When the island shook, Oris had already finished his breakfast and sent Vaetra on a supply run.

  She had grumbled, but eventually caved as usual. While Lio should handle the money as per the regulations, neither Oris nor Vaetra really trusted her with the money enough to leave her with more than an allowance after she blew most of it on their first mission so they shared it between the two of them.

  “A monster this early in the morning?” grumbled Oris, stepping over to the counter to set down his wooden plate and the half-empty mug of ale. He ignored the few panicked patrons running around and walked upstairs to the rest of the rooms, opening the unlocked door to the right. “Lio, wake up, or Vaetra is gonna cut down your allowance.”

  The pervasive stench of vomit and liquor originating from the half-filled bucket next to the bed assaulted Oris’s senses the moment he entered the room, but he had dug through way worse on jobs before. The blinds were closed and Lios clothes were scattered around the bed.

  Lio groaned, pulling the sheets over her head with one hand and pulling the tablet from the nightstand with the other, thrusting it roughly in Oris’s direction. “Just take it! Let me sleep off my night…”

  “You know I can’t use the tablet. Got none of the implants,” Oris replied, stepping to the window and opening the blinds to look outside at the marketplace. He caught a glimpse of Vaetra running over the rooftops, avoiding the crowds to get to him quicker.

  A web of discord, the cobbled streets of Hollowmere spread out around the nameless inn they stayed at, the market filled with wooden stalls and quickly emptying rows and paths. The wood and stone buildings around had all been newly built, the Xendarii city that once stood here having been utterly destroyed during the cataclysm. The island stopped abruptly just south of the city, heavily reinforced docks stretching outwards past the confines in the world with two ships currently docked.

  One of those ships had over a dozen guards surrounding it, trying to herd a monster back into its cage. Fire flew everywhere as the monster struggled, a set of armlike wings struggling to catch a draft to flee from below the ship’s ballonet. Black scales gleamed in the morning sun as it bit off a guard’s leg before being pushed back again.

  Lio whined softly, waving the tablet at Oris. “Get the implants, then. Incarnate magic and Xendarii technology, you’ll be unstoppable!”

  “We both know that isn’t possible. Which is also why I won’t help you undergo the Incarnate ritual,” he replied, waving to Vaetra.

  Lio pulled the tablet under the blanket and started tapping away, continuing to grumble, “You said this city was safe… we could relax… liar. Classification?”

  “Definitely draconic, fire breathing, snake with wings that look like arms with added membranes,” he listed off, ignoring Lios eccentricities.

  Lio sat up below the blanket before poking her head out, her long auburn hair that she had usually tied into a bun now chaotic and everywhere. She still had lipstick smeared on her collarbones. “Embermaw. Avoid fire and its bite, poison. Leave and I’ll get dressed- I can catch up. You’re allowed to deal with it.”

  “Don’t let Vaetra catch you like this,” Oris said, opening the window only for Vaetra to soar through, crouching on the windowsill with the backpack full of supplies in her hands.

  Vaetra was a mature woman, outwardly the same age as Oris. Athletic with a subtle hourglass shape and long silky black hair, she often got quite a bit of attention. Her outfit was a simple dark blue robe with pants underneath, both made up of magical fabrics with of black accents and silver linings. She put the backpack down and glared at Lio before turning to Oris.

  “Did you get everything you need, darling?” she asked, tugging a strand of hair behind her elvish ears.

  “Yeah, let’s go,” Oris said, reaching a hand out for Vaetra to take.

  Accepting his offered hand, Vaetra smirked. “Let’s make this quick, darling. I bought desserts.”

  She swayed on the windowsill, balancing with unnatural grace, and locked eyes with Oris. A shift ran through her body, something beyond mere movement- a ripple in reality itself. Her form blurred, collapsing inward like a shadow being pulled through a funnel, her features distorting into streaks of deep blue and black.

  For a split second, the room darkened as if the world itself hesitated, uncertain whether she was flesh or steel.

