The cavern was a ruin.
Deep gashes ran across the floor and up the walls. They were cut so cleanly that the rock along their edges still gleamed. Pale green strings hung everywhere like the threads of a torn web, swaying slowly in the dust.
At the center of it all stood Vance.
His high-collared robe was torn, and blood ran from a cut across his cheek. But he was standing, and his long fingers were still moving as calmly as ever.
Behind him, Ashra lay on the ground.
Her fitted leather armor had been torn open across her chest, and the wound beneath it was so deep that Simon could see her ribs. Her left arm was gone below the elbow. She was still breathing, but barely, and a pool of blood was spreading beneath her.
Simon recognized the wound immediately. Only Veyra's wind could drill through flesh like that.
Vance was protecting her.
And he was winning.
