Part I

0.

‘Sto—’

Silvah called on every speck of cold left within her, knowing this was her last chance to stop him. The final dregs of her power rattled against the spell chaining her down, and it broke like glass. She threw herself with a yell, slamming her fist into Ryu’s mouth before he could cast his ability and sent his front teeth flying. But not before his foot smashed into her stomach.

She groaned and dropped to the floor in the foetal position. He’d hit her open wound on her left side dead centre. She could no longer breathe, and her mouth snapped open and shut like that of a beached trout.

‘…egg!’

Asher’s voice barely reached her. She rolled over, managing a single gulp of air that her body used to cough and deposit a fat glob of blood on the auditorium floor.

She looked up.

Asher had mounted Ryu and was doing his best to keep the other from speaking. He punched and poked at the boy’s eyes. Somehow, he found a way to take off his shoe and force it into Ryu’s mouth.

The bone creature that had kicked Asher free from Ryu’s spell brandished its spear, the thick shoulder pads protecting it gleaming in the spotlights of the theatre hall. It aimed the point of its weapon at Ryu’s spirit beast, who had risen off its perch of corpses to help its master. Barrelling through the air, the wingless dragon opened its large mouth, making to swallow Asher’s construct whole. But the necromancer’s creature used its spear as a pole, vaulting over the dragon. Then borrowed a page out of its summoner’s book. Its spear drilled into the beast’s flesh, acting as an anchor, and allowing it to cling to the ethereal dragon’s back. It was like an ant climbing a giant, and the dragon slammed itself into the walls of the auditorium to free itself of the pest as it stabbed its spear into the beast’s hide repeatedly.

Though the struggle was in their favour, it wouldn’t last. Asher had no more undead soldiers walking around, and one wouldn’t be enough to kill the dragon. The fight would turn once the beast freed itself.

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Asher realised this, too. He locked eyes with her, taking one of Ryu’s punches on the chin without fazing.

‘The egg, Silvah. Grab it—’

His pupils went wide.

She followed his gaze.

Ryu had been holding the egg at the start but must’ve dropped it when Silvah struck him in the mouth because it was right in front of her. Previously, the crack running down the middle of the rugged, layered scales was just that. A crack. It could no longer be called such. Walking down the oval-shaped hole was a row of wickedly sharp teeth. They separated. Darkness greeted her from within, and two red orbs flashed to life in the blackness—

The auction hall had turned black. No. That wasn’t true. She was no longer inside the auction house.

A cave. Or a temple. She didn’t know what it was, but she was underground. Unadorned stone walls rose from all around her. The only light came from two onyx pillars, atop which rested baskets of flame.

Between them sat a giant creature if it could even be called that. It was squat and muscular and covered in fur reminiscent of that of a bat. Its long, thick, and two-fingered limbs rested on its thighs as it sat in a meditative pose.

It was asleep, it seemed. A long line of drool drooped down the side of its mouth, and wrapping around its huge form was a blanket that looked to be made from a type of leopard skin. Within the darkened patches in the patterns were clusters of eyes. Hundreds of them—some closed. Some not. Those that were open pierced directly through Silvah’s soul.

A two-pronged tail popped from underneath the covers, reaching for her. Silvah couldn’t move and was forced to watch as the sharp end of the tail stabbed through her chest.

—her mind didn’t acknowledge the appendage sticking out from the egg until she blinked. It pulsed, then fell lifeless to the floor, shrivelling up.

She gagged. More than once. Repeatedly. Her head was still on the floor when she noticed someone staring at her.

A boy.

His face had fallen.

She couldn’t tell why. She knew she knew him but couldn’t remember his name, or what she had been doing here in the first place. She watched in mute silence as another person threw the man whose face had fallen off him. There was no feeling inside her chest. Her limbs felt cold, too, and it wasn’t the strange type of cold that she had been able to call upon for power this entire night.

Above, the faded, victorious cry of a large beast crawled over her. That was bad, she knew. But Silvah—ah, yes. That was her name—simply looked up at the ceiling.

The cold swallowing her existence halted. Someone was standing over her. The spotlight falling through her corporeal form was nothing less than magic. It was her sister.

The one that should be dead.

‘I wanted to see you.’