A dense sileretched between them as they moved, broken only by the faint whisper of shifting shadows. Vivienne drifted rather than walked, her form shiftiically, an indistinct shape in the dim light. Every now and then, an eye blinked open within the darkness of her shifting mass, catg fleeting glimpses of the ruins around them. Teeth gleamed now and again, shadowed and jagged, appearing only to vanish as she moved. She wasn’t quite used to this new height, feeling taller, more expansive. A silent remihat iher had left its mark, even if she couldn’t yet uand it.

  Ahead of her, Rava moved with easy fidehough Vivieiced her gaze darting frequently toward her. Caution lihere—not fear exactly, but a warihat made Rava’s movements sharper, her muscles tense even when she wasn’t looking for threats.

  They were deep in the ruins now, and the walls of broken stone rose jaggedly around them, casting long, g shadows that crept over Vivienne’s form as she floated along the worn tiles.

  Vivienne couldn’t resist. “Are you afraid I’ll bite again?” The question came out distorted, the echoes of her voice yered with low, guttural tones.

  Rava didn’t look back. “I’m not sure yet what I should expect from you.”

  A silence lingered before Vivie out a faint, hissing ugh. “I’m not sure either,” she admitted, though there was no humour in it.

  The words hung in the air, and for the first time, Rava stopped, turning to face her. She studied Vivienne’s shifting form, eyes steady, assessing. “What’s that mean?” she asked. There was an edge to her tone, something that sounded almost like a dare.

  Vivienne’s form darkehe light within her mass reg until only a few eyes glihrough the shadow. “It means… I don’t know how long I’ll stay like this. How long I’ll stay in trol.” Her words held an echo of uainty, a something about her shape seemed to solidify, if only for a moment.

  Rava’s expression flickered, unreadable. Then, after a beat, she shrugged. “trol is a fickle thing. Just don’t expect me to save you if it slips.” She turned away agaieps unhurried as she led them forward.

  The nightmarish mass couldn’t help but feel a bit dejected. Rava had been friendly enough with her until the revenant, then her demeanour ged entirely. Maybe not ged, perhaps that apprehension the warrior was showing was there all along— Vivienne was too overwhelmed, or perhaps too o see it.

  She uood though, to aent.

  Vivienne drifted behind her, still taking irange, haunting quiet of the ruins. The walls here were marked by a scars, etched with symbols she couldn’t decipher, and the silence weighed heavier, a static charge in the air. Something here felt old—a lingering memory of battles long sinded, leaving only restless, emotion-ced aether in their wake.

  They moved deeper, their steps light as if not to disturb the shadows.

  “So where are we headed?” Vivienne asked, her voice low, almost melding with the darkness around her.

  Rava’s eyes tracked over the shadowed archways and shattered ns ahead, her gaze unwavering. She poio a faded glyph inscribed above one of the arches.

  “There’s a. If we make it through, we’ll be safe.”

  Safe. The word sounded hollow in this pce, where eveones seemed ready to betray them.

  “Why do I doubt that?” Vivietered.

  “Because you should,” Rava said bluntly. “These ruins are usually only explored by either the brave or the foolish.”

  Vivie out a low hum. “Why were you ihen?” She asked curiously.

  Rava opened her mouth to answer but was interrupted by the faint sound of a growl, drifting up from behind one of the fallen pilrs nearby. It was low, guttural, a deep rumble of something ahat didn’t take kindly to intruders.

  Vivieilled, her form blending into the shadows around them. Eyes narrowed, trag the dark.

  “Stay quiet,” Rava whispered, her voice barely audible.

  But the shadows tio growl, the sound morphing from a sie into a symphony of low, pulsing tones, as if the very stones were muttering in anger. Arm souhrough Vivienne’s very being, winding around her mass like a chill in her bones.

  Rava took a cautious step forward, fists ched as if preparing for whatever y ahead. Vivienated. She had no fists, no ons, no true shape to ground herself—but she was something different, something beyond even the creatures that had e before. If they were truly threatened here, she would be ready to prove it.

  The growling stopped, leaving an ominous silence, and then the shadows surged and all hell broke loose.

