Arthur pushes my left shoulder back, then heaves the shield edge first into bone and muscle. The bear rears back with an angry yowl. Arthur sends me surging up with it, following the embedded shield until the bear hits the earth. Now we are on top. Arm out of the shield’s straps. Both hands now, digging the metal in farther. The bear roars in pain. The metal hits bone. Arthur’s strength, more than I could have imagined. The hellbear swipes, slashing my right shoulder—the skin opens up—and I scream.

The hounds howl at the scent and thunder toward us.

Foxes suck the floating aether away, and the smoke clears with it.

“Sword now?”

Arthur yanks me back off the bear. Flips me stomach-down on the ground to grab Excalibur.

I roll back just in time to whip the flat of the blade up between a hound’s jaws. My arm shakes. I can’t hold the hound back. Saliva sizzles on the blade, on my cheek—

A crystalline spear shoots straight through its head. I crane my neck back, searching for the source upside down.

Sel stands on the island with the stone, another spear at the ready. He launches it. Impales the second hound. And leaps from the rock to the bank beside my head, eyes on the foxes, a ball of aether already blooming in each palm. “Don’t ever do that to me again.”

Before I can respond, a high-pitched whizz streaks by my ear. Tor’s arrow, striking a fox in the throat. The other Legendborn stream forward, weapons raised against the four foxes. Nick’s in the air, bringing an aether sword down across a hound’s back as he lands. My root barrier is gone. I don’t know how.

I spring to my feet, but my right arm can no longer take the weight of Excalibur. I can’t—

‘Switch to sinister!’ Arthur yells.

“What?”

Sel’s head jerks in my direction. “What?”

‘LEFT HAND!’

“I’m not left-handed!”

‘You are now!’

I toss Excalibur to my left and feel the familiarity there. The surety.

The bear pounds toward me, gone berserk with pain. Sel meets it first, two daggers extended.

Movement to my left. Rhaz springs for me—the bear was a distraction, a setup. The demon’s fast—but my Bloodcraft roars to life, and for a second, I’m just as fast.

I spear Rhaz through his broken ribs, and Arthur’s strength helps me push the blade forward and in. Rhaz claws at Excalibur, but the blade bites into his hands. I lift the demon up, just like he did to Whitty. I watch him writhe and twist on his own death, and laugh—a joyous sound that crashes around the room. A sound that soars over the cries of his dying brethren and makes Sel and the Legendborn turn to watch us.

“What are you?!” Rhaz croaks.