The Elf
The Dance took everything she had left.
Her body remembered what her arms couldn't do anymore. Sixteen kicks in four seconds: kidneys, spine, the soft meat behind the knees. The vessel tried to block the third. Elyen spun past her guard like water through fingers.
Ribs cracked under her heel. The girl made a sound that wasn't quite a scream.
Kicks five through eight lifted her off the ground. Nine caught her in the sternum before she could fall. Ten through fourteen were a blur even to Elyen — muscle memory older than thought, techniques she'd learned before this vessel's parents were born.
Fifteen took out her right knee.
Sixteen put her in the dirt.
Elyen landed. Her legs nearly buckled. The technique was eating her from the inside now, blood vessels bursting in sequence like a wick burning down.
The vessel lay face-down in the mud, chest barely moving. The obsidian arm was pinned beneath her body at a wrong angle.
