Alex’s stomach sank. Some part of him had known that avoiding House Starfallen forever would be inevitable. Especially after he’d stolen their name to bullshit his way through more than a few situations, there was no way fate would be kind enough to keep their paths from crossing.

But this was not how he’d seen the first meeting going.

You have to be kidding me.

“Shit,” Alyssa whispered. “Oh, shit.”

“The most powerful of the Outworlder families, but you’re riding around in the blubbery fish-guy?” Alex asked, unable to stop himself before the words spilled from his mouth. “Could you really not find a better method of transportation?”

Vincent just stared at him. The man’s lone visible eye bore into them with an intensity that wasn’t quite right. His iris was literally vibrating from the force of the emotion burning in his gaze. It wouldn’t have been right to describe it as hatred.

This was something else entirely. There wasn’t any malice in the masked Starfallen’s eye. The only word that could have been used to describe his attention was pure, unadulterated disgust.

Alex’s eyes narrowed behind his own mask.

He’s looking at us like we’re a bunch of bugs that landed on top of his food. I’m really wishing I had a few monsters that weren’t dead right about now.

“Maybe antagonizing him isn’t the best idea,” Alyssa said tersely.

“Something tells me it doesn’t matter,” Claire said as she lowered her stance. Tattoos shifted across her skin as her thorned whip spooled out from her palm. “He’s not here to bargain.”

“Is it still too late to go back to bargaining?” Wess asked. “I’m suddenly finding myself feeling considerably more amicable.”

Despite his words, he readied his gun and took a step back, his eyes firmly affixed on Vincent.

The River King’s smile stretched to reveal his teeth.

“Kill them,” The huge man said. “But keep the paintbrush girl alive. I need her. The door won’t open without the proper sacrifice.”

Alex tensed. He readied his magic — but Vincent didn’t move. The man just stood there, his gaze boring into them like a jagged blade. A second dragged by. Calling the air in the room uncomfortable would have been an enormous understatement.

The hell is happening?

“Do not mistake yourself, River King,” Vincent said, his words slipping from behind his mask like the hiss of a snake. “You do not order me. Fulfill your end of the bargain. I will uphold mine. That is the extent of what you may demand.”

The smug grin on the River King’s features faltered slightly.

“You agreed to give me what I needed,” he said. “And I need the girl. I promised I could buy you entry into the Vault so long as you protected me. That’s exactly what I’m doing. Now it’s your turn. That girl is the key to opening the door. So bring her to me.”

Alex snuck a glance at Alyssa. The River King was awful fixated on her specifically being the needed sacrifice. They were still missing something. Unfortunately, now really wasn’t the time to figure out what.

Vincent’s gaze flicked back to Alyssa.

The hair on the back of Alex’s neck stood on end.

Black sludge exploded down his arm as he activated Armament Elegy, thrusting his hand forward before the chainsword had finished forming. The blade sliced through the air right in front of Alyssa — and a blur of motion that hadn’t been there a moment before danced back.

Alyssa let out a curse.

Vincent stood just feet away from her. He’d moved so fast that Alex hadn’t even actually seen the man reposition. The man’s lone eye had now changed targets from Alyssa to Alex, his head tilted slightly to the side.

Derek stepped forward to put himself in front of Alyssa.

“You aren’t getting her,” Derek said. He cracked his neck and raised the large, broken sword in his hands. “Not without a fight.”

Vincent said nothing. A slender, segmented blade slipped out from below his robes to coil up at his side like a serpent. The silver metal making it up was so bright that it almost hurt to look at.

NovelBin is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

“You might be from the Starfallen family, but we outnumber you — and something tells me the River King isn’t going to lend you a hand in the fight,” Wess said as he took aim at Vincent. “You don’t get strong by picking bad battles, and you heard the big guy. We’re not giving the girlie up.”

“Numbers do not make a battle,” Vincent said, finally addressing them for the first time. “And a smattering of Nativeworlders are hardly a challenge.”

“Try us,” Derek said. “We didn’t make it to the end of the Ancestry by looking pretty. You’ll be—”

The rest of his sentence never made it out from his lips. A shimmering blur arced by him, moving so fast that Alex only managed to catch a hint of silver cutting through the air. Then Derek’s head slipped forward, severed from its spot on his shoulders, and pitched down.

Derek’s hand snapped out. He caught his own head by the hair an inch before it could hit the ground. Then he raised it back to his neck and plopped it back into place, anger twisting across his features.

Holy shit. How fast is he? Even Absolution didn’t move like that.

