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The sky was a light, fluffy shade of purple, and a lone vulture sailed through it lazily The scavenger looked down on the scene below, a twisted wooded path leading nowhere, flanked bywith blood and their mouths curled up into horrible sneers Up ahead, an elephant perched near the path, a large bullet hole in its neck and its chest aith deep, flowing cri out I’d ht next to Cahal, whose favorite animal was the Brink elephant

All of this was for Cahal, the incredibly tough warrior druid as duty-bound to his lethal skill set until he found his perfectthat would release him from his curse and allow him to settle doith his et up to Maybe he didn’t want kids Maybe he just wanted an elephant It was hard to say with him

The best assassin in the world, and he thought the duty was a curse What a tragedy

I’d offered to trade his lot in life for mine

No dice

I cracked ers, only to reht—no weapons allowed for this training It was ic only

Taking a deep breath, I fashioned another vulture and waved it to life above us, sending it toward Cahal He aiting along the path somewhere, underneath his least favorite color, surrounded by one of the only things that es of bleeding out

Souy’s worst nightreat fun watching hi my ass was for him At least, I assuusto

“Here we go” Magic pu up the gestures and jeering of the clowns Maybe that would distract Cahal a little, and I could get a few ainst a tree

All of this had been fashioned with ic, of course The cloeren’t real I would never shoot an elephant—I liked those big sons of bitches Purple sky? Weird But my father could construct worlds, and I needed to learn how to do it too I’d gotten pretty good at it, ht

He didn’t love h

A pasty-white swamp monster jumped out fro froums It—or he, in this case—spread his clawed hands and prepared to get his ass handed to him

I flung air like it was knives, opening slashes in the sides of his chest, ood I didn’t want to kill reat in bed, so it orth being cautious

A block of air punched his out fro a sword made of air I hacked down, but he rolled at the lasthis claws forward I arched, barelya few puncture holes before I slapped hi He scraped the solid air with his claws, butcloser to hitting level six, which here my father sat, at the top of the hierarchy It would take Darius a while to get through that air, and by then I’d be facing a god-touched druid, the likes of whom the world had never seen

At least, I liked to think of him that way It made me feel better when he bested me

A clown ju on while waving her arht be laying it on a little thick

Around a reaching bush covered in lollipops—Cahal was trying to ditch the sugar, worried about his boyish figure—the path opened up, and there he stood, a blindfold over his eyes, holding a wicked black sith a curved blade Light gleah to paint that nightmare

I sent a s the blindfold off hihtly to face htly to his head He could always sense the direction offor sneak attacks