The courtyard between sections of the compound was a small park with all sorts of unusual plants. Faint light shimmered in bubbles around each one. Even the trees were protected.

  Althowin stood directly in the center with her hands on her hips.

  “Are you sure this is a good idea?” Owin asked. The Thunderstrike Maul glowed brightly. He had been spinning it since the moment they left the workshop and now it was ready to unleash its full power. With how high his strength was, it seemed dangerous to swing it at anybody. Even the 7 Shard Hero.

  “Stop asking me if I’m sure of things. I don’t second guess myself and neither should you. Activate your shard and hit me.”

  “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  Althowin raised an eyebrow. “You have a lot to learn, Owin. I don’t even need a shard active to be stronger and faster than you.” She vanished and reappeared directly in his face. “Now shut up, activate your shard, and hit me.”

  She was the strongest in the world. Arguing wasn’t going to get him anywhere.

  His shard hummed as it lifted from his shoulder.

  “Good.” Althowin stood upright.

  Owin wrapped both hands around the shaft of the hammer. It still felt odd gripping anything with his metal hand, but it moved exactly how he intended. There were plenty of thoughts still floating through his mind about what could happen, but none of it mattered. It wouldn’t happen.

  Owin leapt and swung the Thunderstrike Maul overhead with every ounce of strength he had. Althowin lifted her hand and effortlessly caught the swing. As soon as the hammer touched her flesh, light flashed and Owin’s ears rang.

  He landed on his feet, blinked the light from his eyes, and looked up to see Althowin standing calmly.

  “Your other weapons are better,” she said.

  “Really?”

  “You might find this better against an armored opponent, but you shouldn’t have issues with that in the Fortress. If you really want to use it, you need to find a fighting style that works. That whole jump and swing thing is too predictable.”

  Owin set the hammer on the ground. “I’ve been told that before. What else can I do? If I swing while standing, I’ll just hit everyone in the legs.”

  “What you need is a soldier or assassin to train you. Maybe a berserker.” Althowin opened her index. “We’d want someone with three shards or more. I’ve done work for a few of them, but none are really worth the time. I don’t trust Egnatia to even look at you right now, otherwise she would be the obvious choice. I could . . . He won’t like it.” Her index vanished. “We’re going to go on a trip. Just the two of us. Shade will stay back and nobody is going to know where we’re going. Got it?”

  Owin nodded. It wasn’t like he was being given a choice. He needed training. As soon as he was put in a difficult spot in the Ocean, he lost his arm. Panic had fully taken over. It couldn’t happen again.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To visit an old friend.”

  ***

  Multiple questions had been answered. Every answer was bad. At this point, it was feeling like the questions themselves were bad. Everything was going to shit, and if he had stayed out of things and minded his own business, all the piles of shit raining from the sky wouldn’t have anything to do with him.

  Escape one prison for another.

  Vondaire spun a kunai around his finger and watched out the office window. A few Golden Bulls lingered around the compound and traveled to and from a small cafe closer to the city center. They were easy to identify. They always were. Nobody would be surprised to know there were Golden Bulls trying to spy. His bigger concern, the real issue, was the Golden Bulls all reporting to the same person.

  Egnatia Lucan.

  After spotting her, it only took a few minutes to find her main spy, Caspius. He was currently in the line waiting to enter Althowin’s compound, but she obviously wasn’t taking any customers today. Out of the two weeks Vondaire had been a resident of the compound, he had only seen her take customers three times. She cycled through them quickly, only stopping when someone actually interested her.

  There was only one thing that made a soldier a good spy. Their hearing was unmatched. If anything was said in the courtyard, a soldier could potentially pick up some bits of information. Between Caspius and Egnatia, and whoever the Golden Bulls had nearby, they were likely to glean something useful.

  He tossed the knife and let it vanish in the air as something else grabbed his attention. The front door of the compound opened and . . . Althowin and Owin strode out completely casually. She didn’t try to hide her presence or disguise herself.

  The crowd seemed just as shocked as Vondaire and everything seemed to freeze for a moment, then Althowin activated three shards, which Vondaire could feel even from far above. The immediate shift in her power pushed everyone back, either literally or metaphorically. Anybody nearby that wasn’t a Shard Hero dropped to their knees from her mere presence. Windows all around Vondaire rattled.

