Her fist landed on his sternum, and the hall heard it. Deep and wet, the structural sound of a chest changing shape.
The blow lifted the Duke of Ravenshade off the floor of his king's hall.
"RAVENCLAW-" The name came out of him as a roar.
Her knuckles shattered on the way through. She felt it happen, somewhere far away, and ignored it like all the other pain.
She had the Bloodfather's buff, her class's buff, thirty-eight tithes paid in, and a broken arm banked on top of them. All of it together, and Iris Ravenclaw still could not kill Tharion Ravenshade with a punch.
But she was more than strong enough to move him two paces.
Right into the gates of hell.
He went over the rim backward, rings flaring defiantly, still fighting, and the ember light took him.
He struck the black metal of another world still roaring, and words wrote themselves across his sight, patient and courteous.
[Welcome to the hell of the Demon of Vengeance.]
