"One of us will die?" Sayid repeated. He tilted his head, amused. "Bold words from a man who was lying in the dirt ten seconds ago."

  "And yet here I am. Standing."

  "For now." Sayid grinned. "You know… in a way, I respect your loyalty. While your dragon was dying for you, you could have fled. But you didn't. If Joshua had shown me the same loyalty, none of this would have happened. Perhaps, I would still be a loyal San Dioral citizen.”

  He shook his head slowly. "It almost makes me feel guilty, for what I’m about to do to you."

  "But not enough to stop."

  "Not nearly." Sayid's grip tightened on his blade. "Don't mistake observation for sympathy, artist. I’m still going to kill you."

  "You can try. But I've dealt with men like you before."

  "I doubt that. There are none like me."

  "There are plenty like you.” Clive met his gaze. “Men who think their suffering gives them permission. Men so convinced of their own righteousness that they'd poison thousands to prove a point. The world doesn’t revolve around you, Sayid.”

  Sayid's face twisted. "You think I wanted this? You think I chose to become what I am? I trained until my hands bled. I mastered forms that killed lesser men. And when the time came to prove myself—"

  He stopped. The lightning around him surged, wild and unstable.

  "It doesn't matter," Sayid said. "None of it matters. You wouldn't understand… the humiliation I had to go through. The burden of having to be worthy, of having to be the best."

  "You're right. I wouldn't." Clive raised his paintbrush. "And I don't need to. Whatever happened to you, whatever broke you, it doesn't give you the right to break everyone else."

  Lightning coiled up Sayid's blade. The ground beneath his feet cracked and blackened. "Then let me show you, exactly how broken I am."

  [Lightning Strike: 100,000 Volts - Charging]

  Sayid's blade became a pillar of white-hot light, the charge building to levels that made Clive's hair stand on end. Static electricity crawled across his skin.

  [5...]

  Clive's brush swept across his palette— Cadmium Red, Cadmium Yellow, a touch of Ivory Black—mixing earth tones in desperate strokes.

  [4...]

  He painted directly into the air. No time for elegance. No time for detail.

  [3...]

  [Paint: Earth Barrier]

  The wall erupted from the ground.

  [2...]

  Sayid smiled.

  [1...]

  [Lightning Strike: 100,000 Volts - Discharged]

  The bolt hit the earth wall. Stone exploded. Molten glass sprayed where sand had fused instantly from the heat. The wall collapsed, but Clive escaped the bulk of the damage.

  Then arrows rained from the sky.

  Clive looked up. Yarra's bronze dragon dove through the storm clouds. The Dragon Knight herself stood with her bow drawn, loosing shaft after shaft in rapid succession.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  "I'll buy you some time!" Her voice carried over the thunder. "See to your dragon!"

  Sayid turned, annoyance flickering across his face. The first arrow struck where his chest had been, but his body dissolved into crackling lightning.

  Clive didn't waste the opening. He scrambled back to Azura, sliding to his knees beside her fallen form. Up close, the damage was worse than he'd feared. Her scales were blackened and split. Blood seeped from a dozen wounds.

  "Stay with me," Clive whispered. "Stay with me, girl."

  Her breathing came shallow and uneven. Each exhale rattled in her chest.

  He looked around wildly. Lucia. Where was Lucia? But in the chaos of the battlefield, he was unable to locate her.

  He manifested a potion from his sketchbook and poured it over her wound. The potion sizzled against her scales. Some of the surface damage faded, but the deeper wounds remained.

  Not enough. A potion designed for humans wasn't enough for a dragon.

  Think. Think.

  Azura's eye found him. Glazed with pain, but still aware.

  Rider... hurts...

  Then he remembered how he cured the stone curse.

  Match the color. Match the flesh.

  His [Artist's Eyes] analyzed Azura's scales—the deep sapphire blue, the subtle gradient to lighter azure at the edges, the pearl-like iridescence that caught the light. He mixed quickly. Pthalo Blue. Titanium White. A touch of Dioxazine Purple for the shadows.

