Bursting through the doors to the ‘Restricted’ room they had just left, the first thing Ruban noticed was the light. The second was Dr. Visht’s prone form lying unconscious in a corner of the room.

Letting the same instinct that had been driving him for the past few minutes take control of his body, Ruban lifted his hand and threw his sifblade almost blindly just a few inches in front of the streak of light that he had first noticed upon entering the chamber. It was an Aeriel with its wings outstretched, heading towards the only window in the room – the one overlooking the courtyard with a direct view of the wrecked west wing.

The blade reached the window just as the Aeriel made to fly out into the open, shattering the iron window-sills as if they were made of cheap plastic. The weapon connected, however, pinning the creature by its wing to the wooden frame surrounding the glass window-panes. The Aeriel let out a strangled cry, trying weakly to break free even as light poured out of the injured appendage. Ruban leapt forward, pulling the blade out of the creature’s wing and with one swift motion slashing its throat before it could take advantage of its freedom to fight back.

As the Aeriel’s body crumpled at his feet, Ruban caught the all-too-familiar glint of a building energy-shell through the window, shining ominously against the thunderous sky. Adrenaline coursing through his veins, he jumped back into the room just in time to avoid the blast that ripped through the outer wall of the building, almost annihilating not only a good portion of the wall itself but also many of the metal cabinets that had stood against it.

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When the air had finally cleared of the concrete-and-metal particles that were all that was left of the beautiful glass exterior of the east wing, Ruban could make out the vague silhouette of an Aeriel floating mid-air in the gap now created by the destroyed wall. His vision was still too fuzzy to clearly make out the features of this new monster, but he could see the only thing that mattered: three tiny red marks emblazoned against the silvery whiteness of the creature’s wings, the tips almost glowing crimson.

Tauheen, the last Aeriel Queen – Ruban thought deliriously. That mythical creature that they had all read about in textbooks, but that had never actually been seen in living memory. His mind felt dazed, and for a brief second he thought he could feel himself shaking.

Then the moment passed, and he straightened, leaning slightly forward into the combative stance he would adopt before launching into any fight. At least this time he had his sifblade in his hand. He could feel Ashwin tensing behind him. Just this once, he almost sympathised with the foreigner. Ruban could hardly imagine a situation tenser than this one.

As they watched, Tauheen moved. And though Ruban knew it was physically impossible for her to have done so, it seemed to him almost as though she had teleported from her position near the destroyed wall to within an inch of his face.

With movements so swift he could barely follow them with his eyes, the Aeriel reached out and wrapping pale fingers around his throat, lifted him into the air as if he weighed no more than a child’s toy.