The moment those two pikes of ice screamed toward Iskanda's skull, she reacted so fast I swear my eyes nearly unscrewed themselves trying to follow.
One second she was standing there with her jaw halfway open to yell something vulgar enough to make the Gods reconsider inventing language, and the next she flipped backward through the air like gravity was a vague suggestion she occasionally entertained but never respected.
She landed without a sound—knees bent, hair whipping across her shoulder like a war banner. The broken pikes collapsed in front of her with a hiss before melting into a pathetic puddle on the marble.
Quentin slowly rose, groaning in a way that made it clear something internal had shifted where it probably shouldn't have.
His shoulders trembled, his breath came out uneven, and yet his eyes gleamed with a cold, remote focus that felt different from his usual theatrical arrogance. Something deeper sat behind that gaze—some shift in temperament that made even the air around him tense.
He lifted one hand, fingers spreading in deliberate, controlled arcs, and the air began to condense around it—slowly at first, then faster, spiraling into a vortex of glittering frost.
It spun once, twice, then elongated like it was being drawn from the very bones of winter. And then he gripped it: an intricate staff of ice, too elegant to be wielded by someone currently gasping like an asthmatic elk.
He didn't give any warning.
He simply raised the staff high, jaw clenched, shoulders squared, and unleashed an attack so violent the air cracked like some ancient god had finally lost its patience and smacked the world for talking back.
The temperature dropped, my breath fogged, and the floor groaned as three colossal dragons of ice ripped their way out from the marble tiles.
They weren't sculptures—they were practically alive, shimmering, each scale cut from crystal and winter light. They rose in unison, three serpentine titans twisting upward, curling like smoke, before snapping toward Iskanda with a speed that made my stomach crawl.
And then—nothing.
Just before those writhing monstrosities could crush her, Iskanda vanished.
And by vanished, I mean moved so quickly the world forgot to animate her. One blink. That's all it took for the woman who could break a mountain with her thighs to simply evaporate from the spot.
I felt the entire room vibrate as the three dragons smashed together, tearing themselves apart in a storm of glittering shards.
My eyes darted desperately through the chaos—shards screaming past my face, frost swallowing the walls, Quentin's ragged breaths tearing through the din like dying machinery.
And then I saw her.
Iskanda, pressed flat against the wall near the ceiling, as if gravity were nothing more than an inconvenience she could ignore at will. She held still for a beat, muscles coiled, eyes narrowed with violent precision.
Then she moved her hands.
From the wall itself, two monolithic shards of black material tore free—rising like awakened gods—each one pulsing with a faint, hungry thrum that made the very air tighten around them, alive with the echo of some ancient, smoldering power.
They snapped together in mid-air with a dull clack that made the hall wince. From that union, her colossal bow unfolded like a blooming nightmare, massive, wicked, the limbs curving outward like they were designed to make lesser weapons doubt their career choices.
The string formed in a slow, drooping line, dripping down like hot ichor, viscous and shimmering in a way that made my stomach twist.
And then came the arrow.
Thick as a spear, blacker than any shadow in the room, it hummed with lethal focus. Iskanda didn't aim so much as decide who would die first.
"Above you!" Elvina shrieked from the floor before her courage drained out of her like water through a sieve, retreating into her bloodstream like some poor, frightened animal hiding from predators it could barely comprehend.
Her voice cracked halfway through, but it was enough—Quentin snapped his head up and threw himself sideways with all the grace of a man dodging an executioner's axe.
The arrow screamed through the air like a bullet born from darkness, a living slash of malice that carved a path between them faster than my brain could fully register. It struck Quentin's cheek with surgical precision, tearing skin and muscle in a line so clean it almost looked artistic.
Blood arced outward in a vivid, violent spray, stark against the frost, before the arrow slammed into the marble.
And the impact?
Saints above, it didn't just land—it detonated.
The marble erupted in a geyser of shards and dust, a choking, glittering storm that tore paintings from their frames, hurled antique glass into the air like reckless shooting stars, and sent a wave of debris ripping across the room in a deafening bloom of chaos.
Before the dust even had time to settle, Iskanda launched herself.
Not jumped. Not leapt. Launched—like a missile birthed from pure, unadulterated spite. She tore across the room, a blur of motion and malice. Arrow after arrow poured from her bow, each one shattering the air with a sound that bordered on violent prophecy. The room thundered with each shot, the floor cracking under the force of those blows.
