They nodded.
Black Fang began walking.
Her katana dropped to her side. The tip kissed the cobblestones and stayed there, dragging behind her in a long, grinding screech of violet steel against stone that echoed off the ice dome overhead. Sparks trailed the blade in a line of dying embers. Her pace was slow, measured. It was the walk of a woman who had been burned, blasted, and thrown through the air and simply decided that none of it mattered.
The violet fire along the katana's edge had dimmed during the explosion. It reignited now, crawling back up the steel in purple liquid that left a trail of poisonous miasma in her wake.
Quinlan walked beside her.
Lightning surged through his body. It raced across his armor in arcing webs of white-violet energy, jumping between plates, crackling at the joints, turning the black steel into a storm given human shape. His saber's edge glowed a deep, furious orange.
Each step left a scorch mark on the cobblestones.
