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free-falling into the courtyard. Helios was still descending in front of her. Vye once again used her magic to push her own body right up beside Helios.
    She grabbed her sword, plucked it from his body, and hacked off his left hand. She used what little of her magic she had left to catch herself before she crashed into the ground.
    That’s when she heard it. It was a sharp cracking sound. It wasn’t loud in the traditional sense. It wasn’t deafening. You felt it almost more than you heard it. Your sternum picked up the deep baritone sound of the crack almost more than your ears registered the sound.
    Vye turned to the North Tower. It was already damaged from Helios’ lightning bolt, and Selene had finished the job. She had simply removed the bricks that supported the middle part of the tower.
    Gravity kicked in. The Tower could not support itself with a hole that large. In about three second, the Tower lost a third of its height, as the top of it tried to slide down and reestablish itself. Of course, as Towers hadn’t been built to do this sort of thing, and the gap in the bricks was uneven, the Tower didn’t quite settle correctly. It started leaning over.
    Into the courtyard. Right on top of Vye.
    And not just Vye. Ever since the alarm had sounded, many of the Castle’s staff and servants were fleeing across the open yard. They were about to get clubbed to death by a very large, stone mallet.
    Instinctively, Vye held her arms up and commanded her magical might to hold the Tower still. It stopped coming down toward her, but Vye could feel the strain of it trying to obey gravity. She wouldn’t be able to hold it for very much longer. But she needed to wait for everyone to clear out...
    She decided that she could hold on for ten more seconds.
    Ten…
    Nine…
    No, it was going to be more like three seconds.
    Three…
    Two…
    And that’s when things got worse. Because Selene had joined her on the ground. Vye hadn’t even seen her come down. Selene stood over Helios, keeping anyone from hurting him further. But in the meantime, Selene was firing death hexes at Vye. It was like getting punched in the gut over and over while trying to hold your hands above your head.
    Vye was now on borrowed time. It turned out she could hold it for ten seconds.
    Eleven…
    Twelve…
    Vye’s ears popped. Everything sounded distant. Everyone else was clear of the falling stones, but Vye couldn’t move...
    Fourteen…
    Fifteen…
    More crackling as the death hexes impacted on her flesh, draining what little reserve she had left. She turned to look at her assailants, but her eyes started doing that thing where they took a couple of seconds to catch up to the direction in which she was looking.
    Eighteen…
    Nineteen…
    Every muscle in Vye’s body was burning. Everything was going white. Her torso split open, a scar tearing down from her right shoulder to her left hip. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head. The North Tower rediscovered gravity.
    Selene grabbed Helios’ remaining hand. She opened a smoke door and shadowed out of the Castle. Her job was done.
    The stones descended on Vye as her body went limp, flopping to the dirt.
    And just as she was about to get crushed to death, a knight in armor rolled in, wrapped her in his steel-plated body, and rolled her out of the way.
    Of course, it wasn’t an actual knight in armor. There’s no way a knight in armor could have rolled and moved so adroitly . So it was actually just a suit of armor. Knight not included.
    The suit of armor went limp. Duncan and Nuria dashed into the courtyard. There was Vye. Eyes wide open. No breath. No movement. Her chest cavity torn open with a scar. Bleeding.
    Dead.
    Nuria was too young to understand what death was. So she refused to accept it. She was exhausted from virtually running in that suit of armor. And she wasn’t as good a healer as Vye. But if Vye could hold up a tower long enough to save her people, then Nuria was just going to have to be