Mereque clenched his jaw, pinned against the crumbling wall by an invisible force he couldn’t see, understand, or break.

  Athur Tarmour—the Blanched Knight, the Anointed One—held him there with effortless contempt, one gauntleted hand raised as he glowered hatred at him from a dozen yards away.

  Then the world began to fall apart.

  Cracks raced across the stone like lightning frozen mid-flash. Massive blocks the size of houses sheared and tumbled into the growing pit below. The ceiling split open, raining debris in a roaring avalanche. Mereque braced for the drop—only it never came.

  Instead, the entire floor beneath them rose.

  The section of room that still clung together—floor, a quarter of the wall, the two of them—lifted smoothly upward as though seized by something enormous, an unseen hand. The surprise on Athur’s flawless face was almost worth the helplessness; the knight’s composure cracked for the first time, eyes widening in genuine alarm.

  Whatever power had pinned Mereque released him abruptly. He lunged for a handhold on the jagged edge of the wall, boots scraping, gauntlets sparking against stone as he scrambled to remain secured. The broken platform continued its impossible ascent, carrying soldier and knight alike into the open night.

  Above them, the sky erupted in battle.

  The Shimmering City blazed its unnatural opal luminance.

  A familiar roar split the air—Hexabulous, the fire breathing Red Dragon, fury made flesh was here. He knew the beast sound! But a second roar answered his, this one deeper, colder, sending an involuntary chill down Mereque’s backside.

  Then he saw them.

  Hexabulous banked hard, flames licking from his jaws. The machine streaked after him, weapons erupting. Between them, locked in a savage dogfight, stormed something he hadn’t seen before—a grand shadow, winged, so black it hurt to look at.

  It was darkness given form and fury, a dragon-shaped void that drank the starlight. To unaugmented eyes, it would have been nearly invisible: just a moving patch of night where stars winked in and out. But Mereque’s implants filtered the spectrum ruthlessly, amplifying the faintest photons until the creature’s outline burned clear—edges sharp as obsidian, wings vast and tattered, eyes twin voids that reflected nothing but the night.

  His HUD flashed (a hard red alert):

  ALERT: UNKNOWN ENTITY DETECTED

  — SPECTRAL SIGNATURE —

  WINGSPAN ESTIMATE: 180+ METERS

  THREAT LEVEL: CRITICAL

  INTENT: 100% HOSTILE

  RECOMMENDATION: AVOID CONTACT

  Mereque clung to the jagged stone, watching the titans clash in the night sky. The void-born horror—wings of living shadow, eyes like holes torn in reality—fought with a fury that made Hexabulous and the sentinel seem almost fragile. Against such beings, he felt like a child caught in a storm of gods.

  Tarmour dropped to one knee on the fractured floor, one gauntleted hand clamped to the rock as the entire platform rocketed upward. Even his perfect face had cracked—eyes wide, mouth slightly open in raw disbelief.

  The city itself was coming apart.

  Buildings, streets, cobblestones—everything erupted skyward in a cataclysmic spray of stone and timber. The cause rose with them: the Weeping Wyrm, finally awake.

  Dirt and centuries of debris sloughed off its flanks, revealing moist, pale ivory skin that gleamed wetly in firelight and starlight alike. Block after block tore free as the creature ascended, exposing more of its impossible bulk.

  His HUD pulsed (a persistent amber):

  BIOMASS SCAN IN PROGRESS

  ESTIMATED DISPLACEMENT: 23.7% (CITY VOLUME)

  STRUCTURAL COLLAPSE: IMMINENT

  ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARD: EXTREME

  RECOMMENDATION: SURVIVE

  Mereque’s implants caught a different distinct voice beneath the roar and ruin. He isolated it, amplified, and felt his heart stutter.

  “Mereque!”

  He knew that voice.

  His HUD flashed (a soft green):

  AUDIO SOURCE IDENTIFIED

  VOICEPRINT MATCH: GRACE

  DISTANCE: 2.1 KM

  BEARING: 312° DOWNWARD

  PRIORITY: RESCUE — IMMINENT

  The Weeping Wyrm was a mountain of pulsating, pustule-riddled flesh. Its bloated head lolled forward, and from ruptured ducts poured torrents of foul fluid, thick and black, carrying the reek of dead dreams on the wind. The deluge thundered down through shattered streets far below like a waterfall from the pits of hell.

  A single, colossal moan rolled out of it—grief trumpeting eternal, a sorrow too vast for mortal hearts to hold.

  Tarmour, a sneer of hatred curling his lips, flew towards him. He was knocked down mid-flight by the rain of debris, large blocks smashing him back into the wet flesh of his god.

  Grace’s face lit up with a radiant smile when she saw him coming, utterly unfazed by the apocalypse unfolding around them.

  Mereque couldn’t help but admire the indomitable spirit of his small, ancient friend.

  Despite everything, a rare grin cracked his own stern features in answer.

  They were separated by at least two kilometers of the Weeping Wyrm’s obscene bulk—she stood lightly on a lower coil of pulsating flesh while he clung higher up.