  Then, with a sharp exhale of displaced air, she was gone.

  In her place, a weapon took form in Oris’s waiting hand- a scythe with a dark blue hilt with black grips, an impossibly sharp obsidian blade sprouting from the tip with a spike at the front. The staff was wrapped in the same midnight fabric as her robes that dangled off of the end, its metal core pulsing faintly, like a heartbeat.

  “If you chip me again, you’re buying me a whole loaf of sweet bread,” Vaetras voice rang out through Oris’s mind.

  Oris twirled the scythe once, not bothering to answer Vaetra as he felt her familiar weight in his hand, her fabric swirling over his hands.

  Steadying his breath, he took a step forward and jumped out of the window.

  The embermaw had broken past the guards, running through the streets to flee to the forest to the north. He didn’t even need to adjust his fall to impact right on its head, so he didn’t need to spend any power on changing it.

  He could enjoy the weightless moment before descending, when the acceleration of the island’s gravity reduced his velocity to zero for an instant before it pulled him down again. The view was amazing: the looming forest to one side and the endless expanse of sky with dotted floating islands on the other side.

  If his trajectory hadn’t already been perfect to intercept the embermaw, he would have locked himself in space just to enjoy the weightless feeling a tiny bit longer- no matter how much Vaetra teased him. He just enjoyed it.

  A young woman ran across the street in front of the embermaw, trying to get to a safer location. She wouldn’t make it.

  Oris flexed his magic, twisting the space around himself and Vaetra, creating a boundary before accelerating himself downwards rapidly while holding Vaetra high above his head.

  The embermaw stood no chance, not even noticing Oris before his heavy-duty boot slammed into its skull, forcing its jaws closed and continuing on to crash it into the ground. Stabbing Vaetra into its back, he anchored his foot in space and pivoted, redirecting its momentum to slam against the nearest sturdy looking wall. Vaetra constructed a spatial boundary around the woman and tossed her into the alley, slowing her down just enough to allow her to keep running away.

  The embermaw punched its wings forward, forcing Oris to dislodge himself from its back, sliding across the cobbled streets an inch above the ground. He readied Vaetra with another flourish, stopping just out of the embermaws range with her pointed at it.

  A golden tint bled into his pupils as he stabbed Vaetra into the ground, her tip penetrating the cobblestone of the street, levelling her with the ground. The surrounding dust settled instantly as he tilted Vaetra and bellowed, “Bow.”

  Scrunching up its serpentine face in annoyance, the embermaw tried to slither forward before crumbling to the ground as the space around it lurched downward, compressing against the floor as its wings cracked. Blood spilled forth as bones snapped through its tough hide, a pained shriek echoing through the streets.

  “Let’s try to keep it alive,” Vaetra reminded him, adjusting the output of the spell so it didn’t break any further.

  Oris pulled her out of the stone again and stepped over to the embermaw, twirling Vaetra above his head as he debated his next move. He couldn’t leave and get someone to collect the embermaw because it’d break free once he was too far away, but Lio was probably still getting dressed.

  Stepping onto the embermaws face, he climbed up and onto its back, laying Vaetra over his lap while he focused on his magic.

  To affect something with his magic, he needed to construct a spatial boundary around what he wanted to affect which was almost trivial with himself and Vaetra but proved increasingly difficult when the target was large, complex, far away, or living- and the embermaw counted as most of those.

  So first off, he redrew the entire boundary, excluding the membranes of the wings and drawing it as tight as possible to its body. Vaetra used a quick spell to wrap the dangling fabric around her shaft so it wouldn’t get soaked in blood.

  Second, he needed to figure out the lowest amount of magic he could channel without the embermaw throwing him off, but he relied on Vaetra to modulate that more finely as his Incarnate. She knew the effect of his magic more intimately seeing as she was the literal personification of it.

