The fighting breaks out in an instant, and by the time I’ve even registered this fact, it’s too late to stop it.

Arrows fly toward us, and the guard Zakaiya steps forward, raising a hand. A web of light appears before us, and the arrows clatter harmlessly off the construct. Mirzayael charges forward the next instant, before the archers have a chance to draw another arrow, and her guards sprint after.

My heart breaks, dismayed. Nothing I say now will matter, not in the heat of battle. I can’t stop this; I can only try to save as many lives as possible. And that means keeping the enemy troops preoccupied. That means, I need to fight.

“WHAT’S GOING ON?” Ollie asks, alarmed. “WHY’S EVERYONE FIGHTING? ARE THEY GOING TO BE OKAY? FYRE, I’M SCARED!”

“Get back in the caverns, Ollie!” I shout, aloud as well as mentally. I summon fire to my hands as the troops clash.

[Blaze activated.]

My bonus mana ticks down, but given the amount the Dungeon Core has absorbed from the mana ore over the last few weeks, I’ve more than enough for a couple of fireballs.

On their wolves, Biorne and Alis retreated outside of Mirzayael’s range when her fighters attacked, but now are coming back in a pincer formation. The direwolves will tear them to shreds. I split my Blaze in two, one in each hand, and condense the attack, fueling more and more mana into each white-hot furnace of flame. I wait until the wolves are running full-tilt toward the battle. Then, I loose my attacks.

[Fireball spell obtained!]

The Fireballs sear toward the wolves, maneuvered by my will more than my throwing abilities. Biorne’s wolf notices first and digs its claws into the ice, pivoting and leaping to the side. The fireball impacts harmlessly in front of him even as Biorne flies from the saddle and goes tumbling across the field.

Alis’s wolf isn’t so quick to react. It notices at the last second and attempts to skid to a stop. The fireball strikes the ground directly in front of its path, blasting ice into the face of the wolf—as well as Alis. The woman cries as the wolf howls, shaking the ice and fire away and throwing Alis from its back.

“Alis!” Biorne cries.

He climbs to his feet, stepping in his sister’s direction, but Mirzayael intercepts him first. Her spear comes down at his head, and he only barely draws his sword in time to parry. He knocks her attack back, then follows it up with a lunge of his own, stabbing for Mirzayael’s abdomen.

My stomach lurches with each cut and parry, expecting her to slip, waiting for each of the sword’s strikes to be the one that takes her down. I can’t bear to watch—not that I have much time to.

Alis groans, rolling to her feet. She raises her staff to point at me, and I brace, raising my own flaming hands. What magic does she have? What’s about to come my way? The uncertainty fills me with fear as much as determination.

[Check,] Echo says in response to my thoughts. [Icebeam.]

Well that doesn’t sound good.

“FYRE!” Ollie cries. “WATCH OUT!”

His tail whips around me as Alis fires off her weapon. A blast of ice fires my way, impacting Ollie’s tail and exploding into a cascade of icicles. The spears of ice freeze to his scales.

“OH!” Ollie lifts his tail up to examine, sending a spray of ice flecks my way. I sag in relief as I get a better look: no blood. The dragon rumbles, and Ollie giggles in my head. “THAT KIND OF TICKLES!”

Alis gawks at the scene as the dragon swings the make-shift mace around the air. Then he slams it back down into the ground, shattering the lances of ice. Shaken from her surprise, Alis puts two fingers to her mouth and blows a series of sharp whistles. The wolves whip their heads in her direction. She points at Ollie.

“Strike!”

The direwolves round on the dragon.

“AH!” Ollie cries as they spring toward him. “NO! STAY AWAY!”

He swipes his tail at the wolves, and one of them catches it in its mouth. The creature bites down, and Ollie’s scream tears through my mind. Aloud, the dragon roars, and maybe it’s just because I know it’s coming from a child’s mind, but it sounds terrified.

