Page 6 of The Ruins of the Heartless Fae
Kolfinna forced more vines to follow after him while she put more distance between herself and him. He raised his hand and a wave of fire, once again, crisped her vines into dust.
His silver eyes followed her and he stepped forward, but Kolfinna raised two stone walls on either side of him. He glanced at them almost curiously, and she clapped her hands together, bringing the two together to smash him. He leapt forward, escaping the jaws of her trap. The stone walls crashed into one another, but Kolfinna didn’t let him escape so easily. She wrought another stone wall in front of him and did the same, attempting to sandwich him between the others. He moved lithely, his gaze darting from wall to wall, taking in his surroundings.
She manipulated a sneaky vine to shoot up and wrap around his ankle tightly, just as two more stone walls came toward him. Kolfinna’s heart raced—she got him. He didn’t have enough time to escape from both the vines and the walls. But he did something she didn’t expect: in seconds, he wielded his sword. Fire caught onto the blade, fierce and melding the silver blade into hot red, but it was too late. The walls crashed into him, a burst of dust filling the air.
Kolfinna breathed out raggedly and tried to set her feet on the crumbled street, her right leg pulsating with overuse. Her mana was dwindling and she was reaching her limit; if she tried to fight every single Royal Guard, she would surely run out of mana and be captured. She could already see the other Royal Guards surrounding the street beyond the hazy smoke that lifted through the air.
She needed to run—
The temperature in the street rose significantly until drops of sweat beaded her forehead. The smoke and clouds of dust thinned to reveal a figure standing between the two shattered pieces of stone walls, which she recognized as the ones she had thrown at him. They lay on the ground, sliced in half, burned and radiating red from the heat. The red-haired man stood in the center of it, soot and debris coloring his white uniform in shades of black and charcoal. A red glow emanated from his surroundings.
Kolfinna stumbled a few feet away.
He was too strong, she realized, but what other choice did she have other than to fight?
She pulled dozens of rocks from the ground with her mana and shot them at him. He raised his sword and with a flash of red steel, deflected them. He ducked, dodged, and slashed. Every time he struck the rocks, they incinerated and sparked, some of them flying a distance and crashing into the apartment buildings.Shattered glass littered the crumbling streets, people screaming in the distance.
Sweat dribbled down Kolfinna’s forehead and dampened her neck. Her mana was being depleted even faster now. Her hands trembled, but she wasn’t sure if it was from exhaustion or fear. Even as he cut the rocks she sent his way, his focus was on her. The weight of his gaze sent shivers down her back.
He was a monster, and he wasn’t even using his blue flames against her. Or even violet ones, or white, or orange. Or any other color than the weakest of them all—red.
Who knew there was another monster other thanhim? But instead of the icy grips she was so fearful of, this man’s form of violence was fire.
The Royal Guards were several meters away from the red-haired man. Kolfinna raised a stone wall between them, but one of them broke through it easily.
“Can you really afford to keep your eyes off me?”
A jolt of fear ran through her body as he darted toward her. She had been avoiding close combat; it was her weakness, after all. She wasn’t trained in combat to keep up with a Royal Guard, so her only strength was her magic—and that didn’t seem to work on him.
Kolfinna infused her mana with the rocks beneath her feet and they sprang up to cling to her body like armor. Her mana threaded over the rocks and held them in place over her body. In seconds, she wore a rock armor and helmet.
The man cleared the distance between them and swung his fiery sword at her neck. She ducked, and he easily shaved the top layer of her rock helmet. He twisted the sword to aim down, but she leapt back, his sword cracking into the ground. The blade hissed against the cobbled street, steam rising from it.
Kolfinna hesitated—how could she beat him?—but sprang into action the next second. She punched his chest, the weight of her rock armor heavy on her body, but he parried and cut her across her chest. Heat scorched her body and she leapt back, stifling a scream. Her armor crackled and snapped in the area where he had slashed her. Fiery pain throbbed her skin and flesh. Her armor had taken the brunt of the attack, but it couldn’t completely keep the heat at bay.
She jumped back, but he was onto her again.Slash, slash, slash—he kept striking her mercilessly, and she could barely dodge. Her armor had to take whatever she couldn’t dodge. Budding bruises and burnt marks scored her body; no matter how much she kept building up her armor and reinforcing it with more layers, he easily cut it down. Her breathing became labored and her movements more sluggish. He, on the other hand, didn’t break a sweat. His moves were clear and crisp. Every movement seemed planned and fluid, like he was dancing rather than fighting.
Sweat dampened Kolfinna’s breasts, her thighs, her back—every inch of her was drenched in it. Heat singed her feet and before she knew it, the soles of her shoes were burnt and brittle. The temperature in the street kept rising until it was suffocating to evenbreathe. Plants and moss that adorned houses were black crisps, and baskets and stacks of hay caught on fire; it took her a second to realize the other Royal Guards weren’t paying attention to their fight. They were taking care of the streets. Water elemental users were splashing water on houses to keep them from burning, their water turning to steam the instant it touched the hot, brick houses. Air elemental users were pushing stray rocks from their battle away from the windows of houses and people. Ice elemental users were creating walls of ice to stop the fires from spreading, and the other Royal Guards were evacuating citizens.
Her eyes widened with that realization. They didn’t think she would escape or win. They were just trying to reduce the collateral damage.
“Come on, Kolfinna.” The man lowered his blade, and the tip of it kissed the ground. A crackle of fire sparked white at the contact. “There’s nowhere for you to run. Give up now, before you get hurt.”
He knew her name.
“Get away from me!” she snarled, hating that he was right, that there was nowhere for her to run.
He sighed, and walls of flames rose dozens of feet high, closing around them in a fiery arena. Kolfinna’s fists clenched together and she whipped her head left and right. She had nowhere to escape.More sweat collected on her brow, and her clothes stuck to her body.
“The only reason you survived against Blár Vilulf is because he toyed with you.” He pointed his sword in her direction and stared at her with a haunting calmness. The surrounding fire made his silver eyes gleam red for a few flickering seconds. “You only escaped him because of his inability to take things seriously.”
Kolfinna flinched.Blár. The name of the man who defeated her last year. Her leg ached terribly, remembering the way his ice had shattered the bone. Was that revelation supposed to anger her? That Blár had toyed with her? It was something she had already known. Blár had been too monstrously strong for her to face off—just as this man was.
She just needed to escape somehow.
And then it struck her. The man in front of her, with his red cape, gold and white uniform, and characteristic red hair, was distinctive. The silver eyes. The overwhelming fire magic. The way the other Royal Guards left him to fight her. It was all so obvious.
“You’re the captain of the Royal Guard,” she whispered. “Fenris Asulf.”
