The guards who cornered her might have thought otherwise, but that was before the Lioness leaped upon them from the nearby rooftop. It was the first time Cyrus had witnessed Mari in her full two hundred and fifty pounds of glory, barring a distant glimpse of her during the chaos of Lycaena’s execution. Her gray fur was torn at the shoulders, flank, and face, making way for stark white bone plates grown as armor. Unlike Endarius, her wings bore no feathers, but the long bones that grew from her shoulder blades were frighteningly sharp and serrated. Mari wielded them like a second pair of arms, stabbing underneath breastplates and slicing exposed flesh as she pounced from foe to foe. Together, the sisters fought like gods themselves, and none could survive their combined fury.

Cyrus chased after the carriage, cries of the dying and the roar of the Lioness heavy in his ears. With the two sisters having blocked the main thoroughfare, Magistrate Marthalos’s carriage had turned onto a much thinner side road. The last member of Thorda’s elite waited there in ambush, and by the looks of it, he’d succeeded in halting the carriage completely by cutting the horse free of its straps. A half-dozen soldiers lay dead at his feet, but the fight was far from over.

“Where have you been, Vagrant?” Rayan, secret-named Paladin, shouted. His gray hair and beard were hidden behind his plate helmet, which bore a T-shaped opening across the front. A half skull was nailed to its interior to cover everything below the man’s eyes. Though paladins of Lycaena traditionally wore colorful cloaks and shields, he wore the new ones he’d adopted since first visiting Cyrus back at the mansion, which were a mixture of white, black, and waves of gray.

“Busy,” he called back. “Is the magistrate insi—”

The back of the carriage exploded outward as a towering man in brilliant gold platemail exited it. He appeared to be a red-haired monster, his plate weighing at least one hundred pounds. He casually carried a two-handed sword across his right shoulder, and he grinned at Rayan with smug confidence. This man was a mountain that had never been conquered. He was a storm that had lost no fury upon exiting warm ocean breezes and crashing ashore.

“Wonderful,” Cyrus said. “Bloody wonderful.”

“This farce ends here,” the paragon said as he approached Rayan.

“Get the magistrate,” Rayan said as he lifted his shield in challenge. “I’ll handle this bastard.”

No matter how strong he was, no lone paladin could defeat a paragon one-on-one. However, neither could they win with the magistrate’s magic aiding in the fight. Cyrus rushed the carriage while watching the fight from the corner of his eye. The paragon lifted his sword in both hands, and when Rayan refused to move, he brought it crashing down in a direct challenge of Rayan’s raised shield.