Kalinda wrapped spiky protrusions of hazy blue air around her club. She thrust it forward, testing the bounds of their barriers. Their blades sliced through her defenses. She batted them back. Sealed the tears. The Litany of Sounding was a burning brand in her mind, and her defenses were a manifestation of that – concentrated thought made real. The patterns they used to create their wall were intricate. It was difficult to find a way to untangle it.

But as with any task that required perfect concentration to maintain control of a notoriously inconsistent power, there would be errors. Kalinda switched to another litany. Focused slivers of air zipped outward from the contours of her body, hammering their barriers.

One got through. She saw the man rocket back, drop his weapon. It snarled back into his wrist.

Her reaction was instant.

Shaping the power of Para took concentration, and breaking it, even for a moment, left a certain softness, an incompleteness of form, a corrupt pattern of Para’s breath that was easy to cut if penetrated at the right moment. She focused her next blast at the weak point her sliver had penetrated. Their barriers burst. Para’s twisted breath broke into a thousand unbound particles.

Weapons buckled. Snapped.

She squeezed the air around their limbs. Bones cracked. Screams. The air pressure in the room eased. Their concentration, like their bones, was broken.

She cut into them again, thrusting forward with the spikes of air that lengthened the reach of her club, bashing open their heads. Blood spattered the room, clinging to the surface of the condensed air she wielded, giving further form to the instruments of death and protection they had battled with. A portion of one of their barriers still stood, protecting the torso of the man nearest her feet. She saw the blood and brain matter of the man’s companion stuck to it. She hammered the man’s knee twice, and the barrier crumbled. The blood and matter dropped to the floor with it.

She pummeled the man’s head until it was unrecognizable. Stepped back. She walked to the third man, the one injured by the initial spike of air. He clutched at his side. She heard him murmuring a litany, saw snaking tendrils of some poisonous creeper plant tunneling up through the boards of the floor. She sliced off the tails of the plant with a buzz of air. Then she crushed the man’s head.

Kalinda dropped her barrier. Para’s misty essence evaporated. She was wheezing hard. Cold sweat soaked her body. She slid to the floor. Sat against the door. The bodies bled out across the living boards. The floor had been shaped by some long-dead tirajista, created to soak up organic matter and allow heat from the thrumming heart of the tree beneath them to flow freely. She watched the boards darken.