The fight between Rafael and Duke Winser happened on the castle's central ground, in the shadow of the mage tower.
It was brief in the way that fights between very high-level combatants were brief — not because they lacked power, but because they had so much of it that neither exchange could be sustained for long without becoming decisive. Rafael's holy light and his dragon lance were weapons that Winser's natural resistances couldn't simply absorb. Winser's Ravages of Time and his raw physical strength — the Duke was old enough that his body was a different category of thing than a normal vampire's — forced Rafael to spend more reserve than he could afford, given his current injuries.
They hit each other once, at full commitment, and came apart.
Winser's shirt split from chest to waist. Rafael's mouth filled with blood.
Winser spoke without incantation: "Ravages of Time."
His rank was sufficient that the spell required no channel. The space around Rafael began to shift. Shorn felt it first — dragons have a particular sensitivity to temporal distortion, something in the scale structure, a residual awareness from their long lifespans — and pulled backward out of the affected zone. Rafael activated every holy light array on his armor simultaneously. The counterforce held the aging at bay but cost him most of his remaining reserve.
In the moment the two forces were at equilibrium, Rafael drove the lance forward at full extension. Winser banked sideways, the wings cutting hard, and the lance found his ribs rather than his heart. He went back and up, breathing harder.
Then the mage tower lit up.
Seven-colored light blazed from the tower's peak, a sustained resonant chord in a frequency that had nothing to do with sound. Both fighters felt it in their bones. Winser coughed blood. Something in the light was interacting with his wound.
Two figures — one in black, one that appeared to be riding something — vanished into the light.
"Father—" Sophina caught Winser as he staggered. "The Book of the Dead. It's inside. Don't let anyone else take it."
Winser straightened, pressed one hand to his ribs, and pointed at the tower. "Go. Now. The rest of you — with her."
Sophina's wings opened and she was at the tower base before the echo of her departure finished. She found no door, no seam, no handle. The tower surface was seamless stone.
She touched it, and the tower pulled her in.