For one brief moment, the regent shone gold. The light arced across his body, flowing from the blood and sacrifices like a backward rain. The color seeped into his skin, sparkling across his veins. Gordian screamed, the pain in his cry unimaginable. His muscles bulged. The bones of his body elongated to grant him height and reach, and what could not fit his new form broke and reshaped so it did. Wrinkles smoothed away. Old scars became unblemished skin. The sand shimmered beneath him, grains of it lifting heavenward as if the world itself were in awe of his transformation.

Cyrus dashed toward the circle of corpses and magic. The ritual was complete, but Gordian still endured the change. If he could strike now, cut the man’s throat before he recovered…

A flash of color above him, a blue much brighter than the night sky, was his only warning. Instinct took over, and he dug his heels into the sand and then lurched backward. A blue-armored paragon landed mere feet before him, his spear embedding halfway up to the hilt. Cyrus had met him a few times while Gordian’s prisoner, the paragon always accompanying Thanet’s Anointed One during her occasional trips to the castle. Every visit had given him shivers.

“You weren’t invited,” Soma said as he ripped his spear free with a flourish of sand.

“I thought it more fun to arrive unannounced.”

His foe laughed as if they were casual friends and then attacked with his spear. No shift in his weight, nor turn of his feet, gave away his intentions. Cyrus barely parried it aside, and then only due to the significant distance between him and his foe. Another thrust followed, and Cyrus immediately went defensive, his off-hand weaving back and forth in a constant series of parries for that jabbing, seeking spearpoint. It was like keeping a viper at bay. On the fifth attempt, he saw an opening and lunged with his right hand. The sharp edge bounced upward, the paragon’s spear twirling like the sails of a windmill in his deft hands. That rotation ended with the butt of the spear cracking him in the shin, and only pure adrenaline kept him from crumpling. Cyrus pulled back while retreating yet again, expecting the paragon to claim the offensive, but a woman’s shout prevented him.

“Soma!” was all the Anointed One cried. His paragon foe reacted instantly. His spear pulled back, and he twirled it once before leaping a dozen feet into the air, making a pure mockery of the earth’s downward pull. Cyrus followed his leap and saw Mari ripping apart two soldiers standing protectively before Sinshei. Light shimmered about the Anointed One’s hands, the specter of divine weapons ready to lash out, but the Lioness was so fast, so brutal, she must have doubted her own magic.