Kenzo Trengsen watched the Aegis flare around the Palace Prime. The shield lit up the surrounding structures like a captured star, and even the storm clouds reflected its pale blue light.

  A second Construct surrounded the Aegis—faintly gold in his Mystic eyes, but invisible to most.

  If Kenzo's calculations were correct, then the Construct would accelerate time by a factor of fifty. One hour for those inside; seventy-two seconds for the rest of the world.

  His last surviving son had just entered the palace, along with Akari Zeller and the Darklights. After years of waiting, watching, and preparing, the moment had finally arrived. The moment Kenzo could act.

  The wind tugged at his blade artist's tunic, carrying the scent of rain and distant fires. Sirens wailed as the crowds marched toward the palace, their chants rising and falling like the tides.

  Kenzo began counting down the seconds in his mind.

  The Honor Guard struck at the last possible second. Master Serrano and Master Drexel launched their Missiles from outside of the Aegis, destroying Zeller’s bubble in a burst of golden snow. Then Ashur Moonfire destroyed the second time bubble from within, trapping Kalden’s team inside.

  Dysho cleared his throat on the rooftop beside Kenzo. Blade mana swirled around the young Master in a silver vortex, and a Veilcord twisted on his arm, waiting to be summoned. “We await your orders, Shinka.”

  “Stay your mana,” Kenzo ordered. “The battle must play out.”

  Tides of emotion flowed through the students. Some were confused—why would they come so far just to sit idly during the battle? Others radiated a darker satisfaction. They wanted Kalden to prove himself, to earn his place through combat rather than birthright.

  Both sides misunderstood the true stakes. This wasn’t about pride, honor, or personal glory. If they intervened now—if Kenzo allowed a whisper of his power to touch that battlefield—everything would unravel.

  And so he watched the fight with his Mystic senses. He watched all four of them fall before Moonfire’s power.

  His students were only Masters, and they couldn’t see the battle with the same clarity. Despite this, Dysho must have sensed the conflict in Kenzo’s soul. The young man’s boots echoed on the stone rooftop as he approached. “Apologies, Shinka. But does your oath prevent us from acting?”

  “It’s not the oath,” Kenzo said without turning around. Like all Mystics in this world, he’d sworn an oath not to oppose their secret ruler. At least, Kenzo that was the case. He couldn’t recall the oath itself, but his wife had helped him recover bits and pieces in their short time together. He remembered a golden throne floating in a sea of endless stars. A face shrouded in shadow, and a name with six syllables

  His disciple swallowed. “Then it was .”

  Kenzo nodded once. This fight had to play out, no matter how bad things looked from this side of the Aegis. It was their only chance to defeat the true enemy.

  ~~~

  Space warped around Kalden as Akari moved him toward the edge of the control room. As an Artisan, his stomach would have lurched from the sudden shift. But Kalden’s new body took it in stride, no different from stepping between rooms

  They took cover behind a stone pillar, and shields of pure mana bloomed around them. Glim’s shields, not theirs. Master-level techniques were no use against a Mystic. Even Glim could only slow him down.

  Across the room, Relia hid within one of her father’s Constructs. She met Kalden’s eyes, and he saw the regret plastered on her face.

  The Darklights struck their opponent in unison. Elend conjured an entire army of illusions. Not just of himself, but of the entire team. Kalden saw his own doppelg?ngers wielding Grandmaster-level weapons, while the false-Akaris made portals and traps. The result was total chaos, even to Kalden’s Master senses.

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  But Ashur Moonfire was a Mystic. A web of silver mana surrounded his body. Portals compressed into paper-thin blades, with a perfect Cloak beneath. He tore through the dream techniques like paper dolls, turning each one to white mist.

  Windows shattered around the room. Stone pillars crumbled, and broken computers flew in every direction. The ceiling exploded from the sheer pressure of Moonfire’s power, stone fragments flying like shrapnel from a grenade. Some collided with the shield above. Others struck the rooftops and gardens below.

  Then the floor rocked like a ship in a storm. It angled in a steep slope, but the others kept fighting. The angle grew steeper until they were tumbling more than five stories through open air.

  Akari formed another portal, wrapping around their bodies like a cocoon of warped space. They appeared on the other side of the roof, two hundred yards from the main battle. The central spire collapsed like a falling tree, shaking the ground beneath their feet. Mana flew back and forth across the rooftop, sounding like whips and gunshots. Each technique was as bright as the Aegis itself.

  Shit Akari said as she dodged a stray technique. It soared past her cheek and carved a trench into the concrete, longer than a city block. She seized Kalden’s wrist and led him behind another stone spire. We need to help!

  She was right. It normally took a team of eight Grandmasters to challenge a Mystic. A Twilight Veil, as they called it in North Shoken.

  But they didn’t have eight Grandmasters here; they didn’t even have four.

  “I can take Moonfire,” Akari said. “Just give me a chance.”

  “Not without a plan. He’ll kill you.”

  Akari gritted her teeth, but she didn’t press him. Her instincts told her to fight, but she also trusted Kalden’s aspect.

  This was even worse than their fight against Valeria Zantano last spring. The Dragonlord’s sister had been wild, reckless, and untrained by Espirian standards. But Moonfire was the strongest Mystic on the continent.

  Nothing but a total paradigm shift would suffice.

  Kalden closed his eyes and cycled his battle mana to its limits. Tendrils of knowledge met his teammates in a complex web, and a thousand possibilities flashed in his mind. Elend and Glim built mental models of Moonfire as they fought. Akari’s Cloak revealed the future, saving the Darklights from killing blows. Irina served as an amplifier, feeding the others more data and organizing their findings.

  Kalden witnessed more than ten thousand futures in the span of a few seconds. But it still wasn’t enough. No matter how hard they fought, Moonfire killed the entire team. Every single time.

  “Is there no other way out of here?” Kalden asked Akari.

  “Nothing!” She had to shout over the chaos of the battle, and he felt the panic through their bond. “The Aegis is still up.”