  [Mix: Restoration]

  The first brushstroke touched the wound on her shoulder.

  Azura flinched. Then stilled.

  Her blackened tissue flushed with renewed color. He painted faster. The gash across her ribs. The burns on her wing membrane. The deep puncture where Sayid's blade had pierced her shoulder.

  Azura's breathing steadied. Her eyes found his.

  Rider...?

  I'm here. I'm here. Just hold on.

  A scream cut through the storm.

  Clive's head snapped up. Yarra's dragon tumbled from the sky. Yarra herself clung to the saddle, bow fallen, struggling to control the descent.

  Sayid stood in the air, suspended on a platform of crackling energy.

  "Annoying," he called down to the falling knight.

  The dragon hit the ground hard. Yarra was thrown from the saddle, rolling twice before coming to a stop. She tried to rise, got one knee under her, then collapsed.

  Sayid descended slowly, savoring the moment.

  "Now then." Sayid's storm-gray eyes found Clive again. "Where were we?"

  Clive rose to his feet. His legs shook. But Azura stirred behind him, her wounds sealed beneath fresh-painted scales.

  "We were about to finish this," Clive said.

  "Yes." Sayid raised his blade skyward. "We were."

  [Lightning Strike: 1,000,000 Volts - Charging]

  The notification burned across Clive's vision. One million volts. His earth barrier had barely survived a hundred thousand. A million would vaporize it.

  [10...]

  Sayid hung suspended in the air. His hair floated in the static charge. His eyes had gone white, pupils lost in the glow. His entire body glowed white. He looked less like a man and more like a force of nature given form.

  [9...]

  Rider. Azura's voice cut through the panic. I can fly.

  Clive turned. She was on her feet, unsteady, favoring her left side, but standing.

  [8...]

  You're hurt.

  I can fly, she repeated. Get on.

  [7...]

  He didn't argue. He ran, grabbing a fistful of her neck ridge and swinging himself onto her back. His hands found the familiar position. His thighs locked against her sides.

  [6...]

  Azura launched. The ground fell away. Wind screamed past them as she drove upward, climbing toward the Thunder God and his gathering apocalypse.

  [5...]

  What's the plan? Azura asked.

  [4...]

  Clive's mind raced. He couldn't block it. Couldn't deflect it. Couldn't tank it. So don't. Don't give it a path to follow.

  [3...]

  Lightning wasn't magic. It was electricity. Electrons flowing through ionized air, jumping from molecule to molecule, following the path of least resistance to ground. You needed atmosphere for lightning to arc. Without air, without molecules to carry the charge—

  [2...]

  No air. No conduction path. No lightning.

  [1...]

  Clive painted as they flew, his brush carving desperate strokes through the sky. He didn't paint a wall this time. He painted absence. Void. A sphere of perfect nothing surrounding them both.

  [Aerial Illustration: Vacuum Sphere]

  The air vanished. Sound died. The world went silent as the grave.

  [Lightning Strike: 1,000,000 Volts - Discharged]

  Sayid's gathered lightning had nowhere to go. It couldn't arc through vacuum. The charge built and built with no release valve. The sphere began to glow white-hot as the trapped energy sought any way out.

  Sayid's eyes widened. "What—"

  The lightning backfed into his blade. Into his hand. Into his arm.

  Sayid screamed.

  His own electricity, unable to discharge forward, reversed course. It traveled back through the conductor. A million volts with nowhere to go but back into its source.

  The Thunder God's body went rigid. His blade fell from spasming fingers. Smoke rose from his robes, from his skin. He collapsed, twitching.

  Clive held the vacuum sphere for five more seconds. Ten. Until Sayid stopped moving entirely.

  Then he released it.

  Air rushed back. The vacuum collapsed. Sayid's blade clattered against stone.

  Clive approached the fallen body of Sayid. He wasn't moving. His storm-gray eyes stared at nothing.

  It was over. Now to find Jill.

  In the absence of a conductor, even the mightiest charge finds no path but inward.

  — Journal of electromagnetism, Vol. 4