fish, pulling her onto the path as she vomited up the gooey green water onto his boot. He never once took his eyes off Stroke.

  “I really thought we were going to be friends, you and I,” he said to Death. He stretched his neck and let the wounds from the dragon’s sharp teeth breathe and heal. “Only the gods know what fate had planned for the both of us.”

  “I hate that world,” Death said flatly. “Bianca. Get up.”

  In Death’s voice, she heard her late mother’s order. She called upon her Dragonhammer again, snapping the dragon’s jaw back into place and using it to stand steady.

  She came the prince again. The two exchanged heavy blows for a long while, returning faster than the last and hitting harder than the last—Bianca’s face was bruised even worse than her fight with Death, her face puffy and purple, her eyes swelling and making it hard to see. After she got a lucky blow and temporarily inverted the prince’s knee, she hit him into the with an upward swing of her hammer and sent him deeper into the city. She fell, exhausted, moving her sweaty orange hair out of her eyes.

  “Get up,” Death said again. “I have not seen how he fights yet. He is holding back against you. You need to make him fight with everything he has. You are holding back too.”

  “I’m not,” she whimpered. Her lips were purple and swelled like leechees. “He’s my friend. I don’t want to kill him.”

  Death gripped her hand and gave her some strength. The blush of her cheeks returned and so did her face—her pain went, and she felt strong.

  “I said fight,” he ordered. “If you don’t. He’ll kill more.”

  “Your gifts are extraordinary,” she praised.

  “I do not have time for your worship. Find him and fight.”

  Prince Stroke fell harshly onto a rooftop. He rolled down, still moving fast from the strike. He scraped across the gravel, his skin grinding across the stones and leaving a slug-trail behind him. He stood, sickle still in hand, staring at his own reflection in the metal.

  I could’ve killed her so easy at any point, Stroke thought. I stuck the knife in her once… why am I struggling so hard to do it again? She betrayed me. Death betrayed me. I need to end this and kill both of them so I can find where Godwin is hiding.

  He looked deeper into his reflection at his deep-blue eyes. He asked himself: Who held the right to judge his own sins? He knew none that could. And, if they were able, why not stop him? The truth clicked faster than the strikes of lightning in the storm above… there was no such thing as right or wrong, only actions. Those who decide the boundaries between the two are the ones that hold true power, and they decide what is evil and what is good. But now he held that power, he could decide what deserves punishment. His opposition was weak, only alive by his hesitation, and his only rival was likely cowering away.

  I bet my brother is shaving off his golden hair just to hide away from me, Stroke thought. Idiot. Fool. I will find him. He began to laugh, hard. There was no punishment for anything he’d done. Killing a prince in his own castle, threatening the king to his own population of nearly a million, slaughtering families, children, little girls who’d only admired Prince’s Stroke’s safe presence—and now they were dead, murdered, by the young Valan’s own actions, and he didn’t care one tiny bit. It was a joke, a mockery.

  Why is no god coming? Stroke wanted to yell. Are the gods so cowardly, and the people too weak? They know what I am doing, and they curse me with words and hatred, but who will act? What will they do against me? Nothing. They will do nothing, and I will stand on the ashes of this city as a new god.

  “Mister Stroke!” a high voice called. “Is that you?” Billid came from a burning home, carrying out civilians. They took one glance at the prince and fled in the other direction, but Bianca’s squire did not understand the meaning of Stroke’s speech given through the Sentinels. He approached without fear, smiling, tidying his silvery hair and straightening his leather cuirass to appear knightlier. He gave the prince a bow, then cleared his throat. “Thank goodness I found you, my prince, someone is attacking the city!” he said. “Not the dragons, my prince, someone else is. I don’t know what is going on. I can’t find Miss Bianca, Prince Harren, King Godwin… I can’t even find Captain Zishang. I saw Miss Fiasco before, but she looked like a zombie… is she okay, mister Stroke?”

  “Come here,” Stroke beguiled with a soft voice. “I’ll take you to Bianca. She sent me to look for you. Come.”

  Billid saw the blood on Stroke’s chest and thought nothing of it. He hopped closer, excited to be talking to someone he admired.

  “Closer,” Stroke whispered. He slowly moved the God Arm to the side wielding the godsteel sickle. Billid didn’t notice. “Come closer,” he said again. “I’ll show you exactly where she is.”