  ~~~

  Irina leapt over the palace rooftops, dodging a storm of flying blades. Each technique carved reality itself, leaving wounds in the air. The pattern was clear in her mind. Seven blades per volley, released in a spiral formation that rotated clockwise. A hundred and ten milliseconds from Moonfire’s hand to his target.

  At the same time, Moonfire formed a web of portals across the rooftop. They surrounded Irina like a maze of mirrors, confusing her senses. Each portal led deeper into the maze, trapping her in a loop, separating her from Elend.

  Two and a half more seconds, and the maze would be too dense to break.

  Knowledge mana flowed between her and Kalden, feeding her glimpses of the future. Ten thousand ghostly images raced across her vision, and her Second Brain guided her body through the fray. Blades of pure mana shot out from her hands, smashing the weak points between portals.

  Irina emerged on the roof twenty yards behind her opponent while Elend and Glim kept him busy. This was her chance to land a true blow. To turn this fight in their favor.

  Elend wrapped her in a Cloak of dream mana, hiding her from Moonfire’s senses. Blades coalesced in front of her as she closed the distance. Each one hummed with lethal intent.

  She hurled the volley straight at her opponent’s back, weaving through the silver tempest of his techniques.

  Then her blades struck Moonfire’s Cloak technique.

  Akari’s Cloak warped space around her body, letting her dodge almost any attack. Moonfire had the same basic technique, refined over several decades of practice. The Cloak was as sharp and quick as his blades. It spun around him like a silver tornado, extending ten feet past his body. And when Irina’s mana closed in, the technique ripped it apart like a meat grinder.

  Moonfire pressed his advantage as more mana flew between them. Irina couldn’t hurt him, and neither could Elend or Glim. They’d be lucky just to survive another minute.

  That wasn’t despair on her part. Just simple math.

  Kalden fed her a stream of possible futures as he worked from the sidelines. The images flickered through Irina’s mind as she fought. In some futures, Moonfire separated her and Elend. Other times, he surprised them with a killing blow, or used Kalden or Akari as hostages.

  The result was always the same. Thousands of paths, all leading to the same end.

  But Kalden hadn’t thought of everything. Despite his growth, he still fell into the same old traps. He’d failed to analyze the premises.

  There was still one way to win this fight: Elend had to become a Mystic within the next few minutes. But how?

  Moonfire had removed the last two Honor Guards from the equation. One of the kids could sacrifice their mana, but Elend needed souls. They would lose their strength before they finished the transfer.

  But a single Grandmaster’s soul could bring Elend to the threshold. And there was one more Grandmaster inside the Aegis.

  ‘’ Elend said in her mind. ‘’ His voice sounded breathless as he fought back Moonfire’s attacks.

  ‘,’ she told Elend. ‘’

  Elend said nothing; it was Irina’s mana against all their lives. They both knew this was the most logical choice.

  Irina would sacrifice her power, and Elend would advance.

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