The pocket realm around us cracked and fell apart as the ringing command echoed through the space. The Mistress fell away into the void between spaces, their stolen cloak fluttering around them. In the space between, there was not ‘gravity’ per se. Movement was an act of will and Intent rather than flight. With so much of the pocket realm destroyed by my flames, there were great voids of space to float within.

  My companions flailed around, at least the ones I could see. Only Veda seemed to be remotely prepared for this sudden turn of events. Their staff seemed to provide them with some means of stability. By gripping onto it, the Witch Hunter was able to ‘fly’ by aiming the staff and letting it drag them along.

  I did not hesitate when we were cast into the void. The Mistress was obviously going to try something drastic if we managed to catch it off balance. Breaking the entire space we’d been standing in was extreme, but everything I’d seen since I entered the Tower of Baedain was beyond belief. A predator’s instinct sent my body soaring through the void towards where I suspected Visk and Magnus would be.

  Call it a hunch, but the Vampyr had given up too much to not try and recover Magnus due to a momentary upset. That suspicion was rewarded as Visk and the boy became visible. Visk’s magic relied on melding into the environment. If there was no environment, they could not disappear into it.

  I barely arrived in time to place myself between the Mistress and Magnus. It shot across the void with shocking speed, one hand extended towards the kid. Slender fingers ripped through the gloves that Mamaet had been wearing. They morphed into razor sharp claws which skated off of my armored scales when I got in the way. A hiss of irritation left the creature’s mask as my wings buffeted it and pushed it back.

  Visk managed to latch onto my tail when it came near them. With their other hand they pulled Magnus back towards them, the boy’s body floating limply in the void. I could still see strands of magic floating between him and the creature. The final drops of magic oozed out of him.

  Instinctively, I lashed out with my teeth and bit down on the aether strands connecting Magnus to the Mistress. They snapped like overtightened strings in my maw. Two things happened at the same time. As the strands were severed, Magnus’s body went into sudden convulsions. Visk almost lost their grasp on the boy as he violently bucked against their hand. Simultaneously, the Mistress howled in anger and rage.

  The creature had sounded relatively flat and monotone before this. If it had displayed any emotion, it was sneering condescension. Now, it was truly furious. The claws which had only left scratches on my scales before somehow became even sharper. When next it lashed out at me, the Vampyr managed to tear through several scales and drew blood from my flesh.

  It had been a long while since something had hurt me. Even when I was frantically flying through Osteriath’s sky with Visk, my primary fear was being overwhelmed by magic rather than being cut. As surprised as I was that this creature had been able to physically wound me, it did not stop me from lashing out in return. As the Vampyr tried to duck away, my claws lashed out and caught its calf.

  The flesh that had formerly been Mamaet’s parted under my claws. A deep surge of irritation flared up inside of me at the sight. I’d gone to some effort to heal the Witch Hunter of their wounds, but this creature had made a mockery of that kindness. There was not even a lingering hope that I could save Mamaet’s spirit like I had with my sister Sixth. Just by the Vampyr’s scent, I could tell that Mamaet had been completely consumed and destroyed.

  Their body flying through the void only existed as a puppet to this vile creature’s whims.

  While the Vampyr and I had darted over towards Magnus, Veda had swept around to collect Sir Kenneth and Cassia. Neither human seemed capable of navigating the void on their own. Only by grasping onto the elf’s staff could they effectively be led around like a school of fish. They were all vulnerable in this space, which the Vampyr likely intended to use to its advantage.

  In spite of the obvious risk to my body, I pressed the attack. If I let the Vampyr pull away, it would just go after one of my more vulnerable companions. Unlike when I grappled with Third, I now had to contend with someone who was both smaller and faster than myself in physical combat. Only a constant barrage of snapping teeth and swinging claws kept the creature away from my people.

  The Vampyr’s mastery of movement in the void made its attacks come as quick as lightning and as fluid as quicksilver. For every swipe of my claws, it was able to dodge around and lash out at me three times. With each attack, Mamaet’s body twisted into an increasingly feral shape. Beneath the mask and cloak, inhuman proportions took shape. Long arms meant to snatch and grab flicked out from beneath a cloak which grew more ragged by the moment.

  Neither of us had time to try and draw on magic. The Vampyr attempted to call out a verbal incantation on several occasions, only to have to abort when my teeth or claws interrupted it. Likewise, when I attempted to focus my Intent, it would interject with a spike of mental fog or by diverting to try and attack my companions.

  Our battle became more and more vicious as time went on, dragonblood and stolen ichor floating through the air in trails of gleaming beads. Perhaps the creature had been exhausted by my assault on its domain, but Magnus’s untimely healing had reinvigorated it. Perhaps that had been this creature’s plan all along, to throw everything it had at me in an attempt to wear me down to the bone.

