The mercenaries were good, better than Nauda had thought at first. Two or three of them could have overwhelmed her, if they hadn't been so singularly focused on Theo. She had assumed that they would be holding back, since murder was illegal here and any investigation would surely lead straight back to Esaire ai Armeau, yet they attacked with full fury.

Of course no one was coming to help them. She couldn't trust those who ruled here more than anywhere else.

Theo retreated through the whirlwind, casting his gravitational torsions, but their opponents were experienced and most had armament breastplates, so the strikes weren't devastating. He shifted to put Nauda between him and the mercenaries, which she thought was a cheap tactic... until she caught his gaze and a slight upward glance.

With her in their path, the mercenaries charged at her in a tight formation. She couldn't have stood up to them like that, but she didn't need to. Nauda hit them all with a wave of nullification, and in the moment their cloaks were disrupted, Theo sent all of them falling into the sky.

It was only a short time before they rebuilt their cloaks and dropped back down, but they fell surprisingly high in that time. Knowing that the landing wouldn't kill them, Nauda thrust out her staff and caught one, slamming him into the side of the quarry. The others landed heavily and were soon coming for her again, shoving aside an innocent soulcrafter who didn't understand that lives were on the line.

Just as Nauda began to strike for another of them, a nearby boulder snaked out, wrapping around her arm and hardening. She tried to pull free and realized too late that the stone was reinforced with her opponent's cantae. Even though Fiyu rained bolts down on the group, four of them peeled away to attack Theo and one came to finish off Nauda.

Her right arm was bound too firmly in place to easily pull free. Nauda grabbed at the stone with her left, pretending to be shocked, as the mercenary approached with a sword overhead. When he got close enough, she dropped her staff, catching it with her free hand and thrusting out.

The tines of it pierced his chest before the force bound him in place, leaving him frozen in that position of pain. Nauda tried to push him downward with one hand, but one of the other mercenaries clapped her hands together, releasing a shockwave that rippled through the whirlwind, sending innocent soulcrafters flying in all directions. Fiyu was caught as well, breaking free from her invisible sphere and tumbling back over the ground.

Nauda's opponent broke free and knocked her staff from her hands while she was still off balance, then swung down at her face. She barely managed to catch her staff with one foot and kick it back up, catching it just in time to freeze her opponent with his blade in front of her face.

Letting out a growl, the mercenary began to flood cantae through his body, breaking her binding and bringing the sword closer to her face. Off balance and with one arm still bound in the rock, it was all Nauda could do to hold him back, her strength ebbing as he leveraged his superior position...

Fiyu appeared behind him, her blade thrusting into the gap in his armor just above the neck. It wasn't a gory wound, but it must have penetrated deep, because the mercenary twitched and then dropped his sword. Its cantae dying, it deflected off Nauda and fell to the ground, though she couldn't hear it hit over the sounds of the whirlwind and the battle.

With a slight smile Fiyu moved beside her and tried to cut the rock binding her in place. After only a few attempts, it was obvious that even her focused cantae blade wasn't going to cut through the rock. She stepped back, dismayed.

There were four mercenaries still in play, so there was no time to hesitate. Nauda released a burst of nullification from her right arm and smashed her other fist into the stone where it looked weakest. She managed to break off the section that bound her arm, and as soon as it separated from the rest of the stone, it weakened enough for her to easily smash it apart.

"Fight from cover," Nauda told Fiyu. She left unsaid that Fiyu was at a disadvantage against such armored opponents, but she saw the sorrowful understanding in the other woman's eyes before she vanished into the wind. If only she had chosen her words better...

Where was Theo during all this? She was torn between anger that he hadn't helped and worry that the others had used their numbers to finish him... and then she saw him across the vortex.

A sphere of darkness hovered between his hands, thrumming with power, and this black hole was no training exercise. The other mercenaries sent out bolts of cantae, but they were all immediately sucked into the void. When the woman clapped her hands again, Nauda was forced a step back, but the force itself seemed to be consumed. Even the whirlwind itself was beginning to falter, a new pattern flowing around where Theo stood.

Then the stone beneath his feet rushed up, clamping around his legs. Theo grimaced in pain... and his hands swept closed.

