Catalyna smiled.
Not wide. Not wild.
Just the sharp, thin curve of someone who knew the end of a fight when she saw it.
Aerwyna was on one knee, braced on the haft of her spear.
Her [Glacial Armor] was ruined—cracked plates veined with white fractures, edges softened where heat had licked it too close to melting. Frost clung in ugly patches where it should have been seamless. Steam hissed from seams at her ribs and throat with every hard breath.
Her right foot barely held weight.
She didn't let it show on her face.
But Catalyna could see it anyway—in the fraction too slow on the inhale, the way Aerwyna's shoulder twitched when she shifted her balance, the faint tremor in the spearhead that wasn't wind.
The two Knights flanking Aerwyna weren't much better.
They'd been burning through their reserves since dawn. Whatever mana they had left, they'd shoved into muscle and bone—speed, toughness, grip. Their reserves were dry. They'd given up on fancy incantations and settled for steel.
Catalyna had been there before.
It was the part of a fight that always looked heroic from a distance and always felt like drowning from the inside.
A sword flashed past Catalyna's ribs.
She twisted; the blade missed by a finger's breadth. Her foot snapped out in the same motion, catching the Knight square in the gut.
He wheezed—air collapsing out of him like a punctured bladder—and flew back, skidding across broken slate.
The second Knight lunged low, trying to hack at her ankle.
Catalyna flipped over the cut, landing light.
Her palm flicked, casual.
[Stone Bullet.]
The rock hit him in the shoulder with a crack, spinning him sideways. His footing went, and he crashed to one knee, armor clattering.
Aerwyna raised her hand, forcing ice to condense into the beginnings of a spear.
It was painfully slow.
Mana obeyed, but her channels felt like torn muscle. Every pulse scraped. The spearhead formed a fraction of an inch at a time, crystalline blue grinding out of humid air and half-melted puddles.
Catalyna watched her struggle, then decided she'd seen enough.
Heat bloomed around her.
She'd seeded the air with mana while she danced around the Knights—small, almost unnoticeable threads. Now she tugged them all at once.
[Flash Blaze.]
The air itself detonated.
A ring of fire hammered outward from her position. It wasn't a focused lance—more a brutal shove made of heat and force. Aerwyna and the two Knights were flung back, knocked off their feet, armor ringing as they hit stone.
Aerwyna's half-formed spear shattered into glittering dust.
For half a breath, there was only the roar of fire and the hiss of steam.
Then—
An arrow hissed out of the smoke and struck the cobbles at Catalyna's feet with a sharp thunk.
Too far to be a real threat. Too shallow an angle to have been meant for her heart.
But it made her pause.
Her eyes flicked toward the distant rooftops, scanning the jagged skyline.
Archers? This deep in the district?
She felt for mana signatures.
Nothing new.
No fresh auras.
Just the ragged hum of the collapsed Knights and Aerwyna's battered, cold presence.
"Hm," Catalyna exhaled, dismissing it.
She turned back toward the Ice Queen.
Behind a row of half-collapsed, burning buildings, Evan stared at his bow like it had betrayed him.
The first arrow he'd let fly—under strict instruction from the infant tied to his back—hadn't even landed close.
"Half an inch lower," Ezra said, annoyed.
His baby voice was quiet but sharp, right next to Evan's ear.
"With the wind speed and the heat updraft from the fires, that deviation blooms into a few yards over distance."
Evan blinked.
Evan wanted to argue on principle.
He also couldn't ignore the simple fact that the boy on his back kept calling the shots like he could see the wind.
"Milord," Evan muttered, keeping his voice low, "I still think it would be best if I entered the fray directly. At this range I'm—"
"No," Ezra cut in. "Too early."
Evan grimaced. He didn't know what unsettled him more: the order, or how specific it always was.
Half an inch. Three inches. Hold. Now.
He didn't need to understand how the child knew. He only needed to understand his duty.
It was his job was to keep the heir alive.
They were positioned well back from the main street, on the far side of a ruined stall and a half-collapsed wall. Through a narrow gap between two leaning facades, Evan could just barely see flashes of movement—ice glinting, fire flaring, stone buckling."Again," Ezra said. "Nock."
Evan obeyed.
The bowstring rasped.
"Compensate three inches to the right," Ezra murmured. "North-east. No higher than the last shot. Steady… steady… now."
