Deborah didn’t say a word as we walked down the stairs and stepped through the Fallen Delvers portal.

  I was thankful for that, even though I’d suspected as much. Dad’s presence felt thick in the air today. Like he was here, ready to watch me square off against the A-Ranker. I breathed slowly, controlling my emotions. There was no rage, no fury. Not yet. My will weighed down on my body, and I watched Deborah for any clue of her plans.

  Nothing. She moved with me, not behind or in front, but perfectly even and in lock step. Her head didn’t shift to look at me through her full greathelm. If it weren’t for her aura, I wouldn’t even have been sure it was her.

  But it was.

  There was only one delver in Phoenix who had that much contempt for me.

  The Fallen Delver’s portal world shifted around us as we arrived at the sparring room. One moment, it was a plain stone cavern. The next, the stone beneath my feet splashed. I looked down; water covered the mossy ground up to my ankles. It wasn’t enough to slow either of us down, but if it got deeper, we’d be in trouble on the movement front. At least, Deborah would. I’d have Windwalk.

  Was this a morass world? The light felt wrong, and the water didn’t smell fetid. It seemed almost perfectly clear, and the smell was rainy, not the dead plants and rot of a morass. And there weren’t any clear paths through the tunnel. Instead, it was just water, evenly spread over the moss.

  I split off from Deborah and walked to the far door.

  Then I summoned my new sword.

  It was a rapier. Not an estoc-sized weapon, but one that balanced nicely in my hand, with the familiar pistol grip. The basket didn’t exist—where there should have been steel, a black cloud hung. When I tested it yesterday, my finger had made it about a quarter-inch into the cloud. Past that, it was solid.

  The blade was wire-thin. It was almost insubstantial, but when I pushed a single point of Mana into it, it erupted in cutting wind and crackling blue lightning. The metal itself heated up, and clouds spiraled up the blade from the basket.

  Nimbus Edge.

  Then I waited. I was as ready as I could be to face off against Deborah. No matter what tricks she had, I had a better one—an ace in the hole. The fight was already as good as won.

  The door opened.

  Deborah stepped out into the room.

  I didn’t even look at the garden around me. Two steps in, skid to a halt. Stormbreak.

  Three Days Earlier

  “Deborah Callahan isn’t a tank. She’s a striker/mage hybrid,” Ophelia said.

  Ellen stared at the table in the coffee shop, wishing she had her drink. She needed to do something with her hands—desperately needed the distraction. It was impossible. She couldn’t be. But…it explained everything. Her speed. Her power. How impossible it was to counter her. She zoned out for a moment, replaying her fight over in her head as Ophelia and Kade argued over Deborah’s build.

  How could she have missed that? More importantly, how could everyone else have missed that? If Deborah had a build she didn’t want anyone else to know about, she’d need to run her own guild. She was only the second-in-command for the Roadrunners, and Angelo had to know.

  Unless…

  Unless this was a recent development. Surely Angelo Lawrence didn’t have enough time in his day to fight on the wall and check up on Deborah Callahan’s build. That was the answer. It had to be.

  “And what does that mean?” Ellen muttered to herself. It took her a moment to realize she’d said it out loud. Her mind spun—with both implications and possibilities. As soon as she could, she had to tell Kade what she’d realized.

  That he could beat Deborah—and that if he did it right, it wouldn’t even be close.

  The plan was simple. It was also Ellen’s idea—at least the first bit.

  Deborah was fighting like a mage/striker hybrid with a bunch of tank skills.

  I was going to take away the mage and see how she reacted.

  Positive around Deborah, negative around me. The lightning flower that erupted only had one petal. I braced myself. So did Cheddar, flying high to touch the ceiling and shrouding himself as best he could. I didn’t care about revealing him anymore. After this, no one would question him—and no one would be crazy enough to try to take him away from me. And he was important enough that I’d excluded both him and the Spark of Life from Stormbreak.

  Then the waves of lightning rippled across both of us as Deborah tried to close the gap between us.

  “Too late,” I said, grinning.

  Pain hit us both as our Mana pools hit rock bottom. I knew exactly what was coming; it wasn’t my first time experiencing the seven waves of electricity as the storm broke on top of me. By the time it was over, I had nothing left in the tank, and neither did Deborah.

