The Wraiths cws flexed. He could fight. He could kill. But he was wounded, poisoned, outnumbered. He would not st long.

  The leader of the Elven Sentinels stepped forward, her silver armor gleaming in the moonlight. "Surrender," she commanded. "There is no escape."

  The Wraith merely grinned. "Escape is what I do best."

  Without another word, he pivoted and sprinted toward the nearest window. The guards surged forward, realizing his intent, but they were too slow. He hurled himself into the gss, bracing for impact. The stained gss shattered around him, a rain of jagged shards catching the moonlight as he plummeted into the open air.

  The cold night wind rushed past him, the ground far below racing up to meet him. He felt the venom burning deeper, his limbs heavy. But he could not fail now. Not after everything.

  With a deep breath, he let go of Battleform. His body shifted, bones twisting, flesh morphing. His skin darkened, rippling into something almost ethereal. Enormous, membranous wings burst from his back, their midnight span catching the air just before he could crash into the earth. The transformation to Wingform burned, but the pain was nothing compared to the alternative.

  He pulled up, the rush of wind howling in his ears as he shot forward, soaring away from the castle. Below, the Elven Sentinels stood at the shattered window, watching helplessly as their quarry vanished into the night.

  The Wraith had escaped. But the hunt was far from over.

  The moment his wings caught the air, he felt a surge of exhiration flood his veins. Despite the pain ncing through his battered body, despite the venom gnawing at his strength, the joy of flying was intoxicating. This was where he felt most alive—soaring through the sky, unbound, free. The city below blurred into a dark tapestry of buildings and alleyways. The wind roared past him, rushing through the thin membrane of his wings, sending a shiver of pleasure through his form. In Wingform, he was untouchable, a shadow against the night.

  But the Aguir Elves would not let him savor it for long.

  A piercing screech shattered the tranquility of the sky. He knew that sound well—Nightwings. The monstrous bats were the perfect hunters, creatures of the dark bred for speed and endurance. He twisted in the air, his sharp gaze catching the first of them cresting the edge of the fortress, its massive form framed against the moon. The beast’s rider, cd in obsidian armor etched with glowing runes, pointed a spear in his direction. A flicker of emerald energy danced along its length.

  Then, the sky ignited.

  A bolt of necrotic energy ripped through the air toward him, leaving a wake of bckened mist. The Wraith banked hard, his wings folding close to his body as he dropped like a stone. The bst whizzed past, searing the space where he had been a moment before. He fred his wings at the st second, catching the wind and leveling out just above the treetops. The scent of scorched ozone burned his nostrils.

  The elves gave chase, the Nightwings diving after him with deadly precision. They were fast, but he was faster. His body twisted effortlessly, shifting his weight with every tilt of his wings, weaving through the sky like a phantom. The air was his domain. No ground-bound warrior, no castle wall could hold him, and even now, with death cwing at his heels, he could not help but revel in it.

  A second spear fshed through the darkness, trailing green light. The Wraith spun mid-air, his wings sweeping in a tight spiral that carried him just out of reach. The projectile smmed into the trees below, exploding in a burst of withering energy that turned leaves to ash. He grimaced. A single direct hit would be catastrophic.

  More shrieks filled the night. Five, no—six Nightwings pursued him now, their red eyes burning like embers in the gloom. Their riders urged them forward, their bckened armor blending seamlessly into the darkness. The Wraith clenched his jaw. He needed to outmaneuver them, to take the fight somewhere they couldn’t follow as easily.

  The forest.

  Tilting his wings, he angled downward, plummeting toward the dense canopy. The Nightwings followed without hesitation, their monstrous forms slicing through the air in deadly pursuit. The Wraith narrowed his eyes, calcuting his trajectory with split-second precision. A gap in the trees—just wide enough.

  He folded his wings tight against his body and dove through the opening. The world became a blur of rushing leaves and snapping branches as he twisted through the byrinth of limbs. His wings unfurled in controlled bursts, guiding him through impossibly narrow spaces, his speed unrelenting. This was where his agility shone—where he became more than a shadow. He was the wind itself, untouchable.

  The elves hesitated at the treeline. Their mounts were rge, their wings too broad to navigate the thickets as easily. But one rider pressed forward, his Nightwing folding its wings as it plummeted after him, the beast’s shriek splitting the night.

  A mistake.

