The man smirked. “He is my property now. I am Elder Kaiteran Hashiver after all. The formula to create Ashjagar was my doing.”
“You will die,” Katsi said, hovering closer to him. Her body was feeling better and better each moment, but every second she wasted, more people in Jehubal would die.
“Please,” Kaiteran. “I am immortal. This world is mine. And without the Maedari, there will be no storms that can save you now.”
“You’re wrong,” Katsi said, connecting with the energy all around her. It tingled everywhere—in the clouds, the ground, even their bodies. She could feel all of it. She could connect all of it. Power surged through her like a river.
She snapped her eyes to him, and for a split moment she could see fear in Kaiteran’s eyes.
She took a deep breath and said, “I am the storm.”
Blood red.
That was the color that burned into her vision as her lightning consumed all senses. Her body shook. The earth shook. The air itself trembled as her lightning seared from cloud to ground like a squirming miasma.
She directed it, guiding it across the ground. Waheshi evaporated as the wave of lightning streaked through them. Hundreds vanished. Thousands. Tens of thousands.
All dead.
Vaporized in a matter of seconds.
She fell back to the ground, steam rising all around her. She breathed in gasps. Her arm burned as though she’d just touched fire.
Was it over then? Had she killed them all.
“I underestimated you,” Kaitaren said, striding toward her through the steam as hot rain still pounded down.
How? How had her lightning not killed him?
“Don’t look so surprised,” Kaiteran said. “I’m nearly two-thousand years old, little shaman. I’ve seen everything. I know how to redirect some lightning, even if it is quite powerful. Bravo for that, by the way.”
“No,” Katsi said, shaking out her hands.
Kaiteran held a secula in his hand. If she couldn’t destroy him with lightning, then she couldn’t defeat him at all.
“It’s alright,” Kaiteran said. “Your death will be quick. Seculas do a good job at that. Then I’ll be taking Ranaz’s armlet for myself. I can raise a new army.” He pointed at her waist where her own sword hung, though she’d never even used it properly, and quite frankly forgot about it completely. It was almost ornamental by this point. “You’ve got a sword. It’s time to put it to use.”
He stopped approaching her and instead, turned his head to the side, regarding Migo’s body.
Migo…
Katsi gasped. Migo had changed back into human form, but he was a huddled mess, body scored with gashes, facedown in the mud. But she could see the rise and fall of breathing in his bare back.
Kaiteran grunted. “Hm. The boy does have remarkable spirit. I understand now why perhaps his mutation was successful. I can end that.” He strode toward Migo’s body, and Katsi whipped out her weapon and moved to block him.
“You will not touch him,” Katsi said.
“Very well,” Kaiteran said with an irritated shrug. “You first. Then the boy.”
Katsi ran at him, holding her weapon low. She would do just as Alyssad had taught her. She took two swings at him, then shifted to a high held stance.
Kaiteran shook his head, and with fiercely quick precision, swung his own blade in a blur.
Before Katsi even knew what was happening, she’d been disarmed, her weapon flying through the air.
“Your sword fighting skills are even more paltry than your magical expertise,” he said. “You know, seer magic is often underestimated. I have not dabbled with it much except for its combative specialty. See, a seer can effectively determine the moves their opponent will make before it ever happens, thus being able to counter more effectively. Something you might be able to learn if you join with me. You don’t have to die here.”
The ground around Katsi trembled and shifted. It wasn’t her doing. She countered by connecting with the ground close to her, holding it in place so he couldn’t connect with it.
There was also a disturbance in the air. Something was coming.
Kaiteran must have sensed it as well. He looked up through the rain as two figures emerged, landing beside Migo’s body. One was Scales, the other was Ris. They’d returned.
Sands.
The emperor’s mother was a stormcaller?
She held Migo’s sword in one hand.
“You ought to fight a worthy opponent, Kai,” Ris said without even looking at Kaiteran.
“You know I can easily defeat you, Ris,” Kaiteran said.
“Not me.” Ris draped Migo in his cloak before rolling him over and pouring a potion into his mouth.
Migo sputtered, eyes snapping open.
Kaiteran grunted his disapproval, stomping on the ground. A ripple went through it, but Ris held her hand down, suppressing whatever it was he was trying to do.
