Another one, I snarled to myself as I skimmed the broken furniture. Another damned empty room. I was beginning to wonder if the Ai’Brone had even sent another person into the arena with me, or were just letting me run around the tower like some Thayne’s damned fool. The rage was beginning to rise up within me, a red tide welling from the depths of my molten core to fill my veins with liquid fire. Sometimes, I’m ashamed to admit, my frustration gets the best of me. Frowning, I stabbed at a nearby chair with the blade of my warscythe.

And that was when I caught a glimpse of an edgeless shadow creeping up behind me.

I barely had time to register what I was seeing before the shadow moved. And when it moved, it moved fast. Inhumanly so. And on top of that, it was completely silent. If I hadn’t caught a lucky glimpse of the shadows that the light orb cast behind me, I wouldn’t have even noticed that someone else was in the room with me. Apparently the Ai’Brone had given me an opponent after all, and that opponent seemed to be quite proficient.

While my mind floundered in processing the attack my body reacted without hesitation. Experience earned in a thousand battles driving me forward without thought. Muscle memory forged through hours of combat training drilling the proper reaction to any situation into me. It was time I knew had been well spent as the edge of the assassin’s blade slid across the back of my neck instead of thrusting into the flat of my throat.

The blade was chill against my charred flesh, a chill that was deeper than mere cold steel. But cold wasn’t something to worry a creature with liquid fire running through its veins. And my thick charred flesh protected me from the worst of the knife’s edge. The cut it had made wasn’t terribly deep, and William’s restorative abilities were already resealing the wound. But for some reason the cut burned in a way completely different from my own fire.

I lashed out behind me with my warscythe as I stumbled forward, the warped wood of the chair splintering under the trampling weight of my bone carapace. It was a blind, wild swing, but my own inhuman speed and strength meant that even a wild swing could be fatal. And with it, I let loose the full fury of my molten core, sweltering heat rolling off my in a wave. If the assassin kept pressing in close, I trusted my innate toughness and restorative capabilities to keep me alive long enough to make things very uncomfortable for them.