Keiser could feel Muzio's mana before he even knew he was being pulled, cold, precise, and thrumming like a live current beneath his skin. It wasn't gentle. It never was. The sigil carved into his arm flared, molten light searing through veins already raw, before the world blinked out and snapped back in with a violent rush of pressure.
The air was thick with ash and mana. The taste of iron filled his mouth.
He didn't have time to breathe.
The arrow was already in motion, whistling through the dim, cutting through the smoke.
Keiser didn't think. He moved.
His hand shot out. The impact jolted through his hand. For a moment, he thought he had stopped it, until the searing mana laced within the arrow started to crawl through his palm like something alive, writhing and drilling forward.
He hissed, a sharp sound between clenched teeth, as blood burst from his hand in thin rivulets. The arrow's light shimmered, pressing, pushing, trying to force its way through him.
