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The Arcane stirs within you.

With wonder in his voice, he studied her, digging the delicate, metal fingers of his marionette into the edges of her spellshield. Behind the marionette’s mask, beyond the physical plane of the council room, Mel caught glimpses of Viktor through the golden, glassy veil of her shield, across space and time—the lines of his body melting into the endless, nebulous void of his new domain but his face vividly clear to her in sharp contrast. His keen, amber eyes were fixed on her, captivated.

Gritting her teeth, Mel raised her arms higher, straining against the weight of Viktor’s own enchantment. Instinct alone fueled her, compelled her to pour every little bit of her waning strength into sustaining the shield, but that instinct was human—mortal—and it could not guide her, not here. She watched, control and consciousness slipping in tandem, as the marionette slowly but surely tore through the shroud of her shield.

Viktor, please, wait, she pleaded, too inexperienced, and growing too weak, to properly project the words back to him. His curiosity, bright and blinding, poured like a storm surge into her shield, into her mind.

You too have been changed, youngest Medarda. Touched by the—

A beam of blistering white light cut through the room, as if cutting through the fabric of reality itself, knocking Viktor away from her, and she collapsed to the floor, gasping.

“Viktor,” Jayce growled, ragged, before rushing toward the marionette, the metal edges of his hammer squealing and sparking against the stone floor, vanishing from her line of sight.

Mel shifted, turning onto her side, her mind racing, struggling to make sense of the situation, struggling to reconcile the men, the strangers, coming to blows behind her—the violence of their actions, the vitriol in their voices—with her Jayce, with his Viktor. Spurred forward by rage, promising only ruin.

Several sharp strikes, metal against metal, rang out in the silence of the empty room, followed by broken, frantic snarling and faint clicking.