  I brought Nimbus Edge up into Thunderbolt Forms’s two-handed grip, pushing through the agony in my muscles. The room around me was green, with the water I stood in reflecting light up onto a limestone cavern ceiling. Sunlight poured in through a massive skyhole, and the entire room sparkled; the limestone was wet enough for it to drip down into the mossy pool we stood in. “Give up yet?”

  Then I started leeching from Cheddar. I didn’t wait for a response because I already knew the answer. I wasn’t disappointed when she didn’t give me one.

  Mana: 23/590

  The first stage of the plan was to bring Deborah’s Mana down to nothing. The second was to put the pressure on her while Shadowstorm Battery refilled my Mana. I needed 305. Until I had it, I was a regular old striker, and my Cyclone skills were useless.

  That was fine.

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  I rushed Deborah fast enough for the wind to crack behind me. My Scripts were burning full-bore. Nimbus Edge lashed out, a two-handed lunge. It slammed into Deborah’s shield, then slid off the edge and gouged into her armor. One Lightning Charge. A second blow, right behind the first. Two.

  Thunderblade. My attacks blurred as lightning, wind, and stormcloud merged into a single dark shadow. Deborah’s shield lashed out and caught three thrusts, but a fourth got through. Her armor stopped it dead. I danced back for a moment. Then three more attacks slammed into Deborah from the right as I sidestepped as fast as she could pivot.

  Mana: 47/590

  The big woman’s shield lashed out. It slammed into my shoulder, and I spun away. The Stormsteel pauldron had taken the blow, but even as I recovered, Deborah moved. I dropped into Mistwalk Form and parried her first blow, then ducked her shield bash. Two Rainfall Charges, three Lightning Charges.

  Storm Dance.

  One Lightning Charge vanished from my sword’s tip. So did I—one moment, I stood in front of Deborah, the next, I was behind her. I’d practiced this move with Jeff. Before I’d even finished repositioning, my lunge was already inbound, and my stance already shifted. Rain-Slicked Blade. Nimbus Edge sank into her side, right below her ribs. It parted armor, and the arena’s fresh, rainy smell took on an ozone-and-burnt flesh stench.

  But Deborah hardly reacted. I’d expected that, and I was ready.

  Yesterday

  “Deborah’s build can’t have changed that much since she hit A-Rank,” Jeff said. His face was covered in sweat, and under his armor, he was struggling for breath, but he wasn’t about to let Kade beat him again, not like this. He could keep up.

  They stood across from each other, swords out. Jeff’s shield hung from his arm, and Kade had a lance of electricity in his off-hand. They’d been sparring for a half-hour—a good warm-up for Kade. Jeff was bushed, but he wasn’t about to admit it.

  “So,” he continued before Kade could say anything, “If Ellen’s right, you’ll have an advantage from the first move. The thing about tanks is that, if you give us anything, we’ll get a grip on it, and we’ll win. It might take a while, but we’ll do it. Deborah’s not stupid, either. She’ll notice you’re not casting—and she’ll try to take advantage of that.”

  “I need to be ready to counter her counter, then,” Kade said. He closed his eyes, looking over his build.

  Jeff waited.

  Then, when he was sure Kade didn’t have an answer, he cleared his throat. “The answer isn’t in your build. It’s in hers. Think back to what she did to Ellen. That’s what she’ll try first.”

  Mana: 87/590

  So far, only two moves had mattered: Stormbreak and summoning Cheddar before I stepped into the arena.

  The rest of it—the trading of blows, the taunting, the back-and-forth—wasn’t important. It existed only to test Deborah, to see what she’d react to. And what I’d discovered was that she’d respond to everything. And that she was fast.

  I was ready for her counter, though. I’d baited her into it, in fact.

  As Nimbus Edge slid out of her back and hot blood sizzled on the cavern wall, I shifted back to Mistwalk Forms. It’d be coming soon.

  Parry the sword. Step back and roll with the slam. Let it push me toward the center of the room, under the sunlight. Deborah pressed the attack almost lazily—even with my newly-acquired A-Rank, she’d been at this level for a long time, and her confidence and competence were on another level.

  Then I saw it. She stopped moving for the blink of an eye.

  I used Mistform instantly.

  Water boiled. The entire room filled with steam that vented into the open space overhead. And Deborah’s sword passed through my neck before I could so much as twitch. If I hadn’t pre-reacted, I’d be dead—whatever she’d used, it was fast. Faster than I was.

  Mana: 99/590

  My Mana was filling up quickly, but if that was a spell or a Mana-using skill, I’d have to survive at least two more.

