If Karmion wanted, he could destroy their remaining fleet with a few minutes of concentration. Vayra knew it, he had to know it.

  She turned to Myrrir and said, “Can you distract your father and Kalawen? Long enough to stay alive?”

  He spun his sword beside him. “I can try.”

  “Are you close to advancing?”

  “Close enough. If I get the last push I need, it might tip me over the edge.” He thrust his arms down, and a bed of gunpowder swirled beneath his feet. It lifted up a moment, and he hovered a few inches off the surface of the quarterdeck. “How close are you? We need you at Grand Admiral.”

  “I’m…almost there, too,” she said. “I can’t explain it, but it’s like I’m hovering on the brink of something, staring out and incapable of falling off.”

  “You need someone to push you off,” Myrrir said. “Face Karmion. You have to. If you advance, you will take the day. If not? You’ll lose.”

  She closed her eyes, recalling how easily Karmion had thrown her around in the Cardinal Arrant’s Great Cabin.

  But, for the sake of the galaxy, for a chance to see the worlds as she wanted, to explore, to live a life afterward—to live free with her friends—she had to do this. She tightened her fists and activated the Astral Shroud, then her internal Wards, then lastly, the Mediator Form. With everything layered atop, she blazed pure white, and her mana visibly depleted from her core with how much strain it put on her system.

  She leapt over the railing of the deck and skimmed along the surface of the water. Whenever she kicked through a wisp of Stream water, her mana refilled, making the overall drain much slower.

  If she distracted Karmion, accepted the brunt of his techniques, then he couldn’t direct his attention to wiping out their ships.

  Already, when she launched toward him, he lowered his arms and dropped the ring of waves. The fleets could sail free again, for what good it did.

  When she was only a few yards from Karmion, she lifted up on the starlight inside her body, rising out of the waves, then unleashed a Starlight Palm with an impact runic enhancement. It struck him in the chest and sent him sailing back a few feet through the air.

  “So you’ve finally come to face me?” Karmion asked. “Head to head?”

  Vayra held out the scythe, then Moulded Phasoné’s white outline overtop of it. Mustering as much confidence as she could, she said, “It’s over. No matter what, I won’t let you leave this moon.”

  “You don’t have a choice.” Karmion reached out toward the scythe, his fingers splayed. “Thank you for finishing that for me. I’m sure it’ll work much better now.”

  The weapon wiggled in Vayra’s hands, as if tempted to return to its previous master, but she gripped it tight. It wouldn’t budge if she had anything to say about it.

  Before reforging it, Karmion might have exerted more authority over it. But now, very little water-aspect remained. It was dark, void.

  And Vayra’s abilities thrived in the darkness.

  Mine, Vayra thought. She pulled back, keeping the scythe close to her, and breaking the last wisps of Karmion’s control. Tendrils of water-Arcara and steam seeped out of the weapon—what Farrir hadn’t purified out—and evaporated in the air, and the weapon stopped budging altogether.

  Karmion grunted, then said, “It matters not. Weapon or no weapon, you are doomed.”

  She launched herself forward, pushing the starlight in her channels, then struck Karmion with a flurry of scythe swipes. He blocked them all with a Warded forearm, then snapped forward and gripped her shoulder. She struck his arm, but it didn’t budge. He wasn’t even Bracing himself.

  “If you thought you could defeat me, then you were a bigger fool than I thought,” he sneered.

  He threw her down into the water, and she Warded her back to stop the impact with the surface from collapsing her spine, but instead, a trench of water receded from the bay, turning into a valley a few hundred feet deep. She crashed onto the rocky sea floor, now with no water to catch her. The impact created a crater.

  Panting, Vayra rolled over. The trench was only a ship’s length wide, though it ran from one side of the port to the other.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Karmion descended to the bottom on a cloud of mist. Gauntlets of water formed around his arms, and they took on the shape of eagle heads. That was his Brace.

  He darted forward across the damp silt and seabed rock, then threw a punch down into the ground. Rolling aside, Vayra sprang out from the crater and landed in a nearby pool of Stream water—Karmion could only manipulate freshwater, and the Stream water hadn’t rescinded.

  His fist slammed into the ground, creating cracks across the entire plane of stone. Distant buildings in the city quaked and crumbled.

