The two stopped and cautiously observed the lady in obsidian armor that seemed to drink the light around it. She lifted her sword off her shoulder and the air bent around the blade, warping like heat haze over summer stone. Weight pressed down on the atmosphere, something immense and invisible bearing down on the world itself. The sky reddened, bruising under that pressure as if the heavens themselves were being squeezed by an unseen hand.
The sky looked like it was terrified of her. Terrified of the desert. Terrified of what was about to happen.
The sand rose in spiraling columns, scattered by forces that had nothing to do with wind.
The two fighters still stood on guard. Every hair on their bodies had risen to warn them of this immeasurable danger that stood between them. Neither moved. Neither breathed. The tension stretched like a wire pulled too tight, one wrong breath away from snapping.
