The riverbank was a fiery wasteland, with much of the local boat traffic in pieces on the shore, including a barge that had ended up on top of one of the warehouses. The river itself was dotted with burning cranes, with more flaming pyres of what had been ships, and with floating islands of debris. And while drifts of smoke obscured much of the rest of the scene, what was there looked like a war zone, with dozens of bodies bobbing among the waves.

The only reason the Pythian power wasn’t screaming at me about changes to the timeline was that I hadn’t made any yet. This was all still potential: real for us, but not for everyone else. Not until we dropped out of transition and time solidified around us, turning all of this into history. I needed to take Aeslinn out, then rewind time and erase the record, otherwise…

I didn’t know if even the Pythian power could fix it.

But while Aeslinn might not be able to react to everything that a god was whispering in his ear, he was an age-old warrior himself. He knew how to fight, and as soon as the battering slowed down, he threw out a hand. And tore a swath through the embankment behind me, exactly as if a lightning bolt had just hit down.

My hair went electric, standing up like a cartoon character’s; my body crawled with electric worms; and a long dirt wave blasted skyward, obscuring the sun and sending clods and rocks pelting down in a wide arc.

I shifted out in time, but that had been close, enough that I felt dirt sliding down my back when I rematerialized upriver. And whatever other abilities I might have, super healing wasn’t one of them. I had to finish this—now.

My eyes scanned the riverbank, but there really wasn’t much left to work with. But I couldn’t shift him somewhere else, because my power wouldn’t hold him. I also couldn’t drain him, not with him pulling back as hard as I was pulling on him.

Neither of us was getting any added power currently, like an irresistible force meeting an immovable object, but Aeslinn was getting back to his feet. He towered over me, like an eldritch horror rising from the deep, dripping water, mud and blood in about equal amounts, and making his point without saying a word. The sheer size of him would end this, as soon as I made a single mistake.

Damn it! I couldn’t have fought so hard and fail now. I wouldn’t, but I didn’t know how—

But maybe somebody else did.