  Egnatia, far away from Althowin’s current position, immediately stopped her conversation with a Golden Bull and approached a communication terminal.

  Suspicions were obviously confirmed. If he kept digging, he was going to have to approach Egnatia, and that wasn’t going to end well. The last time he got involved in a spy ring, he knew they were a bunch of shardless heroes having fun. This time, it was likely more than just Egnatia involved. Magna Regum and the Golden Bulls.

  He couldn’t make these decisions on his own. Vondaire set the empty coffee cup on a desk and started down the stairs. Chorsay would know what to do.

  ***

  Owin was uncomfortable, but Althowin was right. Her shards were enough to keep people away. Once they were farther from the compound, the attention died out and her shards disappeared back into her shoulder. Some people still waved and called out to her, and some even knew who he was and said both kind and horrible things.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “What would happen if you activated all seven?” Owin asked as they walked down the street.

  “It could kill low level citizens. This city is durable. I built most of it. A strong building doesn’t mean strong people. Some live here because they were born here. Others come here because they consider it the safest place in Verdantallis. Do you know why?”

  “No.”

  “Because it is.”

  “Oh. Right.” He let the Thunderstrike Maul rest on his shoulder. Its weight was comforting, even if it felt significantly lighter than it used to. He wore his full set of chitin armor and his new belt with both the lich bone and the Darkblade.

  Nobody had questioned it when Owin said he was going with Althowin to train. Shade looked sad, but he didn’t admit it. He probably wouldn’t. Owin would have preferred to bring the skeleton along.

  “How did you build a full city?” Owin asked.

  “It wasn’t a brick at a time. I developed the materials during my training, about right before I fused.” She paused, smiled, and waved to a group of kids who were waving and cheering. “As I was developing my own workshop, I figured out how to make cement that can withstand some of the most powerful explosions. Vraxridge officials weren’t happy with me at the time. I destroyed a few blocks a few times. As soon as I had the recipe perfected, I shared it. And now, some eighty years later, I run the city and every building is safer than anywhere else in Verdantallis.”

  Every building they had passed had the same general appearance. Some were painted, especially the storefronts along the street, but all were the same gray cement and the same shape. The buildings never thinned or shrunk. They were all just as tall as one another until they reached the end of Vraxridge where the city simply stopped. The road continued with a forest on the left and farms on the right.

  Althowin continued leading and spared a glance over her shoulder. “We do have some people following. We’ll need to manage that before we continue.”

  “We do?” Owin looked back and didn’t notice anything specific.

  “Yes. Stop here.” She turned right on the edge of the sidewalk before it turned into a gravel path following alongside the field. “Hurry it up.”

  A full block away, a woman in beautiful armor stepped out from behind the corner of a building. She smirked as she slowly approached. Owin had heard about her from Vondaire, and Chorsay had confirmed the danger she posed.

  A vibrant magenta scar covered most of her left cheek and surrounded her eye. It glowed like it was still pulsing with abyssal fire. She stopped a few feet away with her hands on her hips. Her colorful leaf-like skirt blew in the breeze.

  “You couldn’t have thought this would work,” Althowin said.

  “We already know everything we need to know,” Egnatia said.

  “What did I tell you last time?”

  “I’m not afraid of an old wench.”

  Before Owin could even blink, the ground shattered. Althowin activated all seven shards, immediately filling the air with pressure Owin recognized from when Sloswen had sent him plummeting through the ground.

  While Owin was able to follow what happened, he couldn't move or react nearly fast enough to do anything. And neither could Egnatia. As soon as all seven shards were active, Althowin reached into her jacket, pulled out an oblong object, dashed forward, and smashed her metal fist into Egnatia’s stomach, denting the armor. Steam hissed out as gears shifted inside her wrist. The punch launched Egnatia into the air with the oblong object sailing directly beside her.

  The whole thing was over in the blink of an eye. Owin shivered as the seven shards dropped back into Althowin’s shoulders. Something flashed in the sky. Owin looked far above the skyscrapers to see the bright, fiery explosion. A dark shape plummeted, burning, somewhere deep in the city.

  “Did you—”

  “She’ll live,” Althowin said casually. “If anyone else tries to follow us, I will kill them.” She turned and brushed something off Owin’s helmet. “How are you? Fine? You seem fine.”

  “Yeah. I just . . . That was so fast.”