  Nearby floated one of the enemies' rectangular prisons of light, the same cages they used to bind their victims with arcane force. To Mereque’s surprise (and private delight), a high-ranking priest appeared to be trapped inside, looking distinctly unhappy.

  It looked like Grace had turned the tables on one of her captors.

  She might only be a meter, but that little package is packed with tricks.

  He grinned, apparently the Blanched had gotten in over their heads with her.

  With chaos unfolding around them, Mereque ran, determination locked in.

  His ocular implants worked overtime, mapping the constantly shifting terrain, predicting every heave and shudder of the living mountain beneath his boots.

  He put distance between himself and the still-dazed Tarmour, who was realizing too late that his opponent was quickly leaving him behind.

  His HUD overlay pulsed (a steady blue):

  DYNAMIC TERRAIN MAPPING ACTIVE

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  PREDICTIVE STABILITY: 38-62%

  OPTIMAL ROUTE HIGHLIGHTED

  TIME TO TARGET: 47 SECONDS

  RECOMMENDATION: MAINTAIN MOMENTUM

  Old Father Kraken had been the largest living thing Mereque had encountered on this planet—too vast to comprehend with eyes alone, requiring Havenite sonar just to sketch its shape. Even then it felt abstract, unreal, though those mountain-sized tentacles were real enough.

  The Weeping Wyrm on the other hand was different. It could be taken in whole, and it dwarfed everything around it: Hexabulous, the machine RX414, the shadow dragon—all three together would have been maybe 10% its total. Its endless, mournful moans shook the air while rivers of black tears poured down its flanks, churning debris into thick, sliding rivers of mud.

  Undaunted, Mereque sprinted across the pulsating section of flesh where he’d landed, boots pounding until the coil looped sharply downward. He dropped into a controlled slide on his side, armor scraping, to bridge the sudden drop before the surface levelled out again and he surged back to his feet.

  He’d already covered half the distance he needed to reach Grace. A few more moments and he’d be there, just on the far side of the next coil below.

  Dust, smoke, and sheets of flames had choked the air—then for a moment, it cleared. Only now did he fully grasp the scale of the devastation wrought outside the First Temple.

  Hexabulous and the machine had torn the place apart to give him time to get to her.

  The sheer scope of it was mind boggling. Buildings toppled, boulevards shattered, temples turned to rubble. Fires raged throughout.

  His HUD flashed (a grateful green):

  ALLIED INTERVENTION CONFIRMED

  SIGNATURES: HEXABULOUS / RX414

  HOSTILE DAMAGE INFLICTED: 89%

  RECOMMENDATION: THANK ALLIES AT AN APPROPRIATE TIME

  They had done their part: enthusiastically.

  The irony didn’t escape him. Looking at Grace as he closed the distance only made it more pointed.

  He owed them a debt he wasn’t sure had been necessary. The fairy might have been ready to walk out of here, with or without them. They may have only complicated matters by coming.

  No. There wasn’t any way to know what would happen, to us, or to her.

  The Wyrm’s head continued its relentless ascent, rising until it loomed above the city. Pale blue orbs glowed from the grotesque ruin of its face, fixed on the aerial battle where dragon, sentinel, and shadow clashed. Rivers of festering fluid poured down, veiling whatever features lay beneath—eyes and mouth certain, but nose, snout, ears, teeth? He couldn’t see, it was impossible to tell.

  The body was long, obscenely fat, skin blistered and sickly pale. Superficially, it resembled nothing so much as an earthworm grown to a metropolitan size.

  How big is the damn thing!

  Then it moaned and his bowels knotted.

  The voice was apocalypse made sound—deep as collapsing continents one instant, shrill like steel raked across a field of glass the next. It bypassed his ears entirely, sinking straight into his skull, into his bones.

  His HUD flared (an urgent red):

  POTENTIAL NEURAL INTRUSION DETECTED

  CAUSE: AUDIO SOURCE SUSPECTED

  ANALYSIS: MORE INFORMATION REQUIRED

  PSYCHIC ORIGIN: WYRM – CONFIRMED

  FIREWALL HOLDING: 100%

  RECOMMENDATION: RESIST

  Then–his HUD shifted (amber):

  LANGUAGE SUITE (V4.14): INITIATED

  TRANSLATION: IN-PROGRESS

  What the hell is this…

  Mereque knew the answer before he could finish the thought. It was the machine. What it had done to him.

  He fought back a small shiver at the memory. It didn’t seem as important as what happened next. The Weeping Wyrm’s moan became a voice; with words he could understand.

  “DESPAIR. MISERY. MY WRETCHED, BE UNBOUND. YOUR ENDLESS SORROW. ETERNAL. OUR SUFFERING, THE WORLDS!”

  It felt like it would split his skull open.

  Part of him wanted to curse RX414.

  A roar answered from the shattered city below—part cheer, part inhuman shriek. Mereque couldn’t tell which it was meant to be. It hardly mattered. Both were equally terrible.

  The Weeper was rallying its wretched.

  ? ? ?