When the black hole appeared in the center of the mercenaries, the vortex itself seemed to roar in pain. The soulcrafter that shaped stone was consumed instantly, Nauda seeing only a split second of their body being torn apart before it fell into the darkness and nothing remained. Standing nearby, the others tried to flee, but it seemed to pull them inward. Cantae began streaming from their bodies, fueling the black hole as it grew larger.

Though Nauda saw true fear in the mercenaries' eyes, they were strong enough to avoid instant death. One of them dug his sword into the ground to hold himself in place, another used a burst of force to push her out of range, and the third began crawling further away.

Nauda realized that they wouldn't make it... but that they would last longer than the others. All around the base of the quarry, innocent soulcrafters had fallen either in the whirlwind or during the battle. As the black hole grew in intensity, their bodies began to edge closer. If they were drawn in...

"Theo, stop!" Nauda leapt beside him, noting that he seemed completely mobile now that he had released the technique, breaking free from the dead stone and moving to attack. At first he didn't seem to hear her, and she hated the merciless gaze he turned toward the mercenaries. "This will kill everyone!"

Finally his gaze left his opponents and he saw the others. Unconscious soulcrafters were sliding faster now, some even lifting into the air. A few desperately attacked the black hole, their cantae only fueling it further. One young man screamed as he clutched the ground, his fingers turning bloody as he was dragged inexorably closer.

Nauda asked herself what she would do if Theo didn't relent and simply killed them all... but something shifted within him and he released the technique. The black hole collapsed inward and vanished.

For the first time since the whirlwind had begun spinning, the quarry was silent. A few groaned on the floor of the quarry, others wept or fled. The whirlwind itself seemed to have been destroyed, leaving the quarry filled with settling dust.

The mercenaries didn't hesitate any longer. A spherical shockwave hit them both, which they managed to push through, but they were immediately assaulted by a sweeping beam of cantae. Nauda managed to dodge aside, but it caught Theo in the shoulder and he was spun to the ground from the force.

On his knees, he raised his hands again to begin another technique, only to be knocked back by the next shockwave. Nauda thrust out her staff, binding the mercenary with the shockwaves in place.

Another lunged from the swirling dust and Nauda leapt back too late. His sword caught her side and part of her arm, opening a nasty wound.

Nauda cried out in pain, staggering back and trying to avoid the next thrust. The swordsman was caught by a twisting field of gravity that knocked him backward, but Theo was exhausted and couldn't apply enough force to finish him. He managed to get to his feet, but she knew that his soulhome was nearly depleted.

Theo didn't say a word about the fact that they would have won if she hadn't stopped him. They simply glanced at one another, accepted the odds against them, and turned to face the mercenaries.

~ ~ ~

It was cruel and unfair. Fiyu knelt behind a rock that provided some cover from the horrible wind, wishing that someone would step forward to help them. There should have been guards, or allies from the Houses, or relatives who would prevent this ambush from occurring.

But there was no one. No one but her.

A tear touched the inside of her mask as she realized how little she could help her companions. Even with her new bracers, her bursts of light were insufficient against the mercenaries with their defensive chambers and armaments. She had been little more than a distraction, her strikes frequently failing utterly. Even the lethal blow she had landed with Friend Nauda's help had very nearly failed to pierce the mercenary's defenses.

There was no one but her... she had no choice but to make herself into someone who could help.

Fiyu balanced her sphere of silence around herself and then plunged into her soulhome. She hefted the eldenwood on her roof and managed to stand it upright, quickly racing to attach more support lines.

It soon stood tall, driving into the heavens... but could she do the same? The top of the wood was beginning to crumble as the pressure tore into it. Outside, Fiyu could feel terrible forces racing across the battlefield, but she shut them out, focusing herself on this one thing.

She took a deep breath and placed her hand on the gnarled wood, lifting herself into the air. It was easy at first, bracing her body against the pillar, but with every handhold upward, the air grew thicker and it began to reject her.

The peaceful shadows all around her began to whiten, light pouring down that she couldn't control. Though she tried to raise her defenses against it, here in her soulhome, her mask seemed useless, the brilliance blinding her. It was nothing like what she had expected, waves of light cascading down over her and attempting to throw her from the pillar.

For a time she clung to the side, regretting making the attempt. She should have waited for her relative to help her ascend, not attempted this madness. Fiyu wasn't like Friend Theo or Friend Nauda, striking out and making a new path. When she had journeyed somewhere new without guidance, she had only failed, and she would have died if her friends had not saved her.