Quentin dodged with increasing desperation. He rolled, scrambled, cursed beneath his breath as the arrowheads embedded themselves inches from his limbs.
Each time Iskanda struck the wall, the impact exploded outward: glass cases shattered into sparkling carnage, tapestries shredded and whipped into oblivion.
The room itself seemed to quake under the brutal poetry of her assault.
"Coward!" Quentin yelled, waving the staff like a maniac.
He tried firing back—large spikes of ice erupting from his figure. But Iskanda was already gone in the next heartbeat, vanished from his line of sight as though the air itself had swallowed her, only to reappear a blink later as a streak of amber fury and black steel tearing through the room like a vengeful comet.
He yelled something—probably an insult, because Quentin was, at the end of the day, very predictable in his anger—and hurled a massive spike of ice the size of a pony directly in her path. It crashed into the wall so hard the structure caved inward in a cascade of stone, marble, and frozen dust.
He chuckled. Actually chuckled. Which was incredibly optimistic of him given the situation.
Because from the shattered ruin of wall, Iskanda burst forth like wrath incarnate.
Her bow had already broken into its two pieces, twisted into wicked twin blades sharper than sin and twice as offended.
She spun, the movement precise, fluid, and terrifyingly fast, bringing one of those blades down in a lethal crescent aimed straight for Quentin's head. He rolled just in time, landing on one knee, the strike carving a fissure into the marble thick enough to trip a mule.
She landed, barely a whisper of movement, and snapped her head toward him. Her amber eyes burned with a fury so sharp it felt like it could slice reality itself, heat radiating off her in visible waves, tangling with the dust and shattered marble in the air.
Gods above, watching her was like witnessing a wildfire develop a personal vendetta against anyone foolish enough to blink.
Then the real madness began.
I swear the room shrank around them in that moment. Iskanda darted forward, blades singing through the air, thrusting and slicing with devastating precision.
Quentin dismissed his staff in a flicker of frost and conjured smaller weapons—shards, daggers, shields—anything he could form fast enough to avoid losing vital organs. Each time her blade struck, his ice shattered, spraying glittering fragments across the floor like confetti at a homicidal festival.
They spun around each other in a deadly, spiraling dance—strikes, blocks, feints, lunges—each movement faster than my brain could follow.
My head spun; my stomach lurched. Saints, they were like two storms smashing together, ripping at the world.
And me?
I was just a hapless bystander, helplessly witnessing the chaos with a front-row seat to total annihilation.
Quentin moved with desperation, but also a kind of stubborn pride, like he refused to let gravity or pain interrupt his dramatic flair. Iskanda, on the other hand, moved like she wanted to carve the entire room in half just to save time.
My eyes flicked back toward Elvina, and I almost wished I hadn't. She was still there, slumped in her own puddle, legs splayed, trembling like a leaf caught in a hurricane. Her face had gone from wide-eyed horror to something that resembled pure, unfiltered despair—or maybe it was just disbelief.
"This can't be fucking real. This isn't happening. This is—this is insanity," she stammered.
I didn't even have time to respond, to laugh, to think—Saints, I barely had time to breathe.
Because then it happened.
A beat of miscalculation. A stutter in Quentin's footing. A shift in his center of gravity that Iskanda noticed long before I did.
Her blades snapped together.
Not into the bow—no. Into something new.
A spear.
Long, elegant, obsidian-black, humming with lethal intent. The weapon extended with a violent whisper, slicing through the air with a promise that someone was about to deeply regret their life choices.
Quentin dodged the first strike. Barely. He twisted his torso just enough to avoid being impaled like some poorly written side character.
The second strike came faster, a blur arcing toward his ribs. He pulled back, boots scraping across the frost-slick marble.
The third caught him.
The blade clipped across his shoulder in one fluid, terrifying motion, cutting leather, fabric, and flesh as if they were nothing more than paper. Blood spattered across the floor in a vivid streak as Quentin staggered, breath hitching, hand flying to clutch the wound.
He hissed through his teeth, face twisting in pain and fury. For a moment he looked stunned—like he hadn't quite computed that he was mortal after all, and that Iskanda, in her infinite capacity for rage, had been the wrong person to underestimate.
Before he could react—
Iskanda planted her foot, twisted her hips, and drove a kick into his gut with the force of a cannon.