“That was rude,” Derek said. “I didn’t like that. And I don’t like rude people.”

Vincent’s head tilted to the side. His snakelike blade lifted up before his lone eye, a droplet of blood rolling down its edge to drip down to the floor.

“Incarnation,” Vincent said, turning the word over in his lips like a piece of mildly displeasing candy. “You haven’t pledged allegiance to a family yet?”

“No interest,” Derek said. “I’ll pass.”

“Enough of this,” the River King snarled. “Vincent. We have a time limit. The longer we take, the more chance of somebody else showing up and complicating things.”

Vincent’s slowly turned to look at the large man. He didn’t say a word. There was no need to. All the blood rushed out of the River King’s face. A second dragged by. Then Vincent looked back to them.

“Very well,” Vincent said.

“Alex!” Clare yelled.

She didn’t have to warn him twice. He slammed his palms together, pulling until his fingers caught on each other as power exploded through him and the gate within his Mind Palace slammed open.

“Partial Soul Manifestation. Edict of the Shattered King.”

The world warped as the Mirrorlands overlaid themselves onto the room around Alex. Twisted rock formations shimmered in murky red-purple energy as Riftwarped smoke spun out through the air.

But they weren’t done.

“Partial Soul Manifestation,” Claire snarled. “Hollow Court.”

The toll of an ancient bell echoed through the room. It rattled Alex’s bones and wound down his spine like the cold breath of death itself. Claire’s hair whipped in the air as grey energy spilled through the air above Claire.

Translucent blue flame ignited over her body as the face of an ancient woman pressed herself into the gray sheet of magic above her. Blood red eyes spilled like blood upon the ghastly woman’s scowling features, burning as she stared down at Vincent.

Alex grabbed for more of his power before Claire’s Soul Manifestation had completed its arrival. There was no holding back here. Vincent was too strong. The only chance they had at winning this fight was going all out from the very start.

Without a second of hesitation, he drew on his Riftwarped Qi and cast Encore.

A ringing crash cut through the air. Fragments of translucent magic shattered against the ground as Glint stepped into the room beside him, his silvery wing rippling at his back like the cloak of some ancient hero.

Princess bubbled up from the ground before him as his chainsword drained away from his arm. Her three heads swayed as her ceramic white claws dug into the dirt, cutting deep gouges into it as she pulled herself free from the depths below.

A shadow passed over Alex’s head. Spark rose behind him, his looming form like the trunk of some wretched tree as pale blue threads of gossamer spun out in search for a victim.

Claire caught his gaze for a moment. She didn’t say a word, but she didn’t need to. They both knew how her power worked. Their best chance at somehow defeating Vincent would be buying her an opening to bite him.

Alyssa’s brush danced through the air as she started to draw something into being and Derek let out a roar, charging at full tilt toward Vincent. Glint burst into motion to join Derek.

The Outworlder didn’t even move from his spot. He’d barely even acknowledged any of them activating their Partial Soul Manifestations. The shimmering blade rising up beside him flashed.

Blood sprayed across the ground. Derek pitched forward, severed along the middle. The upper half of his body hit the ground with a heavy thump and his legs stumbled to a halt several feet away from him.

But his attack hadn’t been in vain.

In the time it took Derek to fall, Glint arrived at Vincent’s side. The Glasmir’s razor-sharp claws sliced through the air for the Outworlder’s neck. At the same time, power ignited at the tip of Wess’ gun and a blue streak of energy tore through the room — headed straight for Vincent’s skull.

Vincent’s blade blurred again.

A ringing crash echoed through the room. Glint exploded. Fragments of his glass spun through the air in every direction. One of them scored across the front of Vincent’s mask, leaving a thin furrow in its wake.

Wess’ energy blast screamed out. Vincent’s head tilted to the side as the attack streaked just by him, missing by nothing more than an inch. They hadn’t even managed to make him take a step to the side.

Power returned to Alex as the pieces of Glint’s body transformed into silver energy and streaked back into him.

“You only need the girl?” Vincent asked.

“Just the girl,” the River King confirmed, but he didn’t sound nearly as confident as he had a short while ago. It seemed his contract with the Starfallen wasn’t nearly anywhere as steady as he would have liked it to be. “I don’t care what you do with the rest of them.”

“Very well,” Vincent said.

The emotion in his eye shifted. Something new bloomed to fight for space with the disgust in his gaze.

Amusement.

“Ah, shit,” Wess said.

Alex didn’t think he could have put it better.