Chapter 95

The courtyard is a ruined wasteland.

Everywhere the eye can see, the ground is shattered into nothing more than rubble, uneven and dusty and jagged with uneven footing.

But there is one woman who maintains perfect balance, even as the ground shakes violently underneath her precarious red heels: the Duchess, hair flawlessly coifed with not a single strand out of place, even four hours into their training session.

She lifts her chin, and a massive, tapered boulder, narrowed to a lethal point, separates itself from the ground.

And then, it goes shooting forward, soaring through the air to hurtle towards the two figures hovering in the sky.

Alcina sees it coming and grits her teeth as Orion dives sideways in a spinning tumble to avoid it.

The Duchess straightens up.

All of a sudden, the ground falls still.

The silence that follows feels oddly deafening in Alcina’s ringing ears, after hours of its cacophonous din.

She, too, straightens up, peering down at her mother in confusion. The Duc