“Stop!” I cry as the second wolf lunges for Ollie’s neck. “NO!”

But he catches the wolf with a claw, batting it aside. The first wolf still has a hold on his tail, which is now seeping red, as he desperately tries to lash it from side to side and tear it from the wolf’s mouth.

“HELP!” Ollie cries, panicked. “IT HURTS!”

I summon flames to my hands, but they’re moving too fast—I’m just as likely to hit Ollie as the wolf. I turn desperately to the Dungeon Core next, hoping I can use its powers to summon stone from its catalog or eat away the ice beneath their feet. But the battle is too chaotic. The lines are too mixed. Any of my attacks that could hit a Jorrian are just as likely to hit one of our own. Panic tears through me as Ollie’s fear spills into my mind. I have to protect him. But what can I do? I have magic at my fingertips, and I’ve never felt so helpless in my life.

A shimmer of light catches my eye. I turn in time to see Alis raising her staff, its tip glowing a cold white. She points it at Ollie, and my heart skips a beat. Check! I think at Echo, summoning a burst of flame.

[Check: Paralysis spell.]

Nek tackles Alis to the ground as her staff fires. The arc of light goes wide, flashing into the sky before flickering out.

Mirzayael is still locked in combat with Biorne. Hetlanir is guarding Beryl as several of the Jorrian soldiers target the old dwarf. Nek is trying to wrestle Alis’s staff away from her.

I can’t do any wide range attacks when the troops are mingled like this. I’ll have to get close—intimate.

“Ollie, I’m coming!” I call to him, dashing toward the wolf still trying to tear a chunk of his tail away. “Keep still!”

“IT HURTS,” Ollie cries. But to his merit, he stops thrashing.

I summon another Fireball to my hand as I race toward the wolf. I press my hands together, condensing it as small and mana-dense as I can manage. The wolf growls as it catches sight of me, releasing the tail to turn and snap in my direction. Without letting go of the Fireball, I slam the spell into the wolf’s waiting jaws.

The fire explodes. An inferno roars around me, hot wind combing through my feathers and buffeting my face.

[73 Fire damage dealt.]

My hand feels hot—painfully hot, which is a first. The wolf shrieks, a bone-chilling sound I never would have expected from such an animal. As the flash of fire dissipates, the wolf staggers away, its fur burnt away and its muzzle charred and black. My stomach churns at the sight. I did that. I burned a living creature.

The unease vanishes beneath a wave of fury as I catch sight of Ollie’s tail, a chunk of the skin hanging off, blood staining the snow.

“Ollie—” I start.

A massive white paw crashes into the injured wolf, skipping it across the ice. Ollie curls around me, keeping his trembling tail carefully still.

“IT HURT ME!” he cries, nuzzling his face toward me and nearly knocking me off my feet. “I HATE THIS. I WANT IT ALL TO STOP.”

I rub my hand over his nose, wishing I could give him the hug and physical attention he’s craving, wishing I had the time or abilities to tend to his wounds, but the fight is still raging on.

Alis blows another two sharp whistles, and one of her wolves comes loping back to her. Nek breaks away from Alis, glancing back at the direwolf heading his way. He won’t be able to defend against both of them.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Mirzayael’s guards are losing, too. They’re outnumbered and out-trained. It seems the only advantage they have against the Jorrian soldiers is that their fighters don’t seem accustomed to fighting people as biologically diverse as arachnoids and harpies. Even so, the Fyrethians are giving ground.

Mirzayael is the only one truly on the offensive. Biorne backs away with each of her strikes, bracing against her advance. Her face is twisted in a merciless grin, and she cries out in victory each time she lands a blow and cuts another line of blood from Biorne’s clothes.

But I can see something she doesn’t: With each advancing step, she’s drawn further behind Jorrian lines.

“Mir!” I shout, breaking away from Ollie. “Retreat!”

Mirzayael doesn’t react to my warning, but Biorne does. “Now!” he cries.