  From their left, a serpentine head lunged out of the darkness itself, its eyeless visage twisted and grotesque. The head split vertically into a maw filled with rows upon rows of jagged, crystallih, eagled in ways that defied logic. A shrill, unnatural screech apahe movement, sending shivers down Vivienne’s spine.

  Rava barely had a sed to react. With a sharp intake of breath, she threw herself backward, her movements honed and precise. The monstrous maed shut with a deafening cck mere inches from where her head had been. She hit the ground and rolled, her golden eyes locked onto the beast as it coiled bato the shadows. A low hiss escaped her lips as she dropped into a defeance, only for her ears to twitch at the sound of ahreat.

  From the other side, a sed head emerged, identical in its horrifying design. It lunged with terrifying speed, aiming to catch her off guard.

  Vivienne, her ed and ever-shifting form bristling with tent power, acted instinctively. A dozen tendrils, thid weighty, shot out from her mass. Eae was riddled with eyes that glowed faintly, staring into the abyss as if to challe. The tendrils cracked like whips, smming into the sed serpent mid-luhe impact was like striking stohe reverberation jarring, but her strike was enough to knock the serpent’s head off course. It veered away, hissing angrily as it twisted and recoiled bato the shadows.

  “Cerrrraemolc, ilmbue mwh cphee col il maewh ctrril mwh fholec!” Rava growled, her voice a guttural mix end defiance.

  Vivienne didn’t uand the exact words, but the result was clear. Rava’s legs began to spark with energy, arcs of lightning crag around her calves and spreading out across the ground. In a fsh of motion almost too fast for Vivieo process, the lekine surged forward, her electrified movements leaving streaks of light in the air.

  The first serpent’s head reared back, fused by the sudden burst of energy, but Rava was already behind it. With an acrobatic leap, she twisted mid-air and brought her cws down hard on the side of its neck. The sound was siing—a wet crack mingled with a shriek so high-pitched that Vivienne flinched involuntarily. The serpent thrashed, its body coiling and uncoiling as it recoiled from the attack, but Rava had already unched herself back to safety, her movements fluid and precise.

  Vivieendrils shifted uneasily, their multitude of eyes sing for more threats in the dark. The serpents were not just mindless beasts; their movements were deliberate, tactical. She could feel the strange, malevolent intelligehat lingered behind their as, a kind of predatory ing that sent a spark of excitement—of hunger—c through her.

  The shadows quivered again. More shapes began to emerge, indistinct but menag, and the serpents coiled and hissed as if regrouping for another assault. More serpents emerged from the shadows, weaving through the air with meil the point from where they started was revealed. A Shadowy hydra, its form overshadowing the pair with its sheer mass, its body blog the exit behind it. Vivienne’s form pulsed and shifted, the light of her many eyes brightening as a low, guttural growl escaped her maw.

  “Whatever that thing is,” Vivienne hissed, “they don’t pn oing us walk out of here.”

  Rava’s ears fttened against her head, her cws sparking with residual electricity. “Good,” she replied, her tone sharp and defiant. “I’d hate to leave without a prht.”

  The hydra loomed, its shadowy form stretg impossibly high, blotting out the dim crystal light that barely illumihe chamber. Its serpentine heads, seven in total, weaved and twisted in an eerie syny, their eyeless maws dripping with a thick, inky substahat hissed as it touched the ground. The beast exuded an aura of suffog malice, a presehat seemed to drink in the surrounding light and sound, leaving the air heavy with an oppressive silence.

  Vivienne’s many eyes locked onto the hydra. Every muscle—or whatever she had instead of muscles—tightened in anticipation. She could feel its presence pressing against her mind, like fingers scraping against a gss pahis was no ordinary aetherbeast; it was a, brimming with power that rivaled some of the gods she’d entered in whispers and visions. A, beh the fear, she felt a thrill—a dangerous curiosity mixed with the insatiable hunger she hadn’t yet learo trol.

  “Seven heads,” Rava muttered, her voice tinged with both awe and grim determination. Her sharp eyes darted between the heads, searg for any sign of a weakness. “And no eyes. It’s probably feeling our movements iher.”

