Kalen was magnificent. Spear-shaped winds sang through the air and struck with deadly precision, and the nanghait’s voice rose to a near shriek as they cut into its form. All around us, the Yadoshans continued to scramble, some still hollering in glee. I could hear Khalad on my right, yelling at the remaining men to get underneath the protection of Likh’s Shield rune.

A thought zipped by me, and I lunged, catching it by its tail and stacking it on the growing pile of minds I was imprisoning. Only one more remained. It was the smallest of all the daeva’s consciousnesses, more adept at avoiding my grasp. I was breathing hard, the load from the others already weighing on me, my exhaustion beginning to take its toll on my strength.

“Khalad!” I heard Likh scream this time. I opened my eyes to see the nanghait heading for the Heartforger. It pounced, sensing victory, but Likh arrived first, throwing his arms around the stunned heartforger as the Shield rune stretched above their heads.

“Enough!” my mouth and my mind roared at the same time. I threw everything I had at the final untethered mind by expanding my own, filling the space until it had nowhere to go but through me. I snatched it up and yoked the minds together. “DIE!” I screamed.

The nanghait’s minds wobbled under my control, seeming to melt and re-form again into one. At the same time, Kalen all but lifted the nanghait away with wind before it could strike Likh, almost from willpower alone. The nanghait fell, wailed, and died, all in one breath.

The Yadoshans had quieted, staring in awe at the hideous beast, and then at Kalen and Likh. Lord Besserly turned to me, somehow managing to look shaken while still grinning widely.

“Now that,” he said, “was a celebration.”

Lord Besserly roared with laughter when I finished reading. “Lady Tea was right. We were quite the idiots then. Didn’t get a lot of asha in our part of the world, you know. Kion and Arhen-Kosho had nearly a monopoly on the runemakers, and the ones we did have wound up moving to Ankyo anyway. I had several ancestors who’d encountered the nanghait and lost and were celebrated for it. Sure, Dark asha bring them down faster than a Steerfall monsoon chases off summer, but it’d dishonor the people who came before me if I didn’t do the same at least once or twice in my lifetime.” He shrugged. “Reminds us we didn’t always have it this easy, that we may not always have it so. Always been our way.”