Kael stared at the Ifrit's back, forcing his breathing to stay slow even while the heat tried to chew through his lungs.
Every inhale tasted like scorched dust and hot metal, like the air had been left too long over a forge. The creature hovered a short distance ahead, its body still fractured from the collapse, cracks spiderwebbing through stone plates, thin lines of ember-light leaking from between them.
The fire that held it together sputtered unevenly, pulsing and thinning like it couldn't decide whether to flare or die.
It wasn't dead. It wasn't even close.
But it wasn't whole either, and that, that, was the only reason Kael was still upright.
His eyes dropped briefly to his belt, then snapped back to the creature. The thought that had surfaced refused to drown.
It just floated there, ugly and stubborn, like oil on water. It wasn't just dangerous. It was the kind of plan you didn't say out loud because the universe would hear it and punish you for arrogance.
