The French doors exploded into the room in a shower of splintered wood and flying glass.
Cold ocean brine flooded across Aunt Cordelia's polished floorboards, bringing with it the rank stench of rotting sea kelp. Four figures vaulted through the shattered frame before the glass even finished hitting the rug. They wore grey cloth masks, slick dark leather, and curved cutlasses that gleamed with dripping blue poison.
"Get behind me!" Kai yelled, dropping his scabbard and swinging his heavy broadsword in a vicious horizontal arc.
The flat of Kai's blade caught the lead intruder square across the chest, sending him flying backward through the ruined doorway and out onto the balcony rail. But two more attackers scrambled around Kai's flank, their boots squeaking against the wet floorboards.