  It took a few minutes before Lio showed up, sprinting down the street with her bag over one shoulder. “Oh woah… you’re…” she panted, stopping at the head of the embermaw and leaning onto it as she thought it was dead, “you’re quick… I’m… just gonna log that…”

  She wore only her grey tunic and black pants, the rest of her outfit roughly shoved into her bag alongside the tablet and her most important gear.

  Vaetra quickly weakened the power of Oris’s spell, causing the embermaws head to twitch underneath Lio’s hand, eliciting a squeak from her. She stumbled back, looking up at Oris. “Got it… okay… why didn’t you kill it?”

  “Vaetra, stop teasing her,” Oris mumbled under his breath, flicking her blade with a finger before speaking up loud enough for Lio to hear, “It broke out from one of the ships. Can you find someone who has the authority to judge over it? If you don’t show up before my stamina runs out, I’ll just kill it anyway. Whenever I can, I try to reduce costs- even if they screwed up their security.”

  “Yeah, I’ll see if I can find something in the logs,” she replied, taking out her tablet and scrolling through the database to find any mention of an embermaw that was scheduled for Hollowmere.

  The embermaw continued to growl beneath Oris, struggling enough for Lio to look up from her tablet with a scowl. “This is weird. Embermaws usually aren’t this persistent nor aggressive. I’m gonna run some tests but they may take a while.”

  “Go ahead. If no one shows up, I’ll kill it,” he replied, pulling out a cloth to clean the blood and dust off of Vaetras tip. “Vaetra, what happened to the woman?”

  “She ran away after I accelerated her. Lost sight of her as she rounded a corner but she seemed unharmed,” she replied, grumbling internally about having to stay in her incarnate form. At least she laid in Oris’s lap.

  Oris’s heartbeat hammered in his ears as he maintained the delicate balance of magic over the embermaw’s twitching form. At least he didn’t have to worry about that woman. He cast a sidelong glance at Lio, who was now furiously scrolling through data on her tablet, her brow creasing in concentration as she sought any scrap of information on this anomaly. The morning’s chaos had given way to a thick tension in the narrow alley, the scent of burnt wood and spilled ale mingling with the acrid odor of magic.

  “Anything yet?” Oris called over the low growls of the captive beast, his voice steady despite the adrenaline thrumming through his veins.

  Lio’s fingers paused mid-swipe as she finally met his eyes. “It says here the embermaw should be docile unless threatened. When threatened or attacked, they struggle shortly before fleeing if met with too much resistance. This one… it’s behaving like it’s been imbued with extra aggression, something experimental maybe. Or it’s reacting to the instability of the island’s magic fields we’ve been sent to investigate.” Her tone was laced with equal parts excitement and concern but she continued her work.

  Now that the commotion was over and the people that stuck around to watch spread the word, soft murmurs started to spread in the crowds as less and less courageous people dared to get closer to the seemingly incapacitated monster.

  One of the first people to approach was a figure wreathed in shadows, a large-brimmed hat hiding their face behind a thick veil of shadow as they raised a hand in greeting. “Stand down,” they called out, “I am Seryn from the Court of Elements. I see you have already incapacitated the embermaw. I must congratulate you on your restraint, hunter. Most would have simply killed it.”

  “Any identification?” Oris asked, stashing the cloth away and readying Vaetra for a potential fight without appearing aggressive. Even if it was just a small gesture, the few seconds where he didn’t have both of his hands on Vaetra could be lethal in a fight between two mages.

  And he had no doubt in his mind that the person in front of him was a mage.

  While they didn’t show off by keeping a bubble of magic around them at all times like most mages were taught to do, no one from the Court of Elements who had access to such obviously magical gear would be any less than a learned mage. They most likely had an Incarnate, but he couldn’t spot it.

  And anyone dumb enough to impersonate someone from the Court without being an Incarnate wouldn’t last longer than a day.

  Seryn flashed him a golden badge depicting a wheel with eight symbols, one for each island that had a seat on the council, all surrounding the number three. “Is that sufficient?”

