It was at those words that I finally had my own moment of clarity. I gripped Paz's arm. "I don't want you to get hurt," I told her. "How can we get out of this together? How can we fight her?"

Paz took a deep breath. Without taking her eyes off her opponent, she clutched her hands to her chest. She exhaled for a long moment, her blonde hair seeming to change to white as she did so, and when she yanked her hands away, she holding onto a sword.

The dragon killer was already watching warily. When Paz had mentioned a dragon knight, she had been seriously spooked. But as Paz handed the sword to me, her eyes glowing with a white light, the dragon killer backed much further away.

"Dragon Soul," she murmured, her voice still audible at our distance in the quiet of the evening.

It was then that a new figure emerged from the gathering shadows at her side. A woman with blazing red hair and her own sword jumped seemingly out of nowhere and swung her weapon at the dragon killer. The dragon killer barely had time to put up her own sword in defence. She fell to the ground.