The pewter crystal began to warp, air around it swirled into a slow vortex.

Small blots of darkness tore loose from the ground and the shadows of men, then streamed toward the crystal.

Onlookers should have fled. They did not. They stared, hungry and wary all at once.

Each passing heartbeat left the air a shade cleaner, cooler, as though something foul had been scraped out.

Greed sparked behind eyes that had no business coveting such a treasure. Plans formed without permission.

A man stepped forward, more than two meters of him, built like a moving wall.

His head was caged in a combat helmet that gave away nothing.

Only a few small holes broke the metal, two for the eyes, two for the ears. No mouth. No face.

Just the hard promise of violence shaped into steel.

He did not look at the crystal first. He looked at Fay. His gaze traveled over her like a hand that did not ask.

Small, disheveled woman. Dainty hands. Small lips. He measured her as if she were slab of meat on the field.

"Come on, then. Hand it over, babe," he demanded of Fay.

The onlookers drew in a single sharp breath.

Only a handful of people in the world dared show the cult no respect.

This man was one of them, and he wore that defiance as plainly as his steel.

"Is that... is that Sangno? The one as leads the Serried Skull?"

"They say he butchered a whole town. Near a thousand men in it."

Murmurs crawled through the onlookers like rats in dry straw, low and quick in the deathly night.

Then two more men stepped out of the press. The stillness broke at once.

Steel hissed free of scabbards, a sound that made shoulders tighten and mouths go dry.

One was an old man in a straw hat, hunched as if age had hooked him by the spine.

The blade at his waist looked worn down, but the way his hand hovered near it said it had not been forgotten.

The other wore black from throat to boot, cloth swallowing what little light the battlefield still dared to give.

He moved with the careful ease of someone who preferred shadows to witnesses.

Their meaning did not need words. They wanted Fay to relinquish her claim on the crystal.

Fay felt her mouth go tight. Part of her wanted to press herself to the ground and let despair have its small mercy.

Radeon did not allow it. He shifted her body a half step closer to the crystal, close enough that the air tasted clean and strange in her throat.

Qi surged into her heel. Her leg snapped out before thought could catch it. Her kick took the crystal like a hammer blow.

Pewter flashed, then the thing sailed away, skimming over torn earth and scattered stone.

All three men moved at once. They jumped for it, greedy as dogs after meat.

Fay only lifted one hand in a careless wave and turned to leave, as if the whole moment bored her.

However, it was not that easy. Men slid into their path, blades out, eyes bright with want.

They meant to take everything, whether by threat or by blood.

Fay raised her hand again. Radeon shot out.

He was on the nearest man before the man could shout. His wood body closed like a vise around a throat.

The struggle lasted the span of a breath.

Then Radeon drank. Blood and flesh vanished into him, leaving a body emptied like a torn potato sack.

Radeon slipped back to Fay. She did not speak. She did not need to.

The crowd parted, fear spreading in a cold wave.

On the other side of the battlefield, Sangno was able to seize the treasure in that opening.

His aim was not to brawl with gilded core cultivators, not tonight.

e bolted upward and away, cutting the air with speed.

The other two gilded core men were not convinced by any show of restraint.

They launched after him, eager to claim the crystal as their own.

Radeon tracked the rest in the dark. He caught the flicker of blades from the bandit group left behind.

Little flashes of light betrayed them each time arrowheads and swords moved.

'Can't see who you're hitting? Fine. I'll fix that.'

Radeon leapt to a dead tree, landing on bark that felt like old bone beneath the sole.

The cold should have left the wood damp and stubborn. It had dried out anyway, starved by whatever foulness had clung to this place.

He pressed his wood body to a branch and sent qi through it. Heat bloomed along the grain.

The branch glowed, then caught, flame licking up as if the tree had been waiting for permission to burn.

He was gone before the fire could settle into a steady roar. Another dead tree.

The same touch. The same quick pulse of qi. Another flare, bright enough to bite at the night.

One by one the forest lit, points of fire stitching together until shadows had nowhere left to hide.

The sudden light drew eyes. A group of archers on the fringe saw movement among the trees, and they loosed in a hard, practiced rhythm.

Arrows hissed through the new brightness and struck home.

Men fell fast. Most of the cultivators they caught never even raised a hand.

Fire did not just reveal. It excited. It made cowards bold and butchers careless.

Soon men were shoving torches into dry brush and kicking flame into the undergrowth.

The battlefield sharpened. With the night pushed back, they did not need qi in their eyes to pick targets.

They could focus on killing, and the killing answered.

Above it all Sangno glided through the air with the crystal in hand. The firelight painted him in warm gold.

He grinned, teeth bared in satisfaction, because every heartbeat of chaos below was another heartbeat of distance gained.

"Jorge, you stupid old goat, and you, Liam, sulking like a kicked pup." He sneered. "That all your arts are? Just showing off?" He jerked the crystal up in his fist. "Ah, what? Back gone rickety? Mood too sour? Here. Take the... Argh!"

He was already pulling ahead of the two behind him when his left calf seized without warning.

The cramp hit like a hooked knife, sharp enough to steal his breath. Sangno's grin faltered. His qi stuttered.

Then it went worse.

His meridians lurched out of line, the flow turning ragged and wrong, as if something inside him had grabbed the channels and twisted.

The lift under his feet vanished. Air became weight

Sangno pitched forward and began to plummet, fast, the crystal still clenched in his hand like a curse he could not drop.

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