With a growl of frustration, Alex went on the offence, lunging forward and swinging A’enara low. Trell blocked just in time, twirling her staff down, but Alex was encouraged when she saw the Shadow Walker’s hands jolt from the strength behind the attack. Bolstered, she swung again, but Trell disappeared before she could land a second hit.
The Shadow Walker didn’t reappear right away, and the tension mounted as Alex whirled on the spot, waiting and watching for her next attack.
When it came, it was relentless.
Trell appeared with a throaty roar and a burst of shadows, her staff following through on a downward trajectory that would have sliced clean across Alex’s chest if she’d been a fraction of a second slower to deflect. From there, she was unbalanced, having had to twist unnaturally to block the incoming staff and the newly relocated Shadow Walker.
Trell pressed the advantage, coming at Alex over and over again. But every time Alex struck back, no matter how fast she was, Trell disappeared, always reappearing with her staff swinging viciously overhead.
With Trell’s weapon so much longer than her own, the only hope Alex had was by getting in close—but whenever she attempted to do so, Trell would whisk herself away, sometimes taking Alex with her.
Three times Trell was close enough to sweep them both up in her shadows, prompting a sense of disorientation in Alex as they moved between the flamed sections of the star. Trell’s blades made contact each of those three times; short, shallow cuts, but enough to chip away at Alex’s confidence.
Panting during a momentary hiatus as they circled each other, Alex was heartened to note she wasn’t the only one showing signs of fatigue—nor was she the only one wounded, since she could clearly see black blood oozing from Trell’s own grazes. Alex wasn’t sure when, but she’d managed to get a few of her own swipes in. Something which, judging by the Shadow Walker’s expression, had been unanticipated from the ‘human’.
Alex knew by the look in Trell’s hard eyes that the end of their fight was coming. The Shadow Walker’s early humour was now gone. Alex had shocked her with her skill and speed yet again, but Trell was clearly gearing up to end it. If Alex was to offer one final surprise in the hope of turning the tide in her favour, then it would have to be soon.
Trell’s gaze was calculating as she watched Alex intently, her feet light on the ground as she began twirling her staff, building momentum until it was a speedy blur. But Niyx had pulled the same manoeuvre with Alex, so she wasn’t cowed by Trell—not even when the Shadow Walker sprang forward with a bellow, ready to cleave Alex in half from top to toe.
But she didn’t get the chance. Because that was when Alex moved.
In the blink of an eye, she pulled up the horrible memory of Aven again, wrapped herself in the darkness of that moment and activated the Shadow Essence in her ring, concentrating on what she needed and making it happen fast. But she needn’t have worried about speed, because Lady Mystique had been right—now that Alex knew what she was doing, it happened in an instant. One second she was in front of Trell, looking at the bladed staff sweeping towards her head, and the next she was ordering the shadows to move her so that this time it was her who appeared behind Trell in a burst of darkness.
The moment she reappeared, she forced away the dizziness and made sure not to waste the only advantage she had. While Trell was still following the momentum of her downward swing, a swing that overreached now that Alex was no longer there to block it, Alex banished A’enara so both her hands were free.
Still mid-swing, the Shadow Walker’s face was a mask of disbelief when she realised Alex had shadowed away, which Alex saw when she surged forward to Trell’s side and wrapped her fingers around the staff in a move to wrestle it loose.
Trell was too shocked to offer much resistance, but she managed to give a hearty tug that caused Alex’s right hand to jerk along the staff and onto one of the bladed ends, opening a large gash in her flesh.
Hissing from the pain, Alex renewed her hold despite the sharpened steel. She spun around, heaving with all her might, causing the Shadow Walker’s grip to dislodge as Trell lost her balance and went flying through the air, skidding face-first onto the marbled floor. Not hesitating for a second, Alex threw the staff straight into the purple fire, where it immediately went up in flames.
Watching it was enough to pull Trell from her shock, so Alex leapt atop the Shadow Walker’s back to keep her face down on the ground, not giving her the chance to transport herself to safety and recover.
Of course, that didn’t stop Trell from taking Alex with her as she disappeared. But Alex had expected that.
Despite the Shadow Walker struggling desperately to dislodge Alex, she remained stubbornly in place and managed to yank her opponent’s arms back while also wedging her knee into the hollow of Trell’s spine, placing the Shadow Walker in a defenceless position. But Trell refused to be conquered so easily. Just because she no longer had a weapon or the upper hand, that didn’t mean she was done fighting.
Shadow burst after shadow burst, Trell made the two of them appear and disappear over and over again as they moved between the fiery lines of the star. She did everything she could to be rid of Alex, bucking and twisting and writhing under her grip. But Alex wouldn’t let go. She couldn’t let go, no matter how sickeningly dizzy she was from their unending shadowing and no matter how drained she was from the strength of Trell’s fight.
Her muscles were screaming and her gashed hand was bleeding all over both of them—along with her shallower cuts as well—but Alex still held on. She had her opponent’s arms wrenched so far back that, with only the slightest amount of increased pressure, Trell’s shoulders would be dislocated. Alex didn’t want to hurt the Shadow Walker more than she already had, but if Trell didn’t stop fighting soon, then Alex would do what she must.
But then Trell’s struggles started to lessen and she began breathing more and more heavily underneath Alex, the effort of trying to escape finally taking effect. Her strength swiftly fading, the Shadow Walker carried out a few last-ditch attempts to throw Alex off, but then she collapsed fully beneath her, panting with exhaustion.
Not trusting the apparent surrender, Alex didn’t loosen her grip—not yet. She hadn’t fought so hard only to be tricked into a false sense of security. Instead, she gave a warning tug on Trell’s arms, reminding the Shadow Walker that the slightest move on Alex’s behalf would wrench her shoulders out of place, and she leaned in to say, “Do you yield?”
The only response Trell gave was to heave in gasps of air.
Only slightly less winded, Alex yanked Trell’s arms up a fraction, eliciting a pained snarl from the Shadow Walker.
“Do you yield?” Alex demanded, right into her ear.
It felt like years passed before Trell answered, but when she did, it was with a panting, whispered, “I yield.”
Alex’s enhanced hearing had barely caught the response, so she needed Trell to do better than that.