“Countess!” Aria cried, her face a mask of blood—but no longer bleeding, at least, no longer blinding her. She took a step forward, and her wounded leg buckled beneath her, nearly throwing her down.

The vord Queen looked over her shoulder and made the exact same gesture. Aria lifted her sword in a vain defensive motion, but there was the hiss-hum of more wasps flashing from some gaping orifice within the croach, high up on one wall. Where they struck steel, they hit with a heavy thump—it sounded like a hailstorm as literally hundreds of wasps lashed at Lady Placida. She shielded her eyes, but several of the creatures struck her cheeks, her neck, including one spectacular impact where the wasp’s stinger pierced her left earlobe and all but tore it off her head.

Aria fell to one knee, gasping for breath. The little wounds frothed with poison, and the stream of wasps was merciless and unending. One struck her thigh, below the hem of the skirt of plated leather straps hanging from her belt. Another pierced her boot. Seconds later, the wasps had simply pounded her balance from her, and she toppled as well, letting out a high-pitched moan of agony and despair as her own body began to thrash like Amara’s.

Isana felt her fingers tightening helplessly on the sheathed sword in her hand. Though she had some rudimentary training with such a weapon, she was in no way fit to compare herself to violent professionals such as Amara and Lady Aria—and even if she had been, neither of them had managed to defend herself. Her eyes flicked to the pool of water, but it was simply too far away. She would never be able to use what was in it in time.

The vord Queen’s dark eyes focused on Isana.

She lifted her hand—and then her black eyes widened in surprise.

A gleaming metal hand reached out from behind Isana and gently took the late Invidia’s weapon from her grasp. She twisted her head up to see Araris, stepping clear of the croach like a man walking through a field of grain. And yet, it was not Araris, as she had last seen him. Every inch of visible skin gleamed like polished steel. The mail he’d been wearing was gone, and Isana realized with a start that the master metalcrafter had, somehow, incorporated it into his very flesh.

He took two steps forward, each one falling with more sound and force than any being of flesh and blood should have possessed. He flipped the sword through several calm circles, evidently testing its weight and balance. Then Araris Valerian squared off against the vord Queen, and said, quietly, his voice strangely roughened, burred, “You will not touch her.”