Alis steps away from Nek, the wolf springing between them, as she whips her staff around to point at Mirzayael. The Jorrian soldiers also break away from the scouts, opening a line of fire. Mirzayael whips her head around in time to catch the blast of Alis’s attack.

“No!” I lunge forward, summoning and hurtling a dozen Fireballs at the Jorrians. The guards scatter in the confusion, falling back toward Ollie as my attacks blast several Jorrian soldiers from their feet.

Mirzayael collapses, too.

“Mir!” I scream. Now that our scouts are separated from the Jorrian soldiers, I summon an inferno, launching it at Alis. The woman raises her staff, countering with a blast of ice. The two attacks meet mid air and explode in an eruption of steam. Fyrethians and Jorrians are sent fleeing from the super-heated air, retreating back to either side.

“We warned you,” Alis hisses, stalking over to Mirzayael’s crumpled body. “My naive brother gave you a chance to go back to your caves, and you threw that in our face. Our mercy ends here, starting with your leader.” Then she points her staff again.

I follow the direction of her attack a hair two late. I summon another fire blast, intending to counter it, but Alis’s attack is lower than I was expecting, and my fire goes high. The spear of ice heads right for Beryl.

Hetlanir dives in front of the dwarf, grabbing her and twisting to the side. The ice strikes both of them, and the pair go down.

“No!” I cry, torn between Beryl, now vanished beneath a haze of fog, and Mirzayael, who’s being dragged away by the enemy. “Let her go!”

I surge forward, but the direwolf leaps between me and the Jorrians, snarling and baring its teeth. Ollie’s head cranes over my shoulder, growling back at the beast with a sound of grating boulders.

“Hold, Alis,” Biorne says, grabbing her staff.

She scoffs. “You can’t be serious. Even after they’ve shown their true colors?”

“We are guardians, not executioners,” Biorne says. “We will take this one back home, where she will stand trial for her people’s transgressions against the gods.”

I roil with outrage. Not executioners? A trial? It’s a sham. They’re hypocrites. Bullies. Oppressors, every one of them!

“I won’t let you,” I cry, reaching for the Dungeon Core. It sits up at what I have in mind. Ice—it doesn’t particularly like ice. But the scale of what I want—now that sounds fun.

The ground rumbles. A crack in the ice snaps through the air like a gunshot. It zags across the ground, starting from my left and shooting toward the Jorrians like an arrow. Some of the soldiers flee, but they’re only running toward their deaths. The fissure opens up beneath the fleeing soldiers, swallowing their screams. It wraps around behind the Jorrians and then continues off to my right, placing a sudden chasm between them and their home. If Mirzayael wasn’t there, I would have opened the fissure beneath their feet instead.

For a moment, the realization breaks through my fury, like a bucket of water dousing my flames. I just killed people. People who had dreams. People who were in love. People who were daughters—people who had daughters. They might have been the enemy, but they didn’t choose which nation they were born into, and now they’re gone, and people I don’t even know will experience heartbreak and mourn their loved-one’s loss. Because of me. I caused that pain and suffering.

And I didn’t even hesitate.

Biorne steps back from the ledge. “This power,” he says, stunned.

“It’s Fyreneth’s,” Alis says. “They still wield her weapon; only it could achieve something of this scale. In defiance of the gods! You see, brother, it is not enough to expect them to submit. They must be exterminated.”

For once, Biorne doesn’t voice disagreement.

Alis raises her staff, and I have fire in my hands before I even realized I’d summoned it. I throw the flames her way, and she counters them with more ice, sending up another wave of steam. This time, however, a second attack shoots through the air before the steam’s had a chance to dissipate. The spell bursts between our groups, filling the sky with a thick fog. As the air thickens, I can hardly make out Ollie’s tail a few feet away.

“Back!” Nek calls through the dim. “Retreat and regroup!”

