Muir dropped me on the ridge and was airborne before my boots had fully hit stone.
"Stay," he barked over his shoulder, already angling toward Raiden. "Don't die."
"Not on my list," I muttered, then flinched as the Ash Wraith sliced the air where Raiden had been a blink before. He rolled under it, lightning exploding from his palm. The bolt split the thing clean through. Useless. Smoke stitched itself back together and came on.
The chamber bucked under the force of their clash. Glassy shards rained from the ceiling. Heat pulsed off the magma channels so strong it felt like standing in front of an open forge.
"Why isn't he just shifting?" I snapped, eyes tracking Raiden as he cut across the open air.
Revik, crouched beside me with his sword up, didn't look away from the fight. "Because if he fills this cavern with a dragon, the sheer size will bring everything down. Same goes for Muir."
Right. That left swords, claws, lightning, and water—scaled down. And me.
Think. I forced myself to watch, not panic. The Wraith moved like smoke until it struck—then it hit like a falling wall. It wasn't random. It wasn't wild. It was choosing.
Raiden skimmed close to the relic. The Wraith snapped to him, abandoned Muir mid-sweep, and lunged. Raiden juked away, and it turned with him—still choosing whoever was nearest to the relic.
My pulse kicked. I tracked three more exchanges just to be sure. Same outcome. When Muir darted in, it switched targets. When Raiden drifted wide, it drifted too. Not hunting all of us—guarding one thing.
"It's defending," I said, more to myself than to Revik. "It only hits the one closest to the relic."
Revik cut me a look. "You sure?"
"As sure as I'm going to be." A plan was forming—messy, fast, risky. "We can make it chase the wrong target and steal distance in the switch."
He caught on quick. "Pass you back and forth."
"Yeah." I swallowed. "Throw me."
"Of course," he deadpanned. "It's just that easy."
"You're a big strong man. Complain later." I cupped my hands to my mouth. "Raiden!"
He twisted midair at the sound, caught sight of me, then Muir, then the relic. "Plan?"
"It's guarding proximity!" I yelled. "Closest target only! Use me as bait—trade me."
Muir didn't hesitate. "I've got left!"
Raiden's answer was a curt nod. "Move."
Muir dove. Raiden cut a tight line toward the ledge. I sprinted to the lip and braced. Raiden hit the hover by a fraction; his hands closed on my waist and the heat around us vanished into wind.
"Keep your eyes open," he said, voice clipped.
"I will," I shot back.
"Good." He put me into a hard arc and threw.
I flew. Muir hit me on the beat, hands sure, momentum turning into a new line. The Wraith tracked me instantly, snapping away from Raiden. Good. Muir veered wide, passed me back, and the world became a rhythm: catch—hurl—catch—hurl—each exchange stealing five, ten more feet.
Lightning cracked. Steam blew apart. The Wraith kept trying to commit to a strike and we kept denying it the one target it wanted. We were making ground.
"Closer!" I shouted. "Two more throws!"
"Make it one," Muir gritted, jaw tight. "It's learning."
He wasn't wrong. The next toss, the Wraith feinted, let me pass the invisible line, then snapped back toward Raiden to punish the predictability. Raiden banked so hard his wingtip skimmed ash.
"Switch pattern!" I yelled.
We changed the angle. Muir dove low, skimming heat, and launched me up. Raiden came screaming down from the dark, scooped me, and sling-shotted me forward hard enough my stomach lurched. The Wraith hesitated, recalculating. We took the hesitation and turned it into distance.
The relic pulsed, close enough now that its hum crawled along my skin. One more trade and I could reach for it—
"Lyra—drop!" Raiden barked.
I folded without thinking. The Wraith's claws cut the air where my head had been. Raiden's hand was already gone, back to defense, lightning lancing the Wraith's shoulder to bend its angle. Muir barreled in, took me on the fly, and the three of us reset on a razor.
"Not much time," Muir panted.
"Then we end it," I said.
"Run it back."
We both nodded. Muir lifted me up and we tried again.
This time the Wraith was faster. Smarter. It didn't just lunge blindly—it cut across angles, feinted one way then snapped the other, its ember eyes tracking every throw like it had finally learned the rhythm. Smoke lashed like a whip, forcing Muir to veer off-course.
"Damn thing's reading us!" Muir snarled, wings straining as he caught me off-center. His grip slipped.
Claws slashed the air, too close. I twisted, pain slicing through my arm as the Wraith's heat grazed me. The catch was bad, momentum all wrong. My shoulder clipped Muir's grip instead of his hands locking on my waist, and the shock of it spun me sideways.
Air vanished. For a heartbeat I was weightless, falling toward fire.
Raiden dove out of nowhere, chest slamming hard to my back, his wings beating a furious rhythm to pull me up before the magma claimed me. We pressed on.
One more throw. Raiden hurled me, and the relic came into view.
Its glow filled my vision. I reached—everything else fell away—hands open—
I missed.
The Wraith reformed and hit me midair. Claws raked my flank, tearing skin. I tumbled, grit burning my palms as I scraped along the ledge. The relic pulsed like a heartbeat—close, out of reach.
A scream ripped across the chamber.
"LYRA!"
Revik.
The Wraith turned. It didn't choose Raiden or Muir this time. It chose the one piece we hadn't put into motion.
"Revik—move!" I screamed.
He hauled his blade up. The Wraith was already there. The obsidian claws met steel with a sound like stone breaking under ice. Revik's sword exploded into shards.
"No—" I couldn't even hear myself.
The hit lifted him off his feet and hurled him backward into black glass. The wall cracked like a spiderweb. Revik dropped, limp, and didn't rise.
For a second everything went quiet in my head. The hum of the relic. The hiss of magma. Even the Wraith's shriek. Nothing. Just the sight of him on the rock, wrong and still.
Muir was quick to my side. "Focus, Primal!"
"Revik—he—" I couldn't find breath. "He's not moving—"
"Doesn't matter if you die now," Muir snapped, hauling me upright. "We finish it. Then we check him."
I wanted to hit him. I wanted to rip free and crawl to Revik's side, press my ear to his mouth, make sure he was breathing. But the Wraith was already turning again, fire leaking like tar from its claws, eyes locked on me because I was closest to the relic again—
"Lyra!" Raiden's voice cracked. Muir shouted something I didn't catch. The Wraith's shadow fell over me like a curtain.
Raiden tore across my line and took the hit.
The impact flung him sideways. He slammed into a basalt spur hard enough that the stone split. He bounced, swore, and was moving again before the echo died.
"Move!" Muir bellowed, and the air shifted. A wall of water slammed the Wraith back. Not far. Enough. Raiden's arms hooked under mine and wrenched me into the air.
"I've got you," he said, voice fierce and close. "Stay with me, little thief. Breathe."
I tried. The breath scraped raw. The glow at my fingertips flickered and died, came back, died again. The Wraith reformed out of the steam with a sound like a furnace cracking.
"Again?" Muir called, already angling to draw it off.
"Again," Raiden said, and I felt him look at me without seeing me. "Can you do this?"
"Yes," I lied, because I didn't have another option.
We moved. Or rather—they moved and dragged me with them, until my legs remembered how to work. The Wraith turned toward Muir, and Raiden used the opening to set me where I needed to be for the next throw.
And this time, I knew exactly what to do.