The portal- the rift, whatever it was- remained blessedly stagnant at first. Or perhaps not so blessedly, its relative inactivity gave the present magi nothing more to focus on than Hexeri and the surviving paladins. The men had it easiest, they were…men.

  Hexeri had, of course, been called a whore. She’d been called a whore often. She was a powerful woman, and powerful women tended to attract that label more than perhaps any others.

  What surprised her, though, what actually shocked her despite her long inoculation against the word, was being called a whore more times within a single hour than she perhaps had in the totality of her unlife before it.

  It was almost impressive, but more…Concerning. The type of thing to actually leave her wondering if something was diagnosably wrong with the magi. They didn’t seem to even know any other words, every other sentence from any of their mouths contained it- they used it like it was her and Ensharia’s name.

  The paladin, at least, did not seem any more bothered than Hexeri was. Not surprised at all, even. Hexeri wondered whether she’d had close encounters with the magi of Magira before, then tucked the suspicion away for later. She had greater concerns for the time being.

  “Bitch.” Came a voice, high and sort of jittery. Hexeri looked up to see she was being addressed by one of the magi. Well at least he’d chosen the second most popular word instead. “You’re being moved, come this way.” Hexeri didn’t glare, or anything else that might set him on edge. If she was to make her move she’d make it when guards were low and tensions thin. The shackles around her wrists were heavy, but raw strength wasn’t everything. She’d broken out of thicker more than once before.

  Ensharia was not being left behind, Hexeri saw as she moved. Rather the paladin was being taken elsewhere- as were the others. Splitting the prisoners up. Not a bad idea, and, given it was being used now, it implied the magi were occupying a considerable area within the fortress. Hexeri wasn’t sure how useful that information would be, but it was more information in any case. She committed it to memory as she moved.

  Halfway across the room, with her arms still bound and her form still watched too-laxedly by the arrogant magi surrounding it, Hexeri caught a change in the air. Doubtless, it was the product of her centuries. A moment later the magi semed to pick up on it too, tensing and staring. A few seconds after that, even the paladins were turning on the portal.

  It was moving, but remaining still. Twisting but remaining straight. The most defeaningly loud silence Hexeri had ever heard, the most blindingly bright darkness she’d ever seen. The most terrifying mundanity she’d ever felt. And whatever it was- whatever was happening to cause the sensation running down her dead nerves- it was growing more intense with every moment that passed. Instinct took over, and not just hers.

  Magic came flying at it in a great fusilade, fireballs, jets of water, black, twisting thorns and shots of steel. Boulders, sand-blasts, magma, lightning, coils of air, acid, poison, pure energy and psionic beams. Every way there was to kill, that was not illegal within the walls of Magira, seemed to be unleashed at once. She felt the air contorting, room threatening to come apart at the sheer intensity of it, and then Hexeri witnessed two figures emerge from the portal and stride out into the maelstrom.

  One, the larger, was the Dark Lord. He stepped forth and simply absorbed the attacks with his armour and body. The other, Shaiagrazni, stood behind him and began to transform, body shifting and warping. It seemed to be the exact opposite of how the lycan had done it. There was no inner beast breaking out from beneath, rather his new form was being constructed from the skin level out.

  It took him only seconds, Hexeri thought. Difficult to be sure even for her eyes, through the maelstrom of magic. When he was done, he and the Dark Lord simply lunged at the magi without exchanging even a single word.

  To call what followed a massacre would have been to speak too lightly. The Dark Lords moved through the hundred or so magi as if they were helpless children, armours turning away magical blasts like a gentle breeze. Weapons ripping through shields like spiderwebs. Shaiagrazni wielded some great whip, swinging it through the air and bissecting a half dozen men with every crack. His cannon had been replaced by that arcane flame weapon, and Hexeri felt the heat of it as great pools of blazing liquid were splashed around the room to consume their victims.

  For his part, the Dark Lord, the original Dark Lord, seemed comparably effective. Less overtly destructive perhaps, less able to mount up the casualties, but no more impeded by his enemies. Where his mace went, lives ended. He walked through the hail of magic without even responding to his enemy’s attacks, and Hexeri felt somewhat queasy at the sight of bodies simply bursting apart into, as far as she could tell, pure liquid each time they absorbed one of his hits.

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  All that, and the sheer speed of the casters was like nothing human. In perhaps five seconds they had both emptied the room of bodies. Living ones, at least. Their remains still littered the place, and the floor seemed to now be coloured red.

  Hexeri realised then how astonishingly hungry she was, body moving before her mind could direct it. She dropped down to her knees, extended her tongue and began licking the ichor up. It was honey on her tongue, joy itself. Life in all of its infinite nuances and wonders. And it was hers, falling into the depths of her beings and fraying apart to become stuff of pure, reanimating magic.