Fiyu's hand rose against the light, grasping higher.

The pressure from the sky above struck her more forcefully with each step up, and the light burned into her skin. She had long ago become completely blind, feeling nothing but her path upward. Hand over hand, her skin cracking and burning in the light.

When her hand reached up and felt nothing, Fiyu nearly panicked before she realized that she had reached the top of the pillar. When she began to draw her cantae up into herself, she heard the pillar crack and begin to give way. Instead of faltering, she thrust her hand upward into the light and let out a scream.

And pierced through.

Darkness flooded down, wrapping her in its embrace. Suddenly she could feel again, her eyes soothed by the shadows that wrapped around her. The pillar was burning away, its task complete, but the cantae just kept flooding down. It filled her soulhome to the brim and overflowed, some of it disappearing into her soul and more gathering in the partial basin she'd built atop her roof.

Other parts of her soulhome had received slight damage, but the edges caught that flood briefly, holding it for her. As she landed on her roof, the touch of her soulhome restored her strength. Fiyu took a deep breath, grasped all the cantae above and below, and returned to the quarry.

There, she felt the world with new clarity, her senses reveling in an Archcrafter's strength. With them, she could easily feel her friends, innocents... and her enemies.

~ ~ ~

As Theo fell back yet again, he wracked his brain for a solution, but he was coming up short. Their opponents were fighting cautiously now, both afraid of him and confident that no one would attempt to stop them. Nauda had dealt a few good blows, but now bled from several more injuries. He had made several attempts to generate another singularity, all of them fizzling out in his empty soulhome.

Then Fiyu emerged and an onslaught of light exploded from her.

The swordsman was immediately blasted off his feet and smashed into one of the quarry walls, dropping with his armor smoking. Another mercenary clapped to generate another shockwave, but Fiyu's cantae seemed endless, bolts hammering into the shockwave and buckling it backward, a swath of light overcoming her.

Somehow the last mercenary leapt overhead, his armor in tatters, but still alive. He landed and launched a concentrated beam of cantae down at Fiyu... only to be met with a flood even more intense than all previous. It not only battered back his attack, the other bolts arced around it and smashed into him. His body was eclipsed by a searing stream of light, and when it faded, there was nothing left.

When Fiyu dropped her hands, there was again silence. She panted for breath, but when they turned to her, she smiled. Despite everything, Theo couldn't help but smile too, seeing her strength as an Archcrafter.

It didn't last long, because he saw one of the two remaining mercenaries twitch. "We need to kill them." He grabbed Nauda's shoulder, since she could do so most easily, but she resisted.

"Why not take them prisoner? Force them to say that Esaire's family hired them to kill us?"

"Could work, but they'd also reveal what they saw. We need to kill them before they can get word back to Esaire."

Her gaze met his without flinching, clearly thinking of all the other soulcrafters in the quarry. Was he going to kill all of them? As he truly considered the balance, Theo realized that it was hopeless and his secret was out. Even if he'd intended otherwise, the choice was taken away from him soon after that.

"Enough! House Teal will not stand for this any longer!"

Theo sneered toward the top of the quarry and saw why Lady Baryara had suddenly gained such confidence: the city guard had arrived. They appeared to have healers with them, but also a pair of Rulers who looked combat ready. He had only a short time before they began controlling the situation, so he turned his eyes to the surviving mercenaries and began walking toward them.

To his surprise, they screamed and rushed away, throwing themselves into the custody of the of the city guard.

"Will they see justice done?" Fiyu asked. "It is obvious that Esaire was responsible for the attack."

"They don't care." Theo dropped down to sit on the slope, his injuries and exhaustion finally catching up to him. "We could try to use their techniques as evidence, but they don't care about long trials here. I'm sure that Esaire hired them through a proxy and covered his tracks. Even if we proved a connection... they'd probably just tell us to settle it with a duel."

"Oh, I see."

"And now Esaire will know that I'm just an Archcrafter with a new technique." Realizing that he was being too self-absorbed, Theo forced himself to smile at Fiyu. "Congratulations, by the way. We couldn't have made it without your help."

She smiled and bobbed her head, but he could see the understanding in her eyes. Nauda dropped to the ground with a low groan and began checking her wounds and torn clothes. Soon Fiyu joined them and they waited in the quarry for a while.

Less than one month left.