Free Haven (The Last Humans Book 3) by Anna Zaires, Dima Zales Page B

now.
    As if to highlight Phoe’s incorporealness, the bigger attacker goes right through her.
    “You’re so dead,” the man grits out, saliva spraying from his mouth.
    He’s holding two curved swords that I think are called scimitars. Unlike real-world scimitars, these are made of ice. I swing for the sword, hoping my fire blade will melt his. He deflects my strike and proves that his scimitars only look like ice; they feel as if they were forged out of something as hard as titanium. He also proves how good he is with his weapons by using the post-block recoil to slice at my right wrist.
    “Shit. I pulled up Brandon’s memories of this guy. He’s one of the best swordsmen the Guardians have,” Phoe hisses. “We should flee.”
    The sword connects with my right shoulder. The combination of burning pain and the unbearable feeling of my joint crunching hits me like a steamroller.
    My right katana looks like a fiery meteorite as it falls down.

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    T hrough the nauseating pain , I hear Phoe say, “If this is how he wants to play it, fuck fleeing. This guy is going to get it. No one hurts you this badly and gets away with it. I’ll try to take the pain away and do all the fighting. Luckily for us, I can leverage Brandon’s weapons training against him.”
    I realize she’s talking to distract me from the agony and is partially succeeding in that. Then the pain eases completely, allowing my mind to clear, and I finally notice what my body has been up to: a jerky hacking motion with my left arm.
    My remaining sword slices through my enemy’s left shoulder. He howls as his whole arm falls off.
    A severed arm for an injured shoulder. Close enough to that ancient saying, “an eye for an eye.”
    To my disappointment, my attacker recovers quickly and swipes at me with his remaining scimitar.
    My katana blocks his strike. I try to slice open his side, but he blocks in turn.
    He hacks at my throat, and I duck under his blow, delivering a deep cut to where his liver should be.
    My opponent doesn’t disintegrate, which means my strike wasn’t lethal. In retaliation, he executes a desperate onslaught of feints and thrusts. I have a hard time following every attack, but Phoe doesn’t. Through me, she blocks every strike with mathematical precision. As the fight proceeds, I clue in to Phoe’s plan. The man’s crazy attacks are tiring him out, and the two bloody wounds aren’t helping him either.
    My right arm is numb, but at least, unlike his stump, my shoulder isn’t bleeding—likely due to Phoe’s influence.
    “The guys in the cathedral might be on their way,” I tell her. “We need to fly away.”
    Phoe has me execute my own barrage of attacks. If someone were to capture my sword movements with a high-speed camera, I’m sure it would look like a beautiful, fiery work of art. When it becomes clear that the guy can barely block my attacks, I slice at his throat and succeed in cutting it clean through. He begins the Limbofication process and disappears a second later.
    Without pausing, I flap my wings and fly toward the point where the dome of the floating island meets its ground.
    “We’re going to dive under the island,” Phoe explains. “This way, when the rest of the Guardians exit, they won’t spot us as quickly.”
    I glance at her as she speaks and realize that her ethereal figure looks more solid, as if she’s made out of thicker fog.
    “This form is just the beginning.” Phoe flies in front of me, showing me the way. “With more resources, I should be able to give myself a real body—or at least as real of a body as I can get in this place.”
    I remain silent until we reach the edge of the floating island. Once we pass the dome, we fly under the island, passing through thick clouds. I notice that the same kind of clouds seem to cover the bottoms of other islands as well.
    We have a clear head start on our pursuers now, so I say, “Okay, now what?”
    “Now we get as far away from this place as