Pulse and pause

Aaron stared at the fallen warrior. The man who had commanded their advance with such unwavering confidence now lay unconscious on the infected floor, having taken the full force of the heart's attack.

Aaron wiped the blood from his forehead and looked toward Damian, who was struggling upright with one arm pressed against his ribs. Their eyes met, and a single thought settled in Aaron's mind.

Finish it.

He gave a small nod and advanced. The core responded at once; its swollen channels rose from the walls, splitting open to release more of the corrosive fluid. Damian intercepted the attacks, his golden-flamed sword carving a path through the writhing defenses despite the pain that accompanied every step.

Aaron seized the opening. Massive icicles formed overhead, their sharp ends angled toward the wound they had already inflicted upon the heart. The organ contracted beneath its protective membranes, but he could still see where Maddox's axe had struck.

If they could drive an attack into the same place, perhaps they could finish it.

Aaron raised a pale green barrier around Damian as the warrior charged, hoping it would absorb the retaliation long enough for him to land a decisive blow.

Damian's sword plunged into the damaged membrane.

The heart pulsed.

The shock wave shattered Aaron's defense almost instantly. Broken fragments of magical light scattered across the chamber as both young men were hurled backward. Aaron's head struck the floor, reopening the wound above his eye, while Damian rolled across the ground, clutching his injured side as the fire around his blade dwindled.

For several painful moments, neither could stand. Aaron listened to the organ resume its steady beat, each contraction announcing that their attack had accomplished almost nothing.

Charging mindlessly will achieve nothing. We need a plan.

Damian was already bracing himself for another attempt.

"Don't."

Damian stopped. Aaron expected an argument or one of the young warrior's infuriating jokes, but neither came. Instead, Damian watched him for a moment before lowering his sword without protest.

Their first priority was Maddox. Reaching him required crossing the damaged chamber again, a task made miserable by their injuries and the ground's unpleasant resilience. Between them, they managed to lift the veteran and drag him into the narrow passage through which they had entered.

The pursuing tendrils withdrew before the threshold. The poisonous jets ceased, and no further attack followed them into the corridor. Aaron noticed the boundary and stored it away, but he had neither the strength nor the time to investigate why the core remained confined to its chamber.

He eased Maddox against the wall before turning to Damian.

"Stay still."

Damian obeyed immediately.

"Helio Revelio," Aaron whispered.

A subdued glow settled over Damian's injured torso. The spell could not instantly mend a fractured rib, especially with Aaron's mana nearly exhausted, but it accelerated the body's natural recovery and eased the pain enough for Damian to draw a fuller breath.

He glanced at Maddox. "What about him?"

Aaron's expression tightened. Their mentor had absorbed the worst of the pulse, and his breathing was still uneven. Aaron himself was barely standing; blood continued to trickle past his eyebrow, and every spell left him weaker.

"Not yet," he replied quietly. "I can only stabilize him."

He knelt beside Maddox and used what little healing magic he could spare to keep the warrior's condition from worsening. When he finally sat back, his hands were trembling.

Silence settled over the passage. Beyond its entrance, the distant thud of the heart continued at an almost maddeningly regular pace.

Damian had stopped smiling. He sat with his back against the stone, one hand resting over his injured ribs while the other held his sword across his knees.

Aaron glanced at him, remembering the extravagant flourishes, the jokes, the relentless need to impress. None of that had vanished; it had simply given way to concern for Maddox.

The change was strangely reassuring. Beneath all the bluster, perhaps the boy understood the stakes better than Aaron had initially believed.

Aaron leaned against the wall and closed his eyes, replaying their attempts. The heart had reacted to each blow, but not quite in the way he had expected. The pulse possessed a rhythm, and its force seemed to have traveled along a particular plane rather than filling every corner of the chamber equally.

Across from him, Damian inspected the edge of his sword, turning the weapon slightly to examine the battered steel.

"The center," he said at last.

Aaron opened his eyes.

"We're hitting the heart... but not the center." Damian tightened his grip upon the hilt. "The outer layer is too tough. The blade loses power before reaching deep enough. The wave disrupts the impact."

Aaron listened carefully. Damian was thinking like a swordsman, measuring the resistance of the tissue and the loss of force along the blade. What he described completed a pattern Aaron had been struggling to identify.

"The pulse," Aaron murmured.

Damian looked up.

"It doesn't erupt in every direction," Aaron said. "It radiates horizontally." He considered their positions during both failed assaults. "And after releasing it... the heart stops beating for a few seconds."

Damian's expression sharpened.

Aaron reviewed the sequence once more. If they could position themselves above the horizontal blast, they might escape its destructive force. And if they struck during the brief stillness afterward, they could penetrate the center before the heart recovered.

Their observations fitted together perfectly. Damian had identified why their weapons failed to reach the center, while Aaron had discovered the narrow interval in which the heart's defenses weakened.

Aaron rose, using the wall for support. Damian followed, testing his injured ribs before retrieving his shield. Maddox remained unconscious behind them, his fate now resting upon the very boys he had been trying to protect.

For once, neither of them had anything clever to say.

They had a plan.