Feeling Ollie’s fear reverberate through my mind, I put a hand on his hide. “Be ready for an attack,” I tell him. “Flee back into the tunnel if they try anything.”

But Mirzayael is still with the Jorrians. What do I do? I can’t attack blindly or I might hit her. But what if they kill her while I hesitate? I need to dissipate this fog.

The ground rumbles, and this time it’s not my doing. I blast a burst of fire into the air, hoping to burn off the mist, but it stubbornly persists. It’s absurd. I can’t have all this power at my disposal and still be so useless! I should have prepared more coming into this encounter. I should have planned on them attacking. I should have—

The fog vanishes as quickly as it appeared, the spell sustaining it apparently expired. It falls away in time to reveal an ice bridge spanning the crevasse, and the last of the Jorrians racing to the other side. Even as they step back onto solid ground, the bridge behind them crumbles away, falling into the chasm. I look wildly around for Mirzayael, but she’s nowhere to be found. On the other side of the crack, a wave of ice rises from the ground and then rushes away from us, carrying the Jorrian soldiers along like driftwood caught on a crest.

And Mirzayael is with them.

I can barely make out her form, draped over one of the direwolves’ backs. My heart briefly soars, realizing they wouldn’t take her if she were dead.

Then it crashes back to the ground as I realize a more terrible truth. “They’re keeping her alive to use as a shield. So I won’t attack them. But once they’re far enough away—once I’m no longer a threat—they’ll kill her.”

And Mirzayael’s life isn’t the only one at risk. If they make it back to Jorria, they’ll tell the others Fyreneth’s weapon is active once more. They’ll march on Fyreneth’s Fortress. They’ll kill every one of them.

I can’t let them make it back to their kingdom. For the sake of all of us.

“WHAT DO WE DO?” Ollie asks.

I open my mouth. He could catch up to them. With a dragon on our side, it shouldn’t ever have been a real fight in the first place.

But he’s not just a dragon. He’s a child. A hurt, terrified little boy, thrown into impossible circumstances. It’s not his responsibility to put his life on the line. That’s what adults are for.

I close my mouth, tapping back into the Dungeon Core instead. It takes more coaxing to get the Core to close the gap. That isn’t nearly as fun as making it in the first place! But eventually, grumpily, it complies. Thousands of mana is sucked away as the glacier snaps shut.

Several Fyrethians cry out, alarmed, as the ice crashes back into itself, but I’m already on the move, running after the fleeing Jorrians.

My wings threaten to balloon out behind me as the wind snags at them, and again I desperately wish I could fly. It truly must be a cruel magic system to give me wings—to tempt me with the possibility of flight, the one thing I’ve craved my entire life—only for them to be useless. I need thrust. I need lift! I need—

The realization hits me like a punch to the gut. Thrust. I have thrust. And lift! It’s been staring me in the face the whole time. Mirzayael had even said as much: she believed I would achieve flight, but didn’t think wind arcana was the answer. I summon a Blaze to each hand as I run, and turn my palms toward the ice.

What a fool I am. All this time, so set in my ways, only viewing flight from the aerodynamic angle of my aerospace degree.

But rockets don’t need wings to produce lift.

Fire erupts from each of my hands, searing through the ice beneath me. I pitch forward, blown off my feet and throw my arms in front of me; the reverse thrust stops me from careening into the ground. Before I’ve even recovered, I flex my talons, then summon a flame beneath each of them as well. With four sources of thrust I come to a stop, hovering precariously in the air. I steady myself, bracing my arms and legs. Then I test each hand and foot, gimballing their flames. Wobbling, I spread my wings for stability, and summon another flame beneath each of them.

[New Spell Obtained,] Echo says. [Jet.]

Six searing jets of flame, one beneath each limb, and I finally feel in control. Steady. Powerful.

And I’m in the air. I’m flying. I’m really flying!

I laugh, but the sound isn’t full of delight, as I might have expected