Evan released.
The arrow whistled away, vanishing into heat shimmer.
On the ruined street, Aerwyna forced herself upright.
Every muscle felt like it belonged to someone else.
The world was too bright through the cracks in her helm—white glare off ice, orange glare off flame, the whole block a throbbing, nauseating palette.
Catalyna was closing.
"Relinquish Ezra," the former wet nurse said conversationally as she approached, boots crunching over broken tile. "There's no point to this now. Only death waits on the path you're choosing."
"Over my rotting corpse, whore," Aerwyna spat.
Her vision swam, but her glare did not waver.
"As you wish," Catalyna replied.
Earth flowed up her arm as she called it. An earthen club formed around her right fist—heavy, studded with jagged protrusions like the teeth of a broken millstone.
She raised it.
Above them, an arrow changed direction.
The second shot from Evan's bow caught the first in mid-air—a glancing hit along the shaft that altered its vector sharply. What had been a shallow approach turned into a near-vertical drop.
Catalyna stepped in, club beginning its downward arc toward Aerwyna's face.
The arrow fell out of the sky and punched clean through Catalyna's clavicle.
For a fraction of a heartbeat, even the street seemed to freeze.
The impact drove it deep—burying the head between shoulder and spine.
Pain detonated through her chest.
Her breath tried to become a scream and turned into a wet, soundless choke as blood flooded one lung.
Her arm spasmed.
The earthen club shattered into gravel as her focus broke.
Catalyna froze in shock.
Then she moved.
Three more arrows arrived.
They came at ugly angles—one too low, one too far to the side, one seemingly late. Dodging them wasn't a clean dance; it turned into a desperate contortion.
She twisted, bent, threw herself sideways—
One arrow nicked her arm, carving a shallow line.
Another tore past her ribs, slicing leather.
The third skimmed the back of her calf as she somersaulted, scoring a burning groove.
Catalyna staggered back, teeth bared behind her mask.
She retreated fifty paces before the barrage stopped.
Her shoulder throbbed around the embedded shaft.
Tugging it free here would mean blood everywhere, power leaking with it.
She left it in, breathing hard and shallow.
Archers, she thought grimly.
Not on the walls.
Somewhere closer.
She could not sense their aura.
That unsettled her more than the pain.
Evan stared at the gap between buildings like it had personally offended him.
The arrows had hit.
Not just grazed—one of them had sunk so deep into some invisible point that the enemy's entire posture had changed.
Even from here, he'd heard the choked, silent sound that wasn't quite a scream.
He hadn't used spell reinforcement on the shots.
No guiding wind.
No mana-twisted trajectory.
Just arms, bowstring, and raw form.
He swallowed.
"That… connected," he said weakly.
"Of course it did," Ezra said.
Evan glanced back over his shoulder.
The baby was grinning.
Wide.
Excited.
Like this was some kind of game he'd finally gotten a high score in.
Evan's stomach did something complicated.
He was both horrified and impressed.
"Your movement precision is absurd," Ezra went on, already analyzing. "Back home the probability of finding someone with that kind of repeatability would be one in… mm. Very low. We'll test it later."
"Back… home?" Evan echoed faintly.
Ezra ignored that.
"Now we go closer," he said. "I need a better feel for the vectors in that street. We'll stay at range. You execute exactly as I tell you. If you follow my instructions, Mother survives."
Evan swallowed again.
He wasn't sure which was more terrifying—that an infant was giving him a battlefield briefing, or that the logic of it soothed him.
He adjusted the sling on his shoulders, making sure Ezra was secure, then picked up the bow and the quiver once more.
"Alright," he muttered. "Let's go, then."
On the ruined block, Catalyna took stock.
She did not rip the arrow out of her shoulder.
She wasn't suicidal.
She scanned the rooftops and alley mouths again, searching for a telltale hum of mana—an expert archer marking their shots, a mage hiding behind a veil.
Nothing.
Just the ragged, stubborn frost-echo of Aerwyna, still somehow alive.
And now… healing?
The Ice Queen lay half-propped against a broken wall, one leg stretched awkwardly. Her eyes were slitted, one nearly swollen shut, but her breathing was deeper.
A cold glow pulsed faintly around her injured foot as she forced energy into bone and tendon.
The brief pause in the assault had given her just enough space to drag herself back from the edge.
