With a single sweep of his hand, the Stone Guardian took out half a dozen guards, their bodies crushed and motionless on the field of battle.

“Get your axe,” Lea shouted to me.

“I won’t leave your side,” I said.

She conjured a set of three arrows and let them fly toward the guardian. The arrows seemed to bounce off its hard skin, and she cursed.

“Aerden, if you don’t get that axe right now, we’ll both die,” she said. “I’ll keep this thing distracted.”

There was no arguing with her when she spoke in that tone, and despite our current situation, I realized how much I had missed seeing Lea, the warrior. I thought of all our training sessions in the woods late at night back at Brighton Manor, before everything went to hell. This would be just like old times, only with a much more terrifying opponent.

As she conjured another set of arrows, I shifted and flew toward the place where my axe had fallen in the chaos. The guards were doing their best to fight, but several more had fallen to the guardian’s blows. I searched for any sign of Ezrah, but I didn’t see him anywhere. With him bound in chains that prevented him from casting magic, he was useless to us anyway. I only hoped he had made it out of here safely.

I wrapped my hand around the hilt of my axe and shifted just as the Stone Guardian’s foot stomped down on where I had just been standing.

When I reformed at Lea’s side, I shook my head. “Yeah, great job keeping it distracted,” I said. “That thing almost crushed me.”

“So, pay more attention next time,” she said, the flush of battle on her cheeks. “My arrows aren’t hurting it. Not even my armor-piercing spell seems to make a dent.”

“Watch and learn,” I said, raising my axe in the air.

I shifted to smoke and flew around the guardian’s back, reforming just as I let the heavy axe swing. I aimed for the back of its knee, sure that a strong swing would at least do some damage to the creature.

Instead, the blade hit stone and reverberated back toward me, flying out of my grip and out of reach.

The guardian reached back with one mighty hand and swiped me to the side. Pain exploded behind my eyes as I flew across the field and slammed into the wall of the arena.

“Aerden,” Lea shouted.

I raised my thumb to let her know I was okay, but I was going to need a second to regroup. This creature was far more powerful than I could have imagined. If our weapons were doing nothing against it, the only option we had was to try our magic.

The last of the guards still standing screamed as the Stone Guardian lowered its foot onto the demon’s back. I stared in awe. These were the best fighters in the kingdom. Heroes. And they had been crushed in minutes.

Across the field, Lea flew out of the guardian’s reach and reformed near me, a stack of six flaming arrows nocked and ready to fly. “I’m going for that diamond,” she shouted. “If we can damage that, maybe he will fall.”

She let go, and the arrows all soared straight toward the creature’s heart. He managed to deflect three of them with his hand, but the other three met their mark. Still, the arrows seemed to do no damage.

“Shit,” she said. “What do we do?”

The guardian ran toward us. Each footstep shook the floor of the arena like an earthquake.

“Run,” I said.

We both shifted and flew in opposite directions. Thanks to the guardian’s massive size, he was too slow to reach us in time, but how long could we keep this up? We couldn’t simply shift and run every time it headed toward us. Eventually, we would have to figure out a way to hurt him if we ever had any hope of winning this fight.

When I reformed on the other side of the arena, I summoned my magic, surprised to find it strong and flowing through me as if I had never lost my connection to it. My hands exploded into flames that rose high against the night sky.

I inhaled, drawing the power deep into myself before thrusting my hands toward the ground. A line of flames travelled over the floor of the arena toward the Stone Guardian. When the fire reached him, I stood, lifting my hands high into the air. The flames roared to life, consuming his body.

The Stone Guardian stepped out of the fire, soot darkening its alabaster skin, but there was no sign of a wound.

The creature smiled, taunting me.

He raised his hands into the air and slammed them down, hard and fast. The ground split in two, the earthquake knocking me off my feet and nearly sending me into a deep chasm that formed in the center of the battlefield. I pulled myself up, and reached for my axe.

Maybe this would crack that stone in its heart.

“Pelt him with arrows,” I shouted toward Lea on the other side of the chasm.

“It won’t do any good,” she said. “They’re totally useless against him.”

“It will keep him busy for a second,” I shouted. “Just don’t hit me.”

She nodded and took a deep breath, nocking her first arrow and letting it fly toward the guardian.

He lifted his hands in defense and started running toward her, all his attention on Lea for the moment. I took my chance, shifting and flying through the air toward the beast. I kept my eye on the diamond in its chest, and when I got close enough, I spun three times to build momentum and reformed during the final spin, putting all of my strength behind the attack.

The blade of my mighty axe chipped a tiny piece off the guardian’s heart, and the creature wailed, slamming its shoulder into my side. I fell to the ground, pain rolling through me in wave after wave.

My vision blurred, and for a moment, I was terrified I might lose consciousness, but somehow, I managed to fight it, shifting just as the guardian brought his foot down.

I reformed near the wall, holding onto it to steady myself. The guardian reached down and scooped a chunk of earth from the arena floor and threw it at me before I had time to shift, knocking me back down.

My ears rang, and I struggled to stay present. My stomach rolled and tightened, but I tried to stand. Instead, I took one small step and fell to the ground in a heap of pain.

I had to get up. Lea couldn’t fight this thing on her own.

I blinked, watching as the Stone Guardian placed its fingers end-to-end, a bright light forming between them like a globe. I forced myself to stand. The buzz of the guardian’s energy made my teeth rattle, and I squinted against the light.

I reached for my magic, focusing on creating a shield around my body, but before the guardian unleashed its spell, he smiled and turned, hurling it toward Lea.

Time slowed as the spell flew through the air. I saw every chance I’d ever had to tell her how I felt pass before my eyes. Every day we trained out on the Black Cliffs, the sun on our faces, our hearts open to the wild possibilities of an endless future.

Every breath of every moment leading up to the days of her engagement, when she would be promised to another.

The endless nights at Brighton Manor as we trained, two broken souls searching for something to live for.

That night by the fire, my hands in her hair as it fell around her face, the truth a whisper on my lips.

I stretched my hands toward her now, the thought of losing her tearing down the walls of fear I’d hid behind for more than a century. All those unspoken words burst from my heart, ripping me open as I screamed her name.

Her eyes widened as a being made of pure, golden light formed before her, its hand reaching out to crush the guardian’s spell. The being stepped forward at my command, towering over the battlefield with the strength and brilliance of a thousand stars.

It grabbed the Stone Guardian by the throat and slammed it onto the ground, pinning it down. I took my axe in my hand, walked over to the creature who had threatened the one woman I would ever love, and with a single, swift movement, I broke its diamond heart into a million pieces.

When I looked at Lea, she fell to her knees, her eyes locked on that light.

My truth.

My deepest secret.

My greatest love.

She finally knew.