  “Do you carry restraints for a beast of this size or some tranquilizers?” Oris asked as Seryn put their badge away. “This thing came from the ship on the harbour, third dock from south.”

  “Yes.” They strode over to the embermaw, checking over the creature. “Oris, Vaetra, and Lioran, right? Impressive showing for a team of such… ill reputation. Especially considering how little experience you have.”

  “Wow, thanks,” Oris deadpanned, stepping off of the embermaws back. He rested Vaetra on his shoulder as he walked next to Seryn, her blade an inch from Seryns neck. “What are you doing here? The Court has no residence on this island.”

  “You shouldn’t concern yourself with this. Your mission is only about this island’s rampant magic fields,” they replied, taking out a syringe filled with a black liquid, golden flakes swirling within.

  Seryn’s gloved hand paused mid-air as the syringe’s tip neared the embermaw’s snout. For a moment, the chaotic clamor of the market and the muted grunts of the subdued creature fell away, replaced by a palpable tension that seemed to hold everyone’s breath. The creature’s golden eyes reflected both fear and something like resigned understanding- as if it knew what the syringe held.

  Oris couldn’t know what the syringe held, but he knew it looked nothing like the tranquilizer that hunters got outfitted with.

  “You don’t have to do this right now,” Oris interjected, his voice low but steady as he squared his shoulders. “If we wait a moment longer, Lio might pull up more data on this anomaly. If this truly is something important, it’ll be worth more alive than dead.”

  Their glowing eyes narrowing in the hat’s shadow, Seryn glared at Oris. “This isn’t a game, Oris,” they growled, their voice laced with a confident authority, “The Court demands control and each of these living anomalies spread chaos like a wildfire. It needs to go.”

  Anomalies. Control. Oris had no idea what Seryn was talking about, but already despised them. They stood for everything he hated about the Court.

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  “Lio, take a sample of its blood,” Oris ordered without turning away from Seryn, quickly pressuring her shoulder with a rough burst of his magic to get her attention away from her tablet. “You don’t mind, right? We’ll be killing it right after.”

  Seryn continued to glare at Oris as Lio took the sample with a smaller syringe. Their eyes narrowed into tiny slits until they noticed Vaetras tip on their neck, returning to their original size. “No, I do not.”

  Oris adjusted his image of them. They were definitely a learned mage and didn’t possess an Incarnate or they wouldn’t have folded so easily.

  Unless they knew something he didn’t.

  The moment Lio finished taking the sample, Oris spun and slammed Vaetra down, stabbing into the embermaws brain with one fluid motion. He channelled his magic through her and eviscerated its brain in a burst of shattered space. It was a crude attack, but the space would heal after a while and at this size, it wouldn’t bother anyone except the embermaw. “Great. We’ll be leaving.”

  Without looking back, he lifted Vaetra back onto his shoulder and walked past Seryn, pulling Lio up.

  Lio stumbled to her feet, quickly stuffing the syringe away as she followed Oris, having to take three steps for every two of his. “Wait! Can we get my stuff from the inn first?”

  “That’s where we’re going,” Vaetra answered, turning back into her humanoid form as she took Oris’s other hand. “We’ll get your stuff and the supplies I got, then head into the forest to continue our investigation.”

  The group got their stuff and paid for their rooms without a problem before heading towards the forest.

  They got past the walls with no trouble, flashing a silver version of Seryn’s badge to the guards stationed there before following the road along the edge of the forest, stepping over the cobbled stone and sand mixture.

  To their right was the forest, gigantic trees with a canopy that let barely any light through. Despite the lack of light, the ground was still covered in abundant vegetation, making traversal difficult.

  And to their left was an expanse of plains, the edge of the island already placated by humanity- or that’s what they liked to spread. In truth, no one knew why it stopped there. It made building harbour cities like Hollowmere possible.

  Once they got far enough where they could just walk in a straight line to their destination, they turned and walked into the forest. Oris spoke up for the first time since they left the corpse. “Lio, did you get any work done yesterday or did you just get drunk?”