  Grace balanced effortlessly on the shifting bulk of the Wyrm, her feet finding purchase no matter how the flesh heaved or groaned beneath her.

  The sounds alone churned her stomach, but when the Wyrm spoke—its voice booming out the moment they broke the surface—she nearly lost her footing entirely.

  She caught herself just in time. A fall from this height—two hundred meters (and still rising) to the ruined streets below—would have ended messily.

  Thankfully it wasn’t the talkative type. After it said what it said, it went back to just making the repulsive sounds she had heard during her captivity.

  Mocking laughter echoed from the glowing cage nearby. The blind priest Keigael grinned wide, teeth flashing, as if he could see every detail of her stumble despite his ruined eyes.

  Laugh it up. I’m not the one in the cage!

  Grace turned away, scanning the coils above for Mereque. She’d spotted him moments ago, sprinting toward her with impossible speed from nearer the head. Then the Wyrm’s proclamation had thundered through everything, and she’d lost him in the chaos.

  Where is he?

  She stood roughly midway along the creature’s length, while he’d been closing fast from higher up.

  A heavy impact beside her made her jump. She looked up—and there he was: Mereque, armor scarred, eyes bright with relief and something fiercer.

  “Grace,” he said, voice low and urgent. “It’s good to see you. We came as fast as we could. Are you unharmed?”

  “Mereque! Ye shouldn’t give me such a start!” She flashed a welcoming grin and flung both arms around his leg in a fierce hug—an affection he clearly hadn’t expected, but one he happily accepted with quiet warmth. “Aye, for the most part I’m fit as a sprig.”

  “Thank the stars,” Mereque said, relief flooding his voice.

  Grace let go and looked up at him.

  Hesitant—afraid his strength might harm her—he reached out and touched her shoulder with the lightest brush of one finger. It wasn’t much, but the gesture meant a lot to her.

  “I’m glad to see you too. But I can’t get us free of here,” Grace admitted. “My power’s bound tight in these lands. It’s the Wyrm.”

  She didn’t need to explain further; he understood she couldn’t slip them into the hidden fairylands—the way she had when they first met.

  “That’s all right, Grace. That ornery lizard and his mechanical friend promised to help. Looks like they are creatures who honor their words. We’ll get clear—even if the whole world comes at us.”

  She looked at the devastation surrounding them. Nodded her head in understanding.

  She laughed, bright and sudden, spun once like a dancer before climbing his arm with effortless agility to perch on his broad shoulder. One small arm looped loosely around the back of his neck; she tapped his visor in a ready signal.

  Mereque gave a low, fond chuckle. He scanned the shifting terrain, picked his route, and in two powerful strides launched them across the gaping chasm between coils.

  They passed beneath a curtain of foul fluid and landed in a sheltered hollow that offered a clear view of the scene below.

  The Weeping Wyrm had occupied fully a quarter of the Shimmering City. Toppled buildings lay scattered like broken toys, streets reduced to vast crevasses radiating from the central pit where the monster had risen.

  Above, dozens of winged Glooms had begun to circle their awakened master in silent, reverent spirals.

  Grace was about to ask where their allies were when she spotted them: Hexabulous and RX414 streaking through the sky, locked in furious combat with a dragon-shaped shadow being—an ancient thing, she knew at once, from the cold, terrible aura that rolled off it like winter midnight.

  Grace should have been terrified by the horrors surrounding them—and perhaps she would have been; if alone. But Mereque’s presence kindled something inside her, steadying her heart and steeling her resolve until she stood defiant alongside this warrior from the stars.

  A song rose unbidden to her lips—an old fairyland ode to morning—as the first golden rays pierced the distant clouds in the east.

  “No longer hurt, no longer tired, dawn rises on a road of light. Souls waken unstained, spirits rise without shame— the day we shape our fate, dancing on a perfect world, no longer burdened by yesterday’s pains.”

  Mereque turned to her, eyes questioning but filled with wonder behind his visor. A soft golden mist drifted from her words, brushing across his armour before spiralling away on the wind toward the battered form of the Red Dragon.

  Grace clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh as both dragon and spaceman registered the sudden healing that washed over them—bruises fading, cuts closing in heartbeats.

  Hexabulous’s flaming gaze found her instantly. He dipped his great head in the briefest, proudest nod she had ever seen.

  Then an idea sparked. Grace leaned close and whispered it into Mereque’s ear—an impulse so small none of them could have foreseen the ripples it would send across the world.

  He nodded once, scanned the ruined terrain below, and began the careful descent, moving swiftly despite the precious passenger on his shoulder.

  They leapt from the Wyrm’s final coil and landed with a heavy crunch on solid ground amid swirling dust and ash. No one waited to greet them—only silence and the slow brightening of the dawns light intermixing with flares from broken masonry of the Shimmering City.

  Grace peered through the lifting gloom and saw what he had chosen: an object three times their height, half-buried in rubble. She wondered how even he could manage what she had asked.

  Yet as she watched Mereque work—calm, precise, impossible—she felt the truth settle in her bones.

  We were wrong about you star-man.

  You do have magic.

  It is simply a magic of a different kind.