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The dagger sank into the wooden pillar, millimeters off Sarevok's ear. He didn’t flinch, but a deep growl rumbled from his throat as he rose, fury radiating from him like heat off a forge.
Such insolence.
Gale gasped as the weight lifted from his chest, air flooding into starved lungs. He rolled to his side, coughing, one hand pressed protectively to his ribs.
"How dare you?" Celeste barked, stepping forward with fire in her voice and blood on her knuckles. "I am the one you want! Or are you afraid your bloodkin will be your end, that you waste your fury on a wizard instead, old man?"
Her voice echoed in the stone chamber, clear and sharp, a blade all its own. She was taunting him, and he knew it. Every word was a challenge, thrown like tinder into the furnace of Sarevok’s wrath.
Gale scrambled to his feet with caution, retreating to the edge of the room, out of the arc of Sarevok’s fury. His pulse pounded in his ears, but his eyes were on her — on Celeste — wide with warning, with helpless admiration, with fear.
For her.
She stood her ground, her stance loose but ready. Sarevok turned, slowly at first, shoulders rigid, a snarl splitting his face. Both hands clenched around the hilts of his greatswords, metal ringing faintly as they scraped free in perfect tandem. The air shifted around him — charged, murderous and hungry.
"You think you know fear, little one?" he hissed. "You’ve forgotten what we are."
His voice was deeper now, guttural, inhuman — something crawling up from the Abyss, not spoken from a man’s throat. He lunged.
Celeste didn’t wait. She flared to meet him, not only with steel but with one bare hand and a spell crackling at her fingertips.