The obsidian moved.
For one impossible heartbeat, I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me.
Then a broken shard slid across the cavern floor.
Another followed.
Then another.
They scraped against the stone with a sound that made my skin crawl, climbing over one another like living insects as they crawled back toward the guardian.
"No..." I breathed.
The troll didn't move.
It didn't need to.
The mountain itself was rebuilding it.
The fragments sealed themselves against its chest one after another, swallowing the exposed emerald crystal beneath layers of polished black stone.
Every fracture we'd fought so hard to create disappeared before my eyes.
Raiden cursed under his breath.
"Shit."
The troll's eyes lifted to us.
There was no triumph in them.
No arrogance.
Only patience.
Like it had all the time in the world.
We didn't.
"It heals too quickly," I said.
Raiden's crimson eyes never left the guardian.
"No."
He shook his head once.
"It repairs."
There was a difference.
Healing implied life.
Repair implied purpose.
This thing wasn't alive the way we were.
It was a guardian.
An ancient machine carved from the mountain itself.
The crystal wasn't healing it.
It was rebuilding its armour.
The troll took one slow step toward us.
Then another.
Not rushing.
Waiting.
Almost inviting us to try again.
I tightened my grip on my daggers.
Like they would actually do something.
"We have to be faster."
Raiden glanced sideways at me.
"We have to stop thinking."
I frowned.
"What?"
"You hesitate."
"I do not."
"You do."
His eyes returned to the guardian.
"You wait for me."
I opened my mouth to argue.
Then closed it again.
Because he was right.
Every attack we'd landed...
I'd waited for him.
Every opening...
I'd called out.
Every strike...
I'd checked he was ready.
That hesitation had given the troll exactly what it needed.
Time.
Raiden rolled his shoulders.
Blood still darkened one sleeve where the guardian had thrown him across the cavern.
"You know the sequence."
"So do you."
"Then trust it."
Not me.
It.
The rhythm.
The guardian roared.
This time it didn't charge.
Instead it ripped an enormous slab of stone from the cavern floor and hurled it between us.
The boulder smashed down like a collapsing tower.
Dust exploded upward, cutting off my view of Raiden.
Exactly what the troll wanted.
To separate us.
To break our rhythm.
The guardian came for me first.
Of course it did.
It had learned.
It knew I was the one creating the fractures.
A fist larger than a carriage descended toward me.
I leapt sideways.
The impact shattered the ground where I'd been standing.
Stone erupted around me.
Before I had even landed—
fire was already gathering in my hands.
No thought.
Just instinct.
I drove a concentrated blast toward its right shoulder.
The obsidian glowed.
Almost immediately—
ice followed.
Steam exploded outward.
A sharp crack echoed through the cavern.
The troll twisted.
Protecting the shoulder.
Good.
It remembered.
Which meant...
so did I.
A streak of red-black lightning tore through the dust.
It didn't hit the troll.
It struck the exact fracture I'd just created.
The lightning vanished inside.
The guardian staggered.
I hadn't looked.
I hadn't called his name.
I hadn't needed to.
The thread pulsed once.
Warm.
Certain.
Not telling me what he'd done.
Simply confirming what I already knew.
He was there.
The troll roared and swung toward where the lightning had come from.
Wrong choice.
Water wrapped around its weakened shoulder before it had even finished turning.
I smiled despite myself.
He'd seen it too.
The water froze instantly.
The fracture widened.
Lightning struck again.
The shoulder exploded outward in a shower of obsidian shards.
The guardian stumbled.
One knee hit the ground.
Not enough.
Already the broken stone was crawling back toward it.
Faster this time.
Much faster.
"It's adapting!" I shouted.
A laugh answered from somewhere inside the settling dust.
"So are we!"
Shadows burst from the floor beneath the troll's feet, not trying to hold it still this time.
Only pulling it slightly off balance.
Enough.
I was already moving.
Wings burst from my back.
One powerful beat launched me high into the cavern.
The troll followed me immediately.
Good.
Its chest opened.
Exactly as Raiden intended.
Fire.
The center of its chest glowed white.
Ice.
A web of fractures raced outward.
Water.
Every crack filled before the guardian could move.
I froze it all.
The obsidian groaned.
The emerald crystal flashed into view.
Lightning came before I even thought to look for it.
It slammed into the crystal.
The troll screamed.
The crystal flickered—
then fresh obsidian surged across it again.
"No!"
The opening disappeared.
The guardian's fist caught the edge of my wing.
Pain exploded across my back.
I spun through the air.
Falling.
A shadow wrapped around my waist.
My descent stopped so abruptly it stole the breath from my lungs.
Raiden set me on my feet without a word.
"Thanks."
"You looked busy."
I snorted.
We turned back together.
The troll had changed again.
It no longer attacked recklessly.
Both massive arms remained crossed over its chest.
Shielding the crystal.
Protecting the only thing that mattered.
"It knows."
"It knows we're not trying to kill it anymore," I said.
Raiden nodded.
"We're trying to reach its heart."
The guardian lowered its head.
Then did something neither of us expected.
Instead of charging...
it retreated.
Only a few steps.
Enough to force us to come to it.
To make us expose ourselves.
I couldn't help smiling.
"It's a quick learner."
Raiden's grin matched mine.
"Then let's give it something to study."
The troll suddenly drove both fists into the cavern floor.
The entire mountain answered.
Stone pillars erupted from the ground between us, splitting the battlefield into a maze of towering rock.
Walls rose around me.
I lost sight of Raiden completely.
Silence.
No voice.
Just stone.
The troll had finally done it.
It had broken our rhythm.
For one heartbeat...
panic threatened to rise.
Then I laughed softly.
Because I realized something.
The thread wasn't telling me what Raiden was going to do anymore.
It didn't need to.
I simply...
knew.
The instant fire ignited in my palms...
I felt lightning gathering somewhere beyond the stone walls.
Not through magic.
Not through the bond.
Through him.
When had that happened?
It had been so long since fighting beside raiden like this, I forgot how natural it was. Just like breathing.
When had I stopped worrying about falling....
and started assuming he would catch me?
The troll burst through one of the stone pillars.
Its chest still protected.
Its obsidian continuing to repair itself.
Too slow.
It was finally too slow.
I smiled.
Not at the guardian.
At the rhythm we'd found.
I ignited both hands.
Somewhere beyond the maze of fallen stone—
thunder answered.
This time...
we wouldn't give it a single heartbeat to recover.