  That came out harsher than he intended. The encounter with Seryn still left a bitter taste on his tongue that he couldn’t keep from entering his voice. She hadn’t gotten into any trouble worse than her spending habits and her carelessness. She didn’t deserve such harsh words.

  “I worked!” Lio said, a slight blush creeping up her neck. “The few learned mages at the tavern I spoke with mentioned that there have been a lot of unusually aggressive monsters. They put multiple requests in for a hunter, but well- we only got sent here because of the unstable magical fields and not for that though… I hope they’re connected.”

  “It sounds like they may be,” Vaetra added before grabbing Oris’s hand and intertwining their fingers. She raised her other hand and showed Oris, revealing two chipped nails. “Darling, that last move of yours was imprudent. I know that they were infuriating, but please do not skip making a boundary when casting. I managed to minimise the damage to myself this time, but it’s needlessly risky.”

  Oris took a moment to consider her words before answering, squeezing her hand softly. “I didn’t want to risk shattering the boundary if I made one, and calculating everything would have taken too long.”

  “I’d rather have a headache than risk losing a limb,” Vaetra answered, stepping over a root. “Seryn hadn’t moved at all. You had the time to make the boundary and use something other than a spatial fracture.”

  He let go of her hand, taking a large step to walk slightly ahead of Vaetra. “Spit it out. What are you saying?”

  Realising that they were about to argue, Lio quickly picked up the pace, trying to avoid getting dragged into the conversation by simply not being there. She could scream if something attacked her. It was worth the risk for her. Not having to listen to people fight was worth the potential scar. Oris was good enough to save her from any major injuries.

  Maybe she shouldn’t run around alone when there was obviously something messing with the monsters here. But she didn’t want to hear them argue.

  She quickly pulled the beanie out of her bag and put it on, switching the headset hidden in the fabric on. Pulling out her tablet, she put on a random playlist from the archives that she enjoyed and slowed down a little to check the readings she got.

  She should stay in Oris’s line of sight, at least.

  “You need to be more careful with your emotions,” Vaetra said, speeding up slightly so she could keep pace with Oris, leaving Lio between the two. “You’ll get all of us killed one day if you don’t control yourself.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Not everyone can be an emotionless Incarnate like you,” he snapped back, already regretting the words as they left his mouth.

  Vaetras eyes widened in surprise, a gasp escaping her lips as she recoiled from his verbal outlash. She couldn’t believe his audacity. They had fought about this before and he knew exactly her opinion on it.

  Puffing out her cheeks, she stormed past Lio and into the forest toward the lake, leaving the two alone.

  Oris stopped, staring after her. He let his shoulders slump, unaware that he had them squared in the first place.

  Lio looked up from her tablet, not noticing that Vaetra was already gone. “Oris, it seems like there’s something up ahead. Can we investigate that before we head to the lake? It seems like a powerful monster of some sort.”

  Oris stared at her for a moment before pulling her beanie off of her head, the music audible to him for just a moment before Lio disabled it. “A strong monster ahead? Fuck,” he said before dashing past Lio.

  “Vaetra!”

  He could sense the general direction Vaetra stormed off to due to their bond and immediately headed there. The large trees making up the majority of the forest blurred around him as he sped up, his heart pounding in his chest with every step. Blood rushed through his ears as he blitzed through, branches snapping against his arms.

  It didn’t take him long before he crested a hill with his speed, revealing a crater that just kept going down- almost like a tunnel formed by something shooting straight through the rock and stone of the island. The rim of the hole bulged upwards as a circular hill from the displaced earth, hinting more at something burrowing into the rock. Burned rock and strands of glass littered the inside, hanging down into the hole.

  Vaetra knelt at the edge of it, raking her hands through the rough dirt with a thoughtful look on her face.

  “Vaetra, come here, there’s a monster around,” Oris ordered, stepping over the crest and sliding down the hillside. “Lio didn’t seem to know much, but it’s probably dangerous.”