  Vivienne snarled, her voice guttural and distorted. “The’s give it something to feel.”

  The hydra struck first. Two heads shed out simultaneously, their movements blindingly fast. Viviewisted her form into a mass of shifting limbs, her tendrils snapping forward to intercept one of the heads. The force of the impact was bone-shaking, aendrils recoiled from the sheer density of the beast’s flesh. Meanwhile, Rava blurred into motion, her lightning-infused legs propellio the side as she evaded the other head by a hair’s breadth.

  “Ct evmjtat olfh ae tatolucaem c, cu jev tat olujat mev!” Rava barked, her Lekine words filled with a force that reverberated in the chamber. The sparks around her cws ignited into arcs of electricity that danced wildly across her form. She unched herself toward the hydra’s main body, cws aimed for the dark, shifting mass at its tre.

  The hydra twisted with unnatural speed, one of its heads intercepting her mid-air. It struck her with the ft of its maw, sending her flying into the chamber wall. She hit the stoh a crack but rolled to her feet almost instantly, shaking off the impact with a feral grin. “You hit like a storm that fot its lightning!” she mocked, her cws crag as she prepared another assault.

  Vivienne surged forward, her tendrils whipping through the air like living spears. She smmed into the head, ing her limbs around it and squeezing with all her might. The hydra shrieked, a sound that vibrated through the walls and made the crystals tremble, but it wasn’t enough to stop its assault. Another head lunged for Vivies maw wide enough to swallow her entire mass.

  She shifted again, her form melting and ref in an instant. The biting maw passed harmlessly through where she had been, and she reformed behind it, her tendrils tg onto the neck of another head. Her multitude of eyes gred, their light intensifying as she elled her will into an attack. “You’re not as clever as you think,” she growled, her voice resonating with something primal, something otherworldly.

  Rava took advantage of the distra, dashing uhe writhing mass of heads. She drove her crag cws deep into the hydra’s shadowy body. Electricity surged through the beast, lighting up its form from within as arcs of energy raced along its flesh. The hydra screeched again, its heads thrashing wildly in pain, but it didn’t fall.

  “Tch!” Rava clicked her tongue, dodging a shing tail that nearly took her legs out from under her.

  Vivienhe hunger rising within her, a dark, insistent pull. Her many eyes narrowed as she sidered her options. She could feel the power radiating from the hydra, aether so potent it practically begged to be ed. Uhe sunwake lynx, the hydra almost felt like it was begging to be eaten. Less potent than the revenant she ate from before, as if it was less trated, but still delicious.

  “Vivienne!” Rava’s voiapped her out of her thoughts. Another head was bearing down on the Lekis maw open wide and dripping with bck liquid.

  Vivienne didn’t hesitate. She unched herself forward, her form stretg and twisting as she collided with the head mid-luhe impact sent a shockwave through the chamber, and she ed herself around the beast’s neck, her tendrils digging in as she began to pull.

  “Distract the other heads,” she shouted the sounds of battle, the tracks of thuhe fshes of lightning, her voice a cacophony of echoes.

  Rava hesitated for only a moment before nodding sharply. “Don’t get eaten!” she called back, and then she was moving again, dodging and weaving at blistering speeds. Each strike doing not enough to do signifit damage, but more than enough to draw attention.

  The hydra’s heads snapped and twisted, some splitting their attention off from Rava to lu Vivienne’s writhing form, others swiping at the blur of lightning that was Rava as she darted through the chamber. Vivienne could feel the beast’s raw, primal fury, each head coiling and uncoiling like the limbs of a monstrous predator, a she could sense something more—a hint of desperation, hunger, as if haden in years.

  She tightened her grip, her form bending and stretg as she kept the head closest to her in a vicious hold, her tendrils anch her like roots, sinking into the shadowy flesh with surprising ease.. She felt the tension in its neck, the slight tremble as it resisted her pull. And in a moment of strange, uninvited e, she almost uood the thing. The darkness, the isotion, the endless hunger. It wasn’t unlike her own.

  But she was hungrier.

  SupernovaSymphony