  ‘Vayra, stay light on your feet,’ Phasoné reminded her. ‘You can’t beat him in a contest of strength, and your Wards won’t do much against that.’

  She whirled her scythe, then dodged two more fists. Karmion was fast, but even when his fists blurred and a hailstorm of eagle-head strikes raced at her, she comprehended it. Ducking and whirling, she evaded.

  She…matched his speed. As an Admiral.

  She noticed every movement. Her loop with Adair told her where the attack would come, his reflexes letting her dodge at the first twitch of a muscle.

  When a fist raced past her nose, only barely missing, she counter-attacked with a Starlight Palm. It struck Karmion in the gut and delayed his next attack. She slashed at his head, hoping for a lucky blow, but the strike only grazed his cheek.

  He leapt back and wiped the side of his face. Blood glimmered on his fingertips.

  Then he snarled. Before Vayra could charge and continue the attack, jets of water blasted out from the sides of the water valley, turning into fists and blasting at her face, or her gut, or reaching for her legs.

  She jumped and ducked, whirled and slashed to disperse them, but no matter how fast, there were too many. A fist struck her from the side and knocked her to the ground, and another smashed down on her back, sending her sprawling face-first onto the silt.

  All she could do was roll away, stagger to her feet, and cower under her Wards. The columns of water weren’t as strong as Karmion’s fists, but with each strike, she staggered, until finally, she fell down to her knees. Panting and out of breath, she raised her arms, preparing to take another barrage, but none came.

  Karmion still stood ahead of her. He peeled off his coat and tossed it away, then cracked his neck and his knuckles. “In the end, you’re nothing. I am going to enjoy destroying—”

  A distant, deep chime rang out across the water. Vayra couldn’t see what it belonged to, but when she extended her spiritual senses, she recognized a large mass of mortal forms descending along the Stream.

  More bells rang out, steadily rising in pitch, and growing louder and more numerous. There had to be thousands of them.

  She smiled. Help had arrived.

  A mix of desperation, hope, and relief welled up inside her, but still staring at Karmion left her overwhelmed. Without destroying him, they were done for.

  But where previously, there was only a will to live, she clenched her fists in determination.

  Her heart swelled, her core resonated, and the loop between herself and Adair turned firm. She heaved herself up to her feet, then reached out with her mind. One last push. The conditions were there.

  Her power cycled over to Adair, and he let it in. But she needed to draw on something deeper.

  The very nature of her position demanded it. She had to distill it down to a single concept that embodied their bond—that was the profundity the advancement required.

  Without thinking, her starlight lifted her up, and her legs curled beneath her. She folded them, then placed her hands gently on the dark scythe in her lap.

  “Phasoné,” Vayra breathed. “I…don’t know—”

  ‘Yes, you do,’ said the goddess.

  Swift.

  Mobility was her biggest ally, and the same went for Adair, and all cats, truly. Agility, reflexes, and an ability to move fast.

  A ship’s cat was nothing special, but she was just a street rat herself. A rare beast wouldn’t make such an excellent bonded partner when it didn’t have as deep of a connection—at least, in the eyes of the Stream.

  Shouting, Karmion raced forward, raising both his fists as if he could pound her into the ground once more.

  Instead of resisting, she slipped back, floating through the air. She shut her eyes and willed the advancement to begin. Her Arcara pressurized and thudded through her channels, then a vortex of blue-white sparks erupted around her.

  “It was never enough,” Glade said.

  He glanced at the swordwyrm, then pushed his Arcara between him and it as fast as he could.

  He wanted something more than this. He needed something more than this.

  Advance. Now or never.

  Sharp? Was that all he was?

  But that wasn’t who he was, nor what the swordwyrm was. It was a forgotten beast inhabiting a hundred-year-old greatsword, a possession of a dead god. There were thousands of sharp swords, but none like this.

  Individual.

  Glade floated up above the ground and shut his eyes. At first, Varion only leapt back in shock, but the man quickly composed himself and threw out an icy fist. Glade pushed himself to the side. He cemented his cycling loop with the swordwyrm, and the beast allowed the connection. It allowed him in.

  A cloud of metal filings rose up around him, swirling in a vortex, and when Varion threw his next punch, it deflected to the side.

  “No!” Varion shouted. “Fight me!”

  Glade would. But when he emerged, the ground would be much more even.