  Fuck. He wanted to apologise and explain himself, but with an unknown monster around, he needed to be vigilant.

  She didn’t seem to notice him, continuing to let the dirt fall through her fingers. The pebbles and shards of glass pattered on the ground like rain.

  “We should be careful- Fuck, I left Lio behind,” he said, stepping down next to Vaetra. “I hope she’ll find her way here. Did you see anything?”

  She jolted out of her trance as his hand landed on her shoulder, almost falling into the hole before he pulled her back. “Oh- uh… sorry that I ran. I guess you’re not the only one who needs to work on their emotional control. Sorry…” she murmured, her eyes still wet.

  “It’s alright. Have you seen anything?” He asked again, pulling her to her feet. He really didn’t want to argue again.

  She shook her head, quickly wiping her eyes dry when he looked away so he wouldn’t notice. “I just ran here and sat down, then… then you came. I kind of zoned out. I apologise…”

  He waved her off, turning back to where he came from and looking around to see if he could spot Lio or the monster she had warned him of earlier. He couldn’t spot any signs of monsters. Although it was surprisingly quiet, as if there was simply nothing around. Maybe there was a big monster around that drove away everything else or maybe even created this hole.

  “Lio?” He called out into the forest, pulling Vaetra upwards to climb out of the crater surrounding the hole. “Lio, where are you?”

  “She isn’t as quick as you. She’s just a regular person with Xendarii implants,” Vaetra reminded him, tugging her hair behind her ears. “Does she know where you went or did you just run off without telling her?”

  He didn’t deign her with an answer, instead searching for Lio. He didn’t like admitting his carelessness to Vaetra. Seeing a gleam of metal jumping between trees, he led Vaetra in that direction. “Lio, here!”

  “Help!” Came Lios desperate cry as she stumbled through the roots, panting heavily as something crashed behind her. Trees fell, trunks snapping under something’s weight as it chased Lio. She kept running though. “Monster... behind me!”

  Oris readjusted his grip on Vaetra and pulled her up, letting her transform into her weapon form and spinning the scythe with a grim expression. He dashed back into the forest, constructing a spatial boundary around Lio and an opposite behind himself a foot above the ground in the crater. Channelling his magic through both boundaries at once, he breached space between the two and swapped the spaces within the boundary, teleporting Lio to safety. “Take cover!”

  Lio immediately threw herself into the crater, peering over the edge of it as she tried to catch her breath. “Big thing... don’t know what,” she panted out, grabbing her tablet from her bag and starting to look through the archives for any match to what she had seen. “Angry looking.”

  The forest stilled the moment Oris teleported Lio, the sound of snapping branches and cracking stones vanishing in an instant. Even the otherwise constant buzz of insects and the calls of birds from the crown of the forest was gone, replaced by an unnatural silence that made Oris’s heart race. He looked around, searching for anything that could tell him where the monster was.

  “Lio, anything?” he asked, sweeping his gaze over the forest.

  She tapped away at her tablet, cursing under her breath as she found nothing. No mention of a monster this size on the island or any she had visited before. She hadn’t gotten a good look at it, only caught glimpses and heard the growling. It sounded like those big birds that made sharp, shot-like sounds but it made the sounds in a long series almost resembling a growl.

  She whined softly, slamming her finger on the tablet repeatedly to flip through archive entries. “No, nothing!”

  As all the magic in the area suddenly disappeared, sucked towards the forest where Lio just came from, Oris motioned for Lio to back up. Whatever this was, it was something huge that gathered massive amounts of magic for something- probably an attack.

  “Back up.” Oris growled, his voice a low command that vibrated through the suddenly still forest.

  Lio jerked her head up from the tablet, eyes wide as she backed away slowly, her breath hitching in her throat. She wasn’t as sensitive to magic as Oris but even she noticed that the magic that had once danced in the leaves and whispered in the wind was now gone- replaced by a sudden oppressive silence.

