He moved, and the world had slowed down to let him.
That was the first thing Ascend handed him, and it nearly made him laugh. The Deepmother swung for him the instant he came off his heels, that same foreleg that had thrown him through a wall a few minutes before, and this time he watched it come the way a man watches a door swing shut, with all the room in the world to step around it. He was under her guard before the blow finished falling.
Everything was lighter. His body, the blade, the air itself. Where he'd been dragging Maledicta through her hide by brute force an hour ago, now the sword went where he looked before he'd finished the thought of looking, and it bit.