  “That would be thanks to my dexterity and my fusion. Let’s keep moving. We still have a ways to go.”

  “I can move fast too.”

  “I’m sure you can. It leaves a better message if we take our time. We’re not running from them. They should be running from us.” She kicked a piece of road aside. “I’ll need to send Indulf out here to help with this mess.”

  “I thought you said the city was safe.”

  “The buildings, Owin. This is the road. If I built every piece of the city for them, I’d have no time for my own projects. Notice how none of the windows shattered and nothing collapsed after Egnatia just detonated in the air.” She stepped out of the small crater she made and kicked another piece of road. “I actually destroyed a lot here, didn’t I? I’ll take responsibility for rebuilding it. It’ll never break again.”

  Owin carefully walked over all the shattered pieces and stopped on the edge of the gravel path. All of the crops in the nearby field and a whole section of the forest were flattened. Althowin stopped beside Owin and surveyed the damage.

  “It was Egnatia’s fault, really,” she said as she started down the gravel path. “Push blame to others when possible. That’s your lesson from me.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “You won’t, Owin. Just like I won’t. I’ll plant new trees and I’ll pay the farmers twice the worth of the crops I destroyed. I didn’t get as far as I did by hiding from my mistakes. It was a joke. I guess it’s difficult to recognize a joke when your only experience in the matter is a skeleton’s horrible sense of humor.”

  “Shade makes some good jokes.”

  Althowin rolled her eyes. “We’ve got a few miles left. Keep up.”

  ***

  “I don’t need to hear it,” Egnatia said

  Vondaire stood with his arms crossed at the edge of the pit. There wasn’t a single person in Vraxridge who had missed the explosion in the sky. Whatever bomb Althowin had picked was perfectly sized. Nobody on the ground was injured and all the buildings were unharmed, though Vondaire suspected the 7 Shard Hero had something to do with that.

  The leader of Magna Regum stood, still smoldering, and brushed ash from her face. Her shards had lowered back into her shoulder after crashing. Blood dripped from just about every orifice. She swiped a still-burning forearm over her nose, smearing blood over her upper lip and cheek.

  “I would hope you wouldn’t need a reminder.”

  Egnatia spat a gob of blood onto the rubble. She climbed out of the pit and looked at Vondaire with intense bloodshot eyes. “Reminder of what?”

  “This is her city, and she’s protecting Owin.”

  She pulled a health potion from her bag, carefully placed it against her lips, and slowly drank. As soon as it was done, she dropped the empty bottle and grabbed another. This one she poured into her mouth, drinking much faster. Her face was still smeared with blood, but no more blood leaked from her eyes, ears, nose, or mouth.

  “Althowin has a lot to answer for, and a lot of people asking questions. Her time will come.” Egnatia placed a bloody hand on Vondaire’s shoulder. “You’d be better off with someone better.”

  “Better than the 7 Shard Hero?”

  Egnatia leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. He could feel the blood she left behind clinging to his skin. “When you realize how corrupt she is, you know where to find me,” she whispered in his ear.

  Vondaire stood perfectly still as Egnatia pulled away. She groaned as she rolled her neck and spat another gob of blood onto the street. She gave him one more look with her piercing blue eyes. Magenta light from her scar shone through the blood smeared over her cheek.

  “I don’t want to kill you,” she said.

  “Then don’t.”

  Egnatia smiled. Her teeth were still faintly red with blood. “We make our own choices, Vondaire. If you want to work with her, that’s your choice. She doesn’t care about anyone but herself.”

  Ironic. Vondaire didn’t voice his thought out loud. Even in her current state, Vondaire doubted he would win a fight against Egnatia.

  She started walking toward the portal circle, still brushing ash from her armor. “I saw you watching us earlier. We both know Owin is going to the Fortress next.”

  “He could go anywhere.”

  “He won’t. Althowin will refuse to change her mind. She won’t back down from a challenge.”

  “You intend to challenge Althowin? After what just happened?” Vondaire couldn’t keep the humor from his voice. Only an idiot would challenge the 7 Shard Hero. He had a higher respect for Egnatia than she deserved.

  She stopped walking away and turned just enough to show her scar. “She could’ve stayed out of this war.”

  “Althowin is trying to stop a war.”

  “No, she’s not.” Egnatia continued down the road.

  Vondaire scowled and wiped the blood from his cheek.