Then with a shout, Aisling thrust under Alura’s guard and slashed across her ribs. Alura cried out in pain. Kerrigan could barely look as she fought her own acolyte. They were well trained. Better than them maybe even. But she couldn’t stop. Not even to help Alura.

Kerrigan had no concept of how the rest of the battle was going. Just this moment as she hit, blocked, parried. Her magic didn’t wane. It responded instinctively. Air, water, fire, earth. A marvel of combinations that pushed the acolytes farther and farther back, away from the burning docks and to the door into Lethbridge.

Alura was wounded. She struggled forward but retained her military prowess. Then with a performance Kerrigan had never witnessed, Alura whirled and drove her sword through Aisling’s heart. The great warrior fell backward, felled like a tree.

Wynter appeared then in the middle of the fight. Her scream of torment ached everywhere. Aisling was her lover, if not acknowledged. Her eyes were glowing orbs of death and destruction as she leveled her sword at Alura.

“You.”

Alura rose stiffly to her feet and beckoned Wynter forward. But Wynter had no intention of fighting fair. She threw a blast of straight black power into the center of Alura’s chest.

“No!” Fordham roared as he materialized before Wynter. He struck his sister across the face and center her stumbling backward, but it was too late.

Alura had taken the brunt of Wynter’s attack and was thrown backward. She tumbled a few feet before collapsing entirely. We all yelled as one, and Audria finished her fight long enough to dash to Alura’s side.

“She’s alive,” Audria said. “But I don’t know for how long.”

“Get her out of here,” Kerrigan cried.

Audria tried to get away with Alura, but suddenly the acolytes engaged them again. There was nothing to do but leave her there and hope for the best.

“She deserved it for what she did to my Aisling,” Wynter snarled.

“Then let us finish it,” Fordham said.

He was flagging. Wynter panted but looked as maniacal as ever. Perhaps more than normal.

She threw the shadows at Fordham, as if they could cut through him. He pushed them away, as if they meant nothing, and thrust his sword out toward her. Wynter made a sword of solid air and parried every thrust. She was a marvel. They were an even match in every way. Raised in the same way. Honed to be deadly.

Wynter knew every one of his tricks. Except one.

Kerrigan ignored the remaining acolytes. Fordham needed her help or Wynter would end him too. She rushed to his side. She had no sword. Only her powers to sustain her. But Fordham was not best on his own, as he had always been trained to be. He was best with his team. He was best with her.

“Get out of here,” he barked at her.