  That plan had succeeded in many ways. My companions were on their last legs. My own magic was at the lowest point it had been since my battle with my sibling. If I had not grown in strength since then, this creature would have already defeated and devoured me.

  ‘Keep it focused on you for just a couple more seconds,’ Sixth whispered in my mind. ‘I finally have that ‘surprise’ ready.’

  Well, that sure was convenient timing. I redoubled my attack on the Vampyr, twisting and turning through the open void to press it back and get it as far away from my people as possible. I could feel something rising up from inside my mind that worried me…

  The eruption from my mind was not at all what I had expected from Sixth. I had thought perhaps she was preparing a clever spell or a powerful shield to protect my mind. Instead, what burst from my mind was better compared to a chaotic kaleidoscope of color and sound. While not fully visible, enough magic was pushed into the ability that it flickered half out of sight with dizzying flashes of sensory input.

  It flew out of my head right into the Vampyr’s face. Despite it being a mental rather than physical attack, there was enough uncontrolled force behind the blow that the ceramic mask cracked and fell apart. To my great surprise, the face on Mamaet’s body was the same as Veda’s. They could have been twins, at least once. The changes wrought upon Mamaet’s flesh by the Mistress had twisted that ever-calm visage into a snarl of ravenous hatred.

  Whatever Sixth had done fouled the Vampyr’s focus, causing them to reel backwards while clutching their head. A series of hisses and gags passed through a mouth that was filled with far too many fangs. As it tore at its own face with its sharpened claws, I took the opportunity to knock it away from my body and further from my companions.

  ‘What was that?!’ I directed at Sixth as I spun and soared back towards my Cassia and the others. ‘That wasn’t a spell at all! And why does the inside of my mouth smell like the taste of pure light?’

  ‘That was a spell!’ Sixth responded testily. ‘That was pure focused Intent, based on inflicting the mental stress I get from how much of a mess your life is to someone else.’

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  I wasn’t sure if I ought to be offended or impressed. A quick check confirmed that Sixth had used up almost all of her personal reserve of magic to pull off that stunt. Her power was meager compared to my own, but she’d wielded it with exacting precision just when I needed it most. A feeling of deep appreciation swelled inside of me, that seemed to make Sixth just a bit uncomfortable.

  ‘Focus on the ancient soul-sucker idiot! …Just be sure to thank me properly later,’ she chided me before dipping back down beneath my conscious awareness.

  She was right of course. As I turned my focus back to the Vampyr, I could tell that it had recovered from the mish-mash of sensory shocks that Sixth had inflicted upon it. If it had been angry before, the creature had now moved beyond anger. It had sailed into an icy sea of cold and calculating rage that would see everything I ever loved brutally and methodically destroyed if I let it.

  Our battle moved from purely physical, to magical in nature. My dragonsbreath leapt from inside of my throat to blanket the void between the Vampyr and my companions. I would not allow it to get close enough to threaten them once again. In return, it waved one of its grotesque arms and sent some of the remaining spatial bubbles sailing towards me. They caught on fire as they met the rolling wave of fire, but swept them aside in the same movement. Those spaces and whatever lay inside of them would be sacrificed, but it was effective to get my flames out of the way.

  A side effect of throwing those spatial bubbles at me was that I was temporarily caught in one. As the barrier around the bubble smashed into me at startling speed, my body unwillingly forced its way inside. The interior seemed to be some manner of alchemy lab. That lab was already blazing due to how quickly my dragonsbreath set it alight.

  Many alchemical reagents seemed to have some level of magic inherent to their structure. With what I’d recently learned, about how my fire ate magic as fuel, it completely made sense that many of the experiments on display would burn bright and fast.

  It also made sense, regrettably, that when a series of alchemy experiments was set on fire, they tended to explode violently. Mortimer (the Alchemist) would have been very displeased with the total disregard for lab safety. His poor exploding rats were nothing compared to the titanic series of detonations that followed as my body smashed through one side of the spatial bubble. I was merely fortunate that my momentum carried me clear through to the other side.

  When my scaled hide smashed through the other side of the spatial bubble, I was propelled forward by the monstrous ‘CRUMP!’ of the alchemy lab transmuting into a tiny supernova. My companions were likewise scattered across the void as the force of the blast ripped them apart from each other. It only took a couple moments for me to reorient myself and to douse the sticky flames clinging to my wounds, but that was a couple of moments too many.

  The Vampyr had taken the opportunity to swoop in and lash out at the nearest vulnerable target, Cassia. I turned just in time to see the Vampyr’s claws lance into her gut and pierce out the other side. Cassia’s face was a mask of shock and surprise, even as she managed to plant her borrowed knife into the side of the Vampyr’s neck.

  After that, I saw Red.

  Cassia felt blinding pain radiating from her torso. She’d been hurt before. Living alone in the woods for years meant that she’d needed to care for all manner of minor injuries by herself. The agony that now bloomed inside of her gut was entirely different from those experiences.

