Rosegold knifed toward me like a demon. It wasn’t the movement of a predatory beast. She didn’t resemble a bird of prey or a hunting cat. She didn’t even strike me as a deranged killer leaping for the end. She came at me with the twitching horror of an entity from a darker realm.

  I saw a future for us all in the way she moved. That was the fate that awaited any who dwelt too long in the suit. I had craved this power, this sensory ecstasy, so badly, I had never allowed myself to imagine the degradation that awaited the mind of any Griidlord who dared to live so long without parting from the power of the suit that sustained them. It seemed a terrible destiny to be waiting for me.

  It also seemed like a destiny I needn’t have feared. My destiny was rushing at me tenfold, at the end of each bladed appendage.

  As though with the impulse of a single neuron, her body snapped to a halt. Those terrible clawed hands went to her head, pressing against the side of her helm, clutching at it. I imagined the strength of a level 72 Griidlord, saw her arms tremble with the force they exerted on her armored skull.

  She writhed and staggered away from me. I could only blink and take another breath. I couldn’t understand what was happening. Her form twisted and twitched as though she were trying to shake off a burning cloud.

  Enki’s voice came to me. I can’t control your suit, Tiberius. I can talk to you. I can see what you can see. When you went after her, there was no possibility of me switching her off. If you imagined that you could force me to do something of that sort, then you were mistaken. No. You made me do something much worse.

  I gathered myself enough to take my feet again. My body and suit both protested at the sudden movement. I could feel bone, muscle, and stretching mystorium scream in injured agony as I leapt to my feet. Somehow, I had kept a hold of my sword.

  My eyes went to Rosegold as she staggered away, each step a huge, sweeping, rigid thrust. Her body spasmed as she clutched her head.

  My eyes went to the others. There, at least, all was as well as could have been imagined. Remus knelt before Magneblade, his suit a smoking wreck. Tara tore at her opponent, darting and slashing. She was the thousand cuts. Olaf was outmatched, even with type advantage, but he leaned into the strengths of his suit, absorbing Rufus’s counterattack, patiently letting his shield eat up the blows as he backed away, waiting for the others to join him.

  Enki spoke. Julia has suffered enough. I’ve known her a long time, boy. For 200 years, we’ve been allies. When the degradation started, I pleaded with her to leave the suit. Do you know what that means to me? If she leaves the suit, she disappears from me, becomes useless to me. But she’d fallen short of what I needed. I couldn’t use her, and it did me no good to see her suffer. I begged her to give the suit up, but by the time I made my appeal to her, it was too late.

  Magneblade tidily dispatched the Shield from behind as Tara continued to devour him from the front. Even with type disadvantage, Magneblade’s blow landed in the back of a weakened foe. The Shield fell like the last great giant of the forest, crashing limply into the knee-deep snow.

  Enki said, I’ve known her so long. I felt the blackness creep through her mind, felt the synapses faltering and breaking. I was there for so many of the episodes, so many of the terrible waking dreams. I couldn’t turn her suit off—it’s her suit, not mine. But to save you, I had to do something. Look at her now, Tiberius. Do you see the suffering?

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  I felt my head nod slowly, dumbly. I couldn’t rip my eyes away from her. I never wanted to be like that. I’d rather have died than have my mind turn into such a putrid tangle of confusion. She’d stopped walking. Now she stood, hunched and trembling, still clutching her skull like her hands had been fused to it.

  Enki said, I know all her buttons. I pressed those buttons to save you. I could have let her hurt you. You hurt me when you turned on her, turned on me. You’ll need to understand you can’t bite the hand that feeds you. But I don’t want to wipe you off the face of the earth. You’re no good to me shredded into leaky pieces. Not this time, anyway. No, I’ll show you your mistake another time. For now, just look on her and see what you did, what you made me do.

  But there will be a reckoning.

  I think I whispered to Enki, think I said, “I’m sorry.”

  It’s hard to tell, hard to remember. My memory is burned with the sight of her. The way she staggered and twitched. The odd, rambling mumbles and occasional shocking, barked noises.

  At some point, I became aware that the battle was over. My teammates stood watching. Their opponents were either motionless on the ground or kneeling. But they moved no more than I could. They stood and watched as I did.

  I think they felt what I felt. They saw their futures the way I saw mine. There were only three ends to the journey for a Griidlord. To die in battle, to give up the suit and all its ecstatic experiences, or to burn out and become the sad and terrifying vision before us.

  I felt my hand tighten on my sword hilt. There was a strange, dreamlike quality to my body’s motion. I could feel my muscles coiling. They seemed to be preparing without me. I was certainly motivated to put her down. There was the end of the fight to be sought. I could down her, and the prize would be ours. I would certainly have been wise to stop or kill her. If she turned on any one of us, it would be like a mortal fighting a bear. She could do unimaginable damage before the rest of us intervened. Any one of us could be killed or crippled by her power in an instant.

  The truth was simpler, darker, and more selfless than that. I wanted to put her down and end this nightmare she seemed to be trapped in. My thoughts weren’t occupied by the prize or the levels I would gain by slaying a Griidlord of such immense power. I couldn’t bear to look on her suffering.

  My blade swept back, readying as awful a swing as my suit could deliver. I felt my triceps bulge as they tensed, my biceps straining, the muscles running through my core to my hips and through them to the ground. The suit strained in sympathy around me. For one moment, I was like a bullet in the barrel of a gun the moment after the hammer falls—the impetus of erupting gases building around it, the explosion of motion an imminent and unavoidable occurrence.

  But then she turned on me. Not with claws and violence, but with words and tones that unnerved me completely.

  She shrieked, otherworldly and despairing. Her voice chilled me. It full-on fucking scared me.

  “No! You won’t have me!”

  She backed away as though I were the one leveled in the 70s.

  “Not you! You won’t take me and feed me to him! Stay back, butcher! I know who you are! You are the bringer of the inferno. You are the betrayer! You are the one who will cast down the Order! I see you.”

  I hesitated. I could feel the coiled force of my body deflating, too frightened and confused to strike her.

  Her voice rose in pitch. It became louder and more otherworldly than I could have believed possible.

  “I see you! You’re the Blood Prince! You, the one on the Blood Throne! Worse than Thrax ever was! You’ll burn the world, and when it’s ash, you won’t be finished! You won’t be satisfied, not you! Not the Butcher! When the world is grey, you’ll pull down the scaffolds and end it, not even knowing what lies beyond! You won’t feed me to your fire!”

  She turned, and the Footfield erupted around her. The field was as wild and uncontrolled as I had ever felt. I leapt back from it. There was such chaos in her grappling with the field that I could have sworn I felt the molecules in my body vibrate and nearly come undone. I wasn’t the only one to feel it. The others all scrambled back.

  As she fled, I barely registered the text on my HUD, the 32 blinking and fading, the 2 being replaced by a 3.

  Then, like a lightning bolt, with a pop of sound, she shredded away from us, clouds of snow erupting in a comet tail behind her as she disappeared.