Five viewing panes burned in the air around Kaiden's vision, each one showing a different fight, violence and screaming compressed into small frames, and the board beneath him held nothing.
Every square empty from edge to edge. Seven cards orbited his wrist while Lust Stance ran through five bonds at once, stretching him so thin the warmth felt closer to bleeding than giving.
Cards and warmth. That was all he had left to spend, and every drop of both had to count.
The Stalker fight went wrong from the first exchange.
Aria's opening crescents crossed the arena in a silver arc and the creature cut them from the air with a flick of its bladed forelimbs, moonlight scattering against the walls at an angle that shouldn't have been possible from limbs instead of shields.
Luna came in fast from the left, Stormblade crackling, and the Stalker's compound eyes locked onto the tusk-wound on her left side before she'd closed half the distance.