  She had only been hurt this badly once before, but she didn’t remember most of it. She’d been knocked unconscious before she suffered the worst of her injuries in the Cursed Forest. That was both a blessing and a curse. She hadn’t directly experienced most of the pain involved, but it still haunted her nightmares. Even after she had been completely healed by Sanguine and Edith’s efforts, she still found her sleep troubled by inexplicable sensations of dread.

  Cassia hadn’t realized just how much she needed to have Sanguine nearby, in order to sleep soundly, until she’d been separated from him in Osteriath. Simply knowing that her dragon was close to her was often enough to deflect all but the worst of her trauma-induced nightmares.

  This time, Cassia was made to experience the pain of agony and defeat first hand. It didn’t matter that her body had grown far stronger than she’d ever imagined possible. When the Vampyr’s talons pierced her stomach, there was nothing she could do to stop it. The most that she managed was to lash out wildly and bury the dagger she’d borrowed from Visk in the creature’s neck.

  The monstrous face which looked disturbingly similar to Veda twisted around and tried to latch onto her with its innumerable razor teeth.

  It stopped just before its fangs sunk into her skin, looking over Cassia’s shoulder. For just a moment, Cassia saw something approaching fear flicker across its expression. Then, she was sent flying through the weightless void. The Vampyr had cast her away from itself as it attempted to flee.

  Cassia did not have time or the ability to react to what came next.

  A mass of red scales and fire slammed into the Vampyr and carried it across the void faster than she could follow with her eyes. As she spun through the weightless space without any ability to control her path, she caught glimpses of flashes of red in the distance. Her hands grasped onto her gut in an attempt to keep her lifeblood in her body, largely without success.

  Veda’s hand latched onto the back of Cassia’s shirt and dragged her out of her uncontrolled flight. A meager amount of magic trickled out of the elf’s hand and into Cassia’s body. It wasn’t a lot, but it was enough to ward off the feeling of impending doom rising in Cassia’s chest.

  “We need to leave,” Veda said grimly. The Witch Hunter hauled Cassia along with them as they hurried back and forth through the void to once again collect those scattered by the alchemy lab’s detonation. As Cassia was pulled with them, the entire realm started to violently shake. In the distance, a wild red tinged howl of fury sent shockwaves rolling across the void.

  “We can’t just leave!” Cassia croaked out angrily through the pain clogging her throat. “Sanguine is fighting that thing alone!”

  “The results of trying to fight it together, is exactly why we must flee,” Veda responded sharply. “The Lord Draconis has lost all restraint on your account. He will bring this entire realm down with us inside if we do not flee now.”

  “I can’t abandon him! We promised to fight together-”

  “SILENCE Foolish Girl!” Veda shouted in Cassia’s face. They’d bodily dragged the young woman up to stare her in the eyes. “Lament your errors when you have life left to live! We have the child you sought. Now we are getting the fuck out of here.”

  Cassia was shocked into silence. The momentary crack in Veda’s calm exterior had revealed a deep anger which far surpassed Cassia’s own human emotions. Those cold blue eyes told her that if she kept resisting, Veda would simply knock her out and drag her unconscious body out of this place by force.

  That did not mean that Cassia would leave her dragon’s side without giving him some kind of help. She had not been the one to initiate the ability before, but she remembered the feeling that accompanied giving Sanguine back the magic stored inside of her. The gemstone embedded in her chest glowed brightly as she pulled on what resided inside of it. With all her strength, she willed that energy to fly towards her dragon, to give him the strength he needed to finally end this horrid monster.

  Just like before, the effort left Cassia feeling deeply exhausted. In her wounded state, it might well have been a mistake. She slumped in Veda’s grasp as the golden light flickering inside the ruby gemstone faded. At least this time, she was able to stay awake long enough to feel the gift reach Sanguine and rejuvenate him.

  She did not, however, stay awake long enough to contemplate the response that she received. Across their connection, Sanguine had fallen into a truly mindless fury. The only thing on his mind was destroying the creature in front of him, no matter the cost.

  Veda could see the Consequences of that fury playing out in the distance. If they had had any doubts about the dragon’s power before, they were wholly convinced now. Convinced, and terrified. The elf had only vaguely suspected what the Vampyr was capable of when they had entered the Tower of Baedain. As the danger continued to grow when they climbed higher, they had even considered retreating outright.

  Yet, the more Sanguine was challenged, the more that he proved himself its match. He was a creature, a monster, built to meet adversity and grow stronger from it. But that was only surface level.

  What terrified Veda, was the realization that Sanguine had been holding himself back the entire time, so as to not potentially harm his beloved. With that caution now thrown to the wind, Veda’s only plan was to escape the pocket-realm and to flee as far away as possible before the dragon’s rage burned down not only the Vampyr’s realm, but the entire city.