  The Wraith pivoted mid-air, eyes fshing as he shed out. His cws struck the rider’s chest, tearing through enchanted armor like parchment. The elf let out a strangled cry as he tumbled from his saddle, his spear slipping from his grasp. The Nightwing shrieked in distress, its connection to its rider broken. Before it could recover, the Wraith spun away, leaving it floundering in the dense canopy.

  Above, the remaining elves cursed in their native tongue, circling like vultures. Their spears crackled with necrotic energy, but they dared not fire blindly into the trees. They would have to pursue on foot. He had bought himself time—but not much.

  His breath came fast and ragged. His wounds burned. The venom in his veins pulsed with every heartbeat, threatening to steal his strength. But he could not afford to slow.

  He could see the city below, its sprawling streets and towering spires shrouded in darkness. The city pulsed with life even at this te hour. Lanterns flickered along the main thoroughfares, merchants closed up their stalls, and beggars huddled in alleys, whispering among themselves. The Aguir Elves maintained strict rule over their domain, but a city was a city—filled with pces to disappear, provided one knew where to look.

  And the Wraith always knew where to look.

  He descended swiftly, his wings folding as he dropped into the shadow of a looming bell tower. The rooftops spread before him like a broken, uneven sea, their surfaces slick from the night’s mist. Moving quickly, he leaped from one to another, his movements near silent, his dark form blending with the night. He had memorized this path long ago, prepared for the moment when he would need a pce to hide—if only for long enough to secure the scroll.

  The scroll. The reason for all of this.

  His cwed hand instinctively went to the satchel at his side, feeling the parchment within. It was critical to his pn. The pn that would change everything.

  His destination y ahead—a crumbling temple nestled in the city’s underbelly. Once a pce of worship, now long abandoned, its walls coated in ivy, its grand doors warped with age. Few ventured here; the superstitious feared it was haunted, cursed. That made it the perfect hiding pce.

  Slipping through a broken window, he nded softly within the temple’s hollowed-out interior. The air smelled of dust and decay, thick with the whispers of forgotten prayers. He moved without hesitation, stepping over rotted pews and shattered stone. Toward the altar at the back, past the tattered remnants of tapestries once depicting gods long forsaken.

  He reached the far wall and knelt, brushing aside debris and loose stones. Beneath, hidden within the temple’s foundation, was a small, carefully carved compartment. He had created it weeks ago, foreseeing the need for such a pce. With steady hands, he pulled the scroll from his satchel, wrapping it in an oiled cloth before pcing it inside. Then, he slid the stone back into pce, ensuring no sign remained of its disturbance.

  It was done.

  The task had been completed, but the weight of urgency settled over him like a dark cloud. His senses fred to life in response to a noise from outside, sharp and invasive. The unmistakable sound of boots striking wet cobblestone echoed through the narrow alleyway, the heavy, rhythmic thud a signal that something—someone—was approaching. The murmur of elven voices soon followed, low and cautious, blending with the quiet rustle of the wind. The city guard. They were sweeping the streets, moving with purpose, their voices just a touch too close for comfort. Searching.

  He had no time to waste. The danger was closing in, and his escape was the only thing that mattered now. Every fiber of his being screamed for action.

  His body trembled, a subtle yet unmistakable shift that rippled through his form, like a wave passing through a pool of still water. It was the feeling of his physical self slipping away, unraveling and fading into something less tangible. The sensation was always unnerving—his muscles loosening, his flesh disintegrating into mist, and his bones becoming little more than a memory of structure. It wasn’t true teleportation, not the way mages spoke of it. There were no blinding fshes of light or arcs of energy. No, it was something more subtle, more ethereal.

  The world around him blurred, the air thickening as he relinquished his solidity. He could feel the essence of his body stretching, thinning, stretching again until it was nothing more than a wisp of vapor. It wasn’t perfect—there were limitations, strict boundaries that kept him from taking anything with him. He could leave behind his physical form, but that was all. The scroll, the very object that had driven him to such lengths, stayed behind. If only he could take it with him—he had thought about it countless times. But as, the nature of his escape demanded sacrifice.

  So he let go of the scroll, let it remain in the physical world as he dissolved into the nothingness that awaited him. His senses, now devoid of all but the most basic perceptions, felt the world around him lose its grip. It was like slipping through a veil, passing through cracks in the fabric of existence itself, his form melting away. A shadow in the night, a fragment of a dream, he drifted silently through the unseen pathways that only he knew, weaving his way home as the city continued its search, oblivious to the fugitive who had already vanished from their grasp.