"Who…?" Aerwyna rasped, squinting down the street.
A shape emerged from behind a line of scorched stalls.
At first, Aerwyna thought she was hallucinating.
A Knight in full plate armor.
And on his back, tied in a sling, a small, unmistakable bundle.
"Ezra!" Aerwyna croaked, her voice breaking. "Why are you here? You should be inside the castle. It's safer there!"
Ezra lifted his head over Evan's shoulder.
"Don't fret, Mother," he said.
His baby voice was soft.
But the words were not.
"I'm here. We'll drive her away."
Sir Evan's face was set, eyes fixed on Catalyna as he advanced at a measured pace.
Catalyna saw them and felt an unexpected rush of relief.
So that was it.
The archers weren't faceless troops from the walls.
They were him.
"Did you come to me to save your mother, Ezra?" she called, a faint laugh in her tone despite the blood in her throat. "That's very sweet."
"No," Ezra answered, calm. "We came to make you run."
"You are awfully full of yourself," she snapped, temper finally bleeding through the mask of calm. "My orders were to avoid hurting you. Consider that… suspended. I'll take the scolding. This is payback for the headache you've given me."
She shifted her stance.
Rock flowed over her hands again, forming thick gauntlets.
Evan's muscles bunched beneath Ezra.
"Remember," Ezra whispered near his ear.
AMP hummed behind Ezra's eyes—thin lines of force flickering over Catalyna's outline.
"Do exactly as I say."
They broke into a run.
Catalyna flicked her wrist.
[Stone Bullet.]
The projectile screamed toward Evan's chest.
"Right!" Ezra snapped.
Evan pivoted mid-stride.
The spell grazed past his left pauldron instead of caving in his sternum.
He jumped as Ezra ordered, boots finding purchase on a half-collapsed step.
"Now—your own [Stone Bullet], low and left," Ezra said. "Don't aim for her. Aim for that burning pillar, two yards behind."
Evan didn't think; he executed.
The rock shot forward, missing Catalyna cleanly and smashing into the charred base of a support beam behind her.
The pillar, already half-eaten by fire, gave up and toppled.
Catalyna had to leap aside to avoid being crushed.
"Good," Ezra muttered. "Next. Three inches left, five inches high. South-west. Now."
Evan slammed another [Stone Bullet] into existence and flung it.
This one wasn't aimed at scenery.
Catalyna landed from her dodge and turned—
The spell hit her right shoulder, just below the embedded arrow.
Pain flared white.
She snarled, stumbling.
"Bow!" Ezra ordered. "Nock. Rapid."
Evan dropped the incantation, letting muscle memory take over.
He pulled and loosed.
Pulled and loosed.
Pulled and loosed.
Catalyna tried to weave through the incoming arrows, but her body was slowing.
Blood loss.
Accumulated impacts.
The strain of earlier spells.
It all added up.
She twisted, contorted, letting some shafts skim past her ribs and thighs, but three found flesh.
One lodged shallow in her upper arm.
One scraped a line along her side.
One buried itself in her hip.
Her mind reached for chantless bursts—fire to blind, stone to wall, a sudden shove of earth.
But every pulse of will sent a fresh spike of agony through her shoulder and clavicle.
Her focus frayed.
She fell back, boots sliding on ice-slick rubble, buying distance.
Forty paces.
Fifty.
She stopped, chest heaving.
Her eyes went to Ezra.
The baby watched her steadily from Evan's back, fingers hooked into the Knight's cloak.
Even at this distance she could see it.
His gaze was too old.
Too sharp.
For a moment, something complicated flickered across her features.
She opened her mouth, as if to say something.
Then she shut it.
Teeth clenched, Catalyna turned.
She fled the ruined block, slipping into a side street half-choked with debris.
Moving on a wavering mix of stubbornness and technique.
Ezra watched until she vanished from sight.
Only then did he let his head sag against Evan's back.
AMP flickered out.My orders were to avoid hurting you. Consider that… suspended. I'll take the scolding. This is payback for the headache you've given me."
The world's vectors collapsed into ordinary lines.
Behind them, Aerwyna sucked in a careful breath now that the immediate threat had passed.
The Aerwyna of Fulmen had survived.
Not because she'd outgunned her enemy.
Because a tired Knight and a six-month-old with an impossible mind had turned pebbles and arrows into cavalry.