The Spirit War(149)

“He showed me the way to be my own master,” Nico answered, ripping his hand off her shoulder.

Den’s eyebrows shot up. “Is that so?” he said. “Well, then, as one free soul to another, let me give you some advice.” He leaned in low, bringing his face level with hers. “Run away. You may think you want to try fighting me to reclaim your master’s honor, but you should forget that. You can’t beat me.”

Nico gritted her teeth, her eyes boring into his. “No.”

Den leaned back as Nico stood up. “I made a promise,” she said, bracing her feet on the sand. “You will not pass this beach.”

Den shrugged. “It’s your death,” he said, planting his own feet. “I just hope you can give me a better challenge than your master.”

“He wasn’t my master,” Nico said firmly. “I have no master but myself.”

Den smiled wide. “Good to see you learned better than he did.” He beckoned. “Come, then. Let’s see whose kingdom is greater. Yours or mine.”

Nico didn’t answer. Instead, she grabbed a handful of her coat at her chest. The moment her fingers touched the fabric, she opened her spirit.

“Cover us.”

The words were scarcely out of her mouth before the coat obeyed. It sprang off her back, the black fabric expanding, pulling out every inch of the enormous lengths of cloth Slorn had woven into it. It grew and grew, spilling onto the sand behind her and rising overhead like a wave of night. Den held his stance, watching through narrowed eyes as the coat arched over his head. Moments after it started, the coat stopped, trapping Nico and Den inside a large, pitch-black tent of living cloth.

“Clever,” Den’s voice sounded from Nico’s left. “But blinding me won’t be enough.”

“I didn’t do it to blind you,” Nico said, fading into the dark. “I did it because I don’t want the world to see what I’m going to do.”

“And what is that?” Den’s voice was curious, not afraid.

Nico didn’t answer. She slipped through the shadows until she was facing Den’s back. She could see him clearly, but not with her eyes. Her coat was too well made for that. It blocked the light so completely that even her night vision was useless. She could still see with her other sight, though, and now that her normal vision was gone, the world of the spirits was clearer than ever.

Den hadn’t moved since the dark had fallen. She could see him holding his breath, waiting for her to give herself away, but more than that, she could see him clearly for the first time, not his body, but the actual spirit that was Den. Generally, when she looked at people, wizards or the spirit deaf, the souls beneath their bodies looked jumbled and chaotic. Tesset was the exception. His soul had looked like metal, almost like the Heart’s blade.

Den was completely different. Back in the light, she’d seen him as a fortress. Now, in the dark, she saw how much of an understatement that was. Den’s body was a vault of power. Every part of him was perfectly aligned, every angle perfectly set. Strength flowed uninterrupted from his head to his arms to his feet, and when he shifted, everything in his body moved together in perfect unison. For a moment, Nico forgot the fight and simply stared in wonder. Looking at Den, she saw the pure essence of human potential, and with it, the truth of what it meant to be absolutely, completely in control.

“Well?”

Den’s voice snapped her out of her gawking, and Nico shrank back reflexively before remembering he couldn’t see her. But even as she thought it, Den looked over his shoulder and stared straight at her.

“Come,” he said. “I’m getting bored.”

Nico fled away through the dark, coming up on his side. Den was still facing the place where she had been, and Nico breathed in relief. Maybe his turn had been just a lucky guess, or maybe he could sense her, but it wasn’t instant. Either way, he wasn’t looking at her, at least for now. Nico clenched her fist. For now was good enough. All she needed was one good hit.

She exploded out of the shadows low to Den’s right, her fist clenched as she flew toward his unguarded side. She was taking a cue from Tesset, aiming for his liver. Fortress or not, Den’s body was still human, and no human could take repeated blows to the liver without feeling it. For a thrilling second, she felt her fist connect, and then things started to go wrong.

She could see the shock wave from her blow running through the orderly fortress of his spirit. The force rippled out from her fist, but rather than shooting through the muscle and hitting his liver as she’d intended, the blow began spreading and dissipating the moment it touched him. It all happened so quickly that Nico had to play the strike over in her mind before she realized Den had shifted his spirit the moment she’d touched him, spreading the shock out across his body. Even now, she could see the echoes fading. Every piece of him had taken its part, breaking her blow down to nothing.