  Magus’ blood was a delicacy she’d had the pleasure of trying before. She gorged on it now, actually clearing out a patch several feet across by the time she’d finally had her fill. Hexeri looked up, lower face spattered with gore to find several eyes upon her.

  Shaiagrazni looked impassive. The Dark Lord, without his helmet now and a surprisingly young-looking man of handsome dignity, was if anything amused. Ensharia looked more disgusted than Hexeri had yet seen her, while the other paladins remained too helmeted to tell.

  She didn’t feel any sudden flashes of self-consciousness, that was a fledgeling’s prerogative. Hexeri simply flooded the insides of her shackles with darkness and pulled the substance taut, letting the fragile mechanisms within break and dropping the bonds off of herself. She found the deed easier than usual.

  Magus’ blood. For a while, a few hours, days or even- given how much she’d drunk- weeks, everything with magic would be easier. There were benefits to stealing the essence of others for life.

  “Alright Silenos.” She greeted with a nod. “I’m here to rescue you.”

  Shaiagrazni eyed her for a moment, just one. Then tilted his head as he replied.

  “Adonis, there are intruders in your fortress. I imagine this means your lycanthrope has been killed.”

  “Annoying.” The Dark Lord- apparently named Adonis- sighed. “It will take centuries to create a new one.”

  Hexeri felt her guts turn to liquid, and started sprinting before a conscious thought on the matter could even form. She was fast, inhumanly fast, but today her legs might as well have carried her at a sloth’s pace. The doorway she lunged towards was splashed with burning oil from Shaiagrazni’s weapon, barring her way. At a glance back she saw the other prisoners, Ensharia, immobilised just as efficiently.

  The other paladins were not. Those idiots made the mistake of attacking the man called Adonis, and were torn apart sooner than an eye could blink.

  “NO!” Ensharia screamed, wrestling against the Dark Lord for a single moment before Silenos Shaiagrazni glided over to take her from him. Her body was encased in…A magus. Or what was left of him, organic tissue of his corpse melted down and wrapped around her like some bony cocoon.

  “Be still.” Shaiagrazni urged her. “You are a most valuable research specimen, it would irk me if you were to damage yourself in any way before I was able to properly study you.”

  “Bastard!” She snarled, not seeming to hear him. “I was right about you, I knew it then and I know now. I’m glad I left. I only wish I’d known better than to ever aid you in the first place.”

  The Dark Lord’s head tilted. “Ah, this is the paladin you gained assistance from early on, Silenos?”

  “Yes.” Shaiagrazni confirmed, looking far from pleased. “I was, as you have probably inferred, desperate at the time.”

  Ensharia’s scream would have woken a sleeping dragon, but it didn’t faze either of the men now holding her prisoner. A shrieking baby would have been no less of a threat to them, Hexeri suspected. That was simply the level of power they operated in. Dark Lord and New Dark Lord. It was fitting they shared a name, and would have been even if it weren’t for their new cooperation.

  But a question still gnawed at her.

  “This is odd.” She frowned. “Not even…Just, normal you odd, this is stupid odd. Why are you doing this? Why are you making enemies of Lilia’s progeny, of your only envoy into the paladins? I don’t get it. You’ve been playing politics well before now, and suddenly you just abandon it all? What’s…” Her eyes flicked to the portal. “What are you planning?”

  Shaiagrazni eyed her, his gaze like a midwinter's night.

  “The only reason I do not cripple you for your insolence is because you showed some deductive prowess in asking that question the way you have.” He informed her. “I am Master Shaiagrazni, not Silenos.”

  She decided not to say more, at that. Hexeri didn’t know how much leniency she’d earned herself, or how quick this apparently unmasked Shaiagrazni would be to punish her when it ran out. It was no great shock to see him change so suddenly, Hexeri had known too many men to be surprised by double-faced ones anymore. But it was a concern. He had been their last hope against Mafari, if he was no longer even interested in cooperation.

  No, back up. Why was he no longer interested in cooperation? He surely still had something to gain from the most powerful active Vampire in existence, unless…

  “I do not need you anymore.” Shaiagrazni explained, a note of triumph in his voice. “My days of scraping and bowing to your petty customs, of appeasing your inept leaders, are over. This is the Tempered Schism-” He gestured to his portal, wrist rolling and fingers splaying in flourish. “You could not even begin to fathom its complexity, but to simplify the matter it is rending apart the barriers separating worlds. Once it is completed, it will be able to do so permanently and completely.”

  Hexeri’s heart would have stopped then and there, if it hadn’t already centuries ago.

  “Yes.” Shaiagrazni continued, apparently recognising the dread in her face. “You are right to be afraid. Because soon enough House Shaiagrazni themselves will emerge to take this world, and then move on to take all others. The cosmos belongs to the strong. And we are strong.”