  My feet solidified on dry, hot moss that crackled beneath them. I brought my sword up, shifting back into Thunderbolt Forms. “That’s your best shot, Debbie? You’ll have to try harder than that.”

  Still no response. I pressed my attack against the silent tank as my Mana filled up point by point.

  Two Days Ago

  “I’ve been thinking,” Jessie said.

  “Oh no,” Kade replied on instinct.

  Jessie punched his shoulder. “Shut up. I’ve been thinking about your fight with Rob. There was a point where he used your Darkness to buy time while you tried to be the attacker. He wanted to heal and stuff.”

  “Yeah?” Kade poured some cereal, and Jessie narrowed her eyes at him. She was trying to help, and he was ignoring her! That was some serious bullshit—he’d been all about Ellen’s help the day before.

  “Yeah. So, when you fight Deborah, she’s going to be the aggressor.”

  “No, she’s not.” Kade didn’t even turn around.

  “Yes, she is, Kade! Ellen told me all about your strategy. You’re going to burn her Mana down to nothing, then try to beat her on Mana regeneration with your stupid familiar. But that’s not going to work!” Jessie’s fist balled around her spoon, and her face heated up. “She’s going to press and press until you die. That’s what she did to Ophelia, and the Lonely Mage couldn’t be pressed like that.”

  Kade glanced over his shoulder. The idiot didn’t even look worried. “I know. But I’m not going to let her.”

  “That simple? You’re just not going to let someone at the cusp of S-Rank do something?”

  “That’s right. I’m not going to let her.” Kade held up the box. “Corn flakes?”

  My resources were a timer. Somewhere around 170 Mana, I’d have to expect another instant-kill attack.

  Until then, my job was simple.

  Rain-Slicked Blade.

  Thunderblade.

  Storm Dance.

  Keep the pressure up, don’t let Deborah take the initiative, and force her onto the defensive as much as I could. Nimbus Edge flashed and the storm around it built as she and I traded blows. The Stormsteel armor covering my body was gouged and pitted, the maelstrom weakening as her shield and sword cut into it. I didn’t care—I was giving as good as I got. Maybe even better.

  Stance shift. Parry. Duck the shield slam. She always followed her cuts with a shield-strike. Easy. Thrust into her gut. No weakness there, just portal metal.

  She froze again.

  Mistform.

  A burst of steam, almost volcanic. The room reeked of burning flesh, ozone, and sulfur. Water poured in from the ceiling as the steam condensed. “You missed again, Debbie. Getting old and slow?”

  Nimbus Edge barely caught her next attack. I staggered back.

  Mana: 189/590

  We’d been going all-out for almost two minutes now. My Mana regen was slowing as the percentage-dependent part of Shadowstorm Battery neared its limits. I stepped backward, using space to dodge another strike. My shoes slid on the slick moss as it soaked up the condensing steam-water.

  Sweat dripped down my face. Deborah had to be dying of heat in that armor, but she hadn’t said anything yet. What was going on with her? She’d never missed the chance to speak her mind before, and I couldn’t imagine her ego stepping back now. The taunting was supposed to be part of my strategy—get her angry enough and she’d make mistakes. But she didn’t seem angry.

  Something was wrong with Deborah.

  And I couldn’t stop to figure out what.

  I pressed the attack. The air rippled around me. Lightning crackled across Deborah’s armor. Her sword parted the air fast enough that it cracked when it filled the empty space behind it. A dozen blows flew between us in three seconds.

  So far, the entire first part of this fight was all about managing my resources and trying to find a weakness to exploit. But Deborah was fast. She was tough. And she was strong. And even worse than that, she was smart enough to know my taunts were bait and not to respond. I couldn’t find a crack in her armor—the only blows that had mattered had been Lightning Strikes Twice, and she’d moved her body so the only injuries were superficial.

  Stormbreak would work, but at this point, it’d be a delay—and delaying would just give Deborah time to find a gap in my armor. The longer before I hit 305 Mana, the more chance of me making a mistake.

  Mana: 227/590

  She’d hit enough Mana for her instant-kill before I hit enough to start Phase Two. I’d have to survive it one more time—and I couldn’t rely on Mistform again. She’d see through it. Maybe she’d even bait it.

  I had to try something new.

  Dad was watching. He had to be. I gritted my teeth, slipped into Mistwalk stance, and did the one thing I’d promised Jessie I wouldn’t do. I went on the defensive.

  One more time, then the fight was mine.

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