  Before Oris could issue another order, the earth beneath them trembled, a deep, resonant rumble reverberating through the ground as the only sound in the silence. He stayed quiet, trying to find a hint of the monster amidst the woods.

  A few moments later, the silence shattered. Not from the forest ahead of Oris, but from the opposite direction. A loud roar rang out, threatening to burst the groups eardrums by sheer volume. Up high in the air, Oris spotted a towering figure contrasting heavily against the sky.

  Titanic wings flapping in the winds much too slowly to support its lumbering hulk, clad in scarlet scales gleaming in the morning sun. This could only be one thing- and Oris knew it way too well. The slow beats of its wings sent waves of motion through the surrounding treetops with showers of sparks raining down on the canopy.

  A red dragon.

  Its draconic head hung low, slitted golden eyes narrowing in sadistic glee as it recognised him.

  “Fuck,” he growled, turning around and nervously twirling Vaetra in his hand, searching for a spell to escape it again. “Lio, behind me.”

  “That’s-“ she tried to argue, only to get interrupted by another roar from the red dragon as it dove towards them.

  A deep-seated, instinctual fear clawed at Oris’s soul, freezing him long enough for the red dragon to gather momentum. Oris blitzed through the spell again and teleported Lio behind himself as he readied Vaetra. “Any ideas?”

  “Run,” Lio said, glancing behind herself nervously.

  Vaetra answered “Dodge its first strike, then run.”

  Glaring at the red dragon barrelling towards them, Oris mulled over his options before deciding to go with Vaetras plan. He constructed a boundary around the three of them and nervously kept adjusting it. He needed to wait until it was close and fast enough that it couldn’t readjust its strike but early enough that it couldn’t follow up with another attack before they were gone. He had a very slim window to succeed. Lio wasn’t as quick as him or Vaetra- although he’d probably just carry Vaetra in her weapon form anyway. He didn’t have the stamina to teleport them completely out of danger.

  He waited, Lio grabbing his arm and trying to pull him away but failing.

  It roared towards him, reaching its full momentum moments before he teleported the group away, just outside of its reach. As he looked back, its head was already arched towards him, the lips stretched in a macabre mimicry of a smile that revealed rows of needle-like teeth. Its smile quickly changed into a pained yell as something impacted its head, arresting its momentum in an instant.

  Jumping out of the dark fringe of the forest, throwing trees and rocks everywhere, a lumbering shape arrived. Its form cloaked in swirling tendrils of residual magic, it seemed almost like a mass of smoke, but as it rolled into the crater with the red dragon as a snarling ball of teeth and claws, the smoke billowed off and revealed distinct features: burning eyes that glowed like molten rubies, horns that curved like crescent moons, and a scaly hide mottled with scars and ancient runes. Its presence sucked the remaining warmth from the air, leaving the immediate area with an eerie chill despite the heat wafting off of the red dragon.

  “Oris- What is that?” Lio gasped as they ran across the edge of the crater, clutching her tablet to her chest. Rocks and wood shattered against the ground as they circled the battle of titans.

  He let go of her hand, gritting his teeth as he realised just how little magic he had left to fight. That one spell took out a lot more than it should have. “You’re the archivist. Can’t you tell me?”

  The dragon’s chest bloated outwards as it gathered its breath, magic billowing off of it in thick wafts as it prepared its trump card. The other monster didn’t just wait. It bit down on the dragon’s shoulder and raked its claws over the dragon’s back to find any purchase on its scaly hide, jerking its head up to try and rip a chunk straight out of the dragon.

  Trails of fire spilled forth from the dragon’s mouth, spilling over like a fountain as it gathered more and more strength to try and kill it in one strike.

  “There’s nothing anywhere- at least where I’ve been,” Lio said, her eyes darting over screens only she could see.

  With a defiant roar, the dragon managed to twist itself free from the monster’s jaw and released its stored up breath as a torrent of flames, bathing the crater in blinding light as it streamed off of its hide. The parting flames revealed its figure, unmarred by the fire.

