Though the fire was quickly spreading across the floors below me, I quickly outpaced it. I was initially hesitant to simply run past the rooms on the three floors above the inferno, but I pushed myself forward nonetheless. Rationally I knew that the spreading fire below was still just picking up speed and that it would only be a matter of minutes before it spread up to these floors too. If the woman was hiding there in the hopes that I’d stumble across her a second time, then she was likely already fuel for the flames.

Still, the spreading numbness in my arm was an all too dire reminder of letting an enemy get behind me and I was loathe to repeat the experience. It was only the toughness of my charred hide that saved me from the assassin’s first strike. The assassin had underestimated me once, an easy thing to do when you weren’t expecting to be thrown into combat with a demonic entity masquerading as a human. But if the woman had any measure of skill in her trade then she’d adjust to overcome my defenses. I wasn’t likely to survive a second such encounter. That was why I was so surprised to see the woman simply standing down the corridor, waiting for me out in the open.

I had barely crested the top stair when I was assaulted by a crazed jumble of words and accusations. To be honest, it was more of a shock to me than the slit of her blade had been across my back. It flew in the face of every mental scenario that I’d prepared myself for, and I was left stumbling to a halt, unsure of just how to proceed.

The assassin took advantage of my hesitance by using her magic to cover the distance between us in more of her Haida-blasted ice before launching another tirade in my direction. Her words were familiar, but with no context I was simply left confused. I scanned the corridor cautiously, looking for signs of some form of trap, magical or otherwise, that the woman was trying to bait me into. Seeing nothing blatant I craned my head slightly to get a better look into a nearby doorway in case she had something hidden inside. Unfortunately the room’s magical glow lamps weren’t currently active so there was nothing to see inside.

I shifted my attention back to the assassin and actually paused to take stock of her words. Hysterical fear wasn’t a foreign experience, but there was something else hidden underneath this woman’s raving. There was a hatred beneath the fear and a sense of familiarity that matched. This woman seemed to know me and was holding some sort of grudge. It couldn’t have been for the little exchange we’d had below, could it? Sure I’d broken her blade in our back and forth, but where must have been something more to it than that.

Words tumbled from the woman’s lips and I got the sense that I was somehow a nightmare made real for her. Had she already had the misfortune to die under my claws in the Citadel before this? It was a possibility. I had spent more than my fair share of time in these chambers over the years and the Citadel had enough regulars that it wasn’t exactly unheard of for the same people to clash more than once. If what she wanted was revenge or for me be shamed in some way then she was doomed to failure. Killing the same person more than once had never been a deterrent to me before.

She’s already proven that her ice could be a problem for me if I wasn’t careful. Somehow I doubted that she’d be similarly hindered. So dealing with that would be the first thing that I’d have to do. Without acknowledging her rambling, I focused on the power radiating from my molten core. The heat flowed out of me like an unstopped bottle but there were ways to control and redirect that energy. Mentally I pulled the power back into myself and redirected it. The energy seeped into the bone carapace covering both my arms and legs until they were coated in a sheen of liquid fire. The stone hissed where I stood and wisps of smoke curled up around my now-glowing feet.

I flashed a sinister grin at the woman and stepped forward onto the ice with even measured steps. The magical ice didn’t melt and boil away as normal ice would have when my liquid fire touched it, but it did soften enough that the claws beneath the fire could find purchase. Nimble dodges and agile maneuvers were still out of the question unless I wanted to find myself dumped onto my charred ass, but I could engage in a stand-up fight without too much concern. That is unless the assassin pulled some other magic shenanigans out of her repertoire.

Prudent fighting skill dictated that I not let her do that. That meant not letting her take the opportunity to put those tricks together. Since I couldn’t hit her fast, I had to hit her hard. Fortunately, that was something I was good at. I walked up to the woman as quickly as the icy floor allowed, grinning that same disquieting grin the entire time. It was my intent to use the burning claws on my poison-numbed arm to strike out at her with all the force that my supernatural strength could muster. I kept my weapon loose in the other hand in case I needed to deflect a return strike from this crazed, unpredictable woman.