As if Mother Nature herself were attempting to disrupt Zoralia’s wicked plan, the storm intensified. Soon, the biting winds became so violent, they threatened to tear Diya from the saddle.

  Like the pure avian essence of effort, Shikra pumped her wings, fighting through the snowstorm with great, crashing strokes, each one lifting them higher above the frozen city. Below, Ghanesha was a sprawl of dark towers and glowing lanterns. The snow fell from the sky like the ancient ashes of some cremated constellation until the city was covered in a pale sheet drearily glittering green.

  “Faster,” Diya shouted into the wind, though she knew Shikra needed no urging.

  The giant bird angled upward, climbing toward the highest point in the city. As they approached the colossal head of Ghanesha, the sacred elephant came into view. Only one eye could be seen, large as a lagoon and blacker than obsidian. Ageless ivory tusks jutted like broken bridges twisting out into the clouds. A booming sound like a hundred horns sounded from its tremendous trunk, from which countless clusters of massive mushrooms sprouted.

  In the center of the everlasting elephant’s crown stood Zoralia, hunched and frail. She stood in the center of a runic circle carved into the flesh of the sacred beast. At each of the rune’s seven points, jutted a metal rod two stories tall. The old witch held a staff made of bone up towards the pallid halo that was the total eclipse.

  The strange pressure in the air they had felt before was radiating from the ritual site. Dark magic pulsed.

  Diya felt it in her bones.

  Shikra landed hard on the creature’s massive brow ridge, right at the edge of the runic circle. Ice cracked beneath her talons. Snow swirled around them in blinding sheets.

  Zoralia turned to face them, sluggishly as if her aged body might fail at any moment. She stood with arms raised, cloak whipping like a banner in the storm, staff probing the cold air until it found its proper place pointed towards Diya. Her wrinkled face appeared scornful, but it bore not the slightest trace of surprise.

  “You came to witness my ascension, young captain,” Zoralia called. Her voice carried through the wind as if the storm was a courier she commanded. “No doubt you’re aware of my ambition…”

  Diya dismounted, boots crunching in the snow. “Stop this madness. Nothing is meant to live forever. You’ve lived a full life; you’ve nothing to regret.”

  “Regret is the abyss I stare into when I close my eyes. The lamentations of each sacrifice I’ve made haunt me. But to stop now would be to make those sacrifices meaningless.” Zoralia’s brow furrowed, as if the weight of her decisions pressed on her, but then her head shook softly. “That’s why I must succeed. And so, I foresaw your return. It was whispered to me by the winds. Now you’ve returned. Flown right into my trap.” She grinned and it was a dark, predatory thing.

  And then the air behind Diya tore open.

  Shikra shrieked and leapt sideways as a bolt of white-blue energy lanced between them.

  Diya spun.

  Arjun hovered in the storm.

  He wore the suit of liquid metal like a deadly cocoon, exactly as he had on the day of the coup. Energy thrummed through its seams like trapped lightning. One hand was aimed at her, the center of the palm glowed menacingly, its core droning and cracking unnaturally.

  Zoralia laughed, it was a dry sound like sand falling in an hourglass. “You thought I’d leave my back unguarded?”

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  Arjun’s visor retracted. His eyes were fever-bright and bloodshot, veins bulging. “You should of never come back,” he said. “Now I’m going to have to put you out of your misery, just like your father.”

  With a sound like a hammer striking a forge, he loosed an energy blast.

  It was a shot that should have put a hole right through her. Instead, Diya utilized her blood magic to become fast. So much faster than the last time they fought. Time slowing, she slid under the projectile, feeling the searing heat as it passed over her.

  Not wasting any time, she swung up onto Shikra’s back and they shot up into the sky towards the silver savage. In a spinning flourish Diya drew her spear.

  Arjun’s eyes lit up and he appeared to relish the opportunity to give his weapon a proper test. Just before the moment of impact, he brought his off hand up in a sweeping overhand punch. Liquid metal transmuted around the fist and in the blink of an eye it had become a long, barbed sword.

  Spear rang out against sword with so much force that Diya thought her wrist might shatter. The opposing forces separated briefly, then came violently back together four times in such quick succession that it sounded like cannons were being fired in the sky above Ghanesha.

  Diya clenched her jaw and felt the blood in her veins begin to heat up. As Shikra dove towards Arjun, she pulled the reins at the last second and the pair rolled past him. Executing a quick roll exposed an opening in his defenses, Diya stabbed the spear into the spot where his armor met his helmet with a roar.

  Defying all logic, the liquid metal danced up to fill the opening. With a sharp screech the spear head deflected away. Diya’s eyes went wide.

  She thought she heard a laugh, before the smell of overheated atmosphere stung her nostrils. Then followed the bright blue flash.

  Shikra cried out—shrill and heart wrenching—as the energy blast grazed her wing. The odor of burnt feathers swirled.

  Concern flashed through Diya for a moment. Then they were falling.

  They hit the ground hard and slid toward the edge of a colossal brow. Rolling to a crouch and glancing up, Diya felt like she had swallowed ash.

  Zoralia raised her hands, chanting in a voice somehow simultaneously two octaves too low and two octaves too high to belong to the old witch.

  The ritual had begun.

  Dark energy crackled and danced from the rods surrounding the ritual site. The air screamed as power poured upward from deep within Ghanesha. The entire city seemed to groan beneath their feet.

  But it wasn’t the city. The ground shook like an earthquake as the sacred beast cried out.

  Diya felt it.

  A vast, ancient agony echoing through the bones of the sacred creature she called home.

  Diya looked down at Shikra whimpering beside her. With the superhuman speed of one augmented by blood magic she picked up her spear and dashed for Zoralia.

  Dropping from the sky like a fallen angel, Arjun landed between them.

  “You don’t understand the power you wield,” Diya shouted, pleading. “I saw what it did on the surface. It charred cities into craters.”

  Arjun snickered, holding out his hands now transformed into weapons and admiring them. “That’s the point,” he said. “Zoralia’s going to make me a god. Then I’ll take the surface back for humanity once and for all.”

  Zoralia’s chant rose. Somehow despite her standing alone at the center of the glyph, her voice seemed to be amplifying, as if joined by some spectral force.

  The glyph carved into the sacred elephant’s flesh burned brighter.

  Ghanesha cried out. It was a low rumbling noise that sounded like stone splitting. The type of noise one could feel reverberating in their chest.

  Rubbing her head, Diya considered that she may have hit her head harder than she thought for Zoralia, still dancing and chanting, appeared to be getting younger. It was as if the arcane energy flowing from Ghanesha through the rods was coalescing within Zoralia.

  Arjun walked slowly towards Diya. He had taken on the mannerisms of a cruel predator toying with its prey.

  Diya rubbed her eyes. Outlandishly, she thought she could discern a familiar form moving through the blizzard in the distance.

  Ghanesha’s torturous cries of anguish at having its life force siphoned from it reached a booming crescendo. It was then that Diya was assailed by the grim thought that she had failed. That the ritual would be completed.

  But her jaw dropped as the familiar silhouette moved close enough for her to make it out properly.

  Rohan riding atop his roc soared in and barreled into Zoralia, interrupting the ritual and preventing it from being completed. Zoralia, skin no longer wrinkled, back no longer bent, scrambled back to her feet and screamed her annoyance.

  Arjun turned, loosing an azul blast of energy as he moved. Time seemed to move in slow motion. Rohan grinned at Diya, forever proud of himself when he found a way to assist her.

  She watched as the searing lance punched a hole through his mount and turned his leg into a spray of red mist. Rohan and his bird crumpled to the ground at the edge of the ritual circle.