  “Lio, what’s the order?” Oris snarled, anxiously waiting for authorisation.

  She kept reading through countless texts, searching for any mention of the monster in front of them. She needed to make a verdict, tell Oris what to do. “I- I don’t know!”

  The monster slammed its claws down onto the dragon’s head, staring straight at the three waiting. “Prey,” it snarled, its voice a deep rumble that reverberates through the clearing.

  The dragon kept struggling beneath the monster, its tail whipping around and forcing the group to put more distance between them.

  “I am getting no responses! We- Can you even kill it?!” Lio shrieked, struggling to keep up with Oris.

  As a particularly vicious blow from the dragon made the island shake, a wave of dirt erupting around it from the sheer recoil, Lio stumbled and rolled halfway down the crater.

  Oris sprinted after her and grabbed her, picking her up in a bridal carry in one smooth motion. Holding Vaetra in the hand supporting Lios back, he kept running. “No, not now. Can’t even kill the dragon. Almost out of magic as well.”

  Just as the last word left his mouth, his entire world lurched, twisting around him in a sick perversion of his own innate magic before catapulting him into the hole.

  He slammed into the side of the hole, blacking out momentarily.

  Waking up only moments later, he found himself falling down a hole, darkness surrounding him with only a little light at the top. Lio clung to him as Vaetra had a tight grip on his hand.

  “Oris!” Vaetra shouted, pulling herself close so the three were together. “Up!”

  “I can’t!” he yelled back over the rushing wind, wrapping his arms around the two of them. He stabilised their fall, preventing them from hitting the walls again. “I’m almost tapped. I can stop us from becoming pancakes though.”

  “Oh fuck, fuckfuckfuck,” Lio cried, burying her face in Oris’s chest as they kept falling. “I’m sorry. Sorry.”

  Vaetra sighed, the sound so unnaturally domestic given their situation. “We’re going to be fine. We’ve survived terminal velocity before.”

  That didn’t help calm Lio down at all, her frantic cries only increasing in frequency with each second until at some point she kept just whimpering into Oris’s chest.

  Falling through an island was terrifying at first but with nothing to do except wait for the bottom of the hole, their fear quickly morphed into anxiety. Vaetra turned back into a scythe, preparing for the inevitable end of their fall.

  Oris meanwhile, turned his thoughts inward.

  The entire fight had been a disappointment to Oris. He wasn’t even the dragon’s target, just something that was apparently in its way. Once the two titans engaged in their brawl, he could do nothing but run and keep the others safe.

  His magic didn’t respond to him like it was supposed to either- drawing a lot more power from him for simple spells and effects.

  Then there was light. In an instant, the seemingly endless hole that they had been falling through opened up, spitting the group out of the bottom of the island.

  “Well, this might be a problem,” Oris deadpanned, looking around for any islands passing underneath them. He constructed a boundary around themselves and flung them towards the nearest island, a large jungle atop an oval island of volcanic rock.

  Lio yelped again, tightening her hold on Oris as she felt their trajectory change.

  They continued to tumble through the air, Oris using the barest minimum of magic to keep them steady. “We’re gonna be fine, Lio,” He yelled, trying to make himself heard over the sound of the rushing winds, “It might be rough, but I can slow us down.”

  With nothing to do but stare at the endless expanse of sky dotted with floating islands, the fall towards the jungle island passed deceptively slowly. It was almost boring, tumbling through the air knowing that their landing was going to be just fine.

  He reconstructed the boundary, tightening as much as possible. Finding himself already mere miles above the canopy of the jungle once finished, Oris quickly started to slow their fall with what remained of his magic.

  The first branch on their way hit him directly in the head, arresting some of their momentum but sending them spiralling through the trees, leaving Oris with a splitting headache. He tried to slow themselves down further but failed as he found himself completely tapped, bouncing from branch to trunk to the ground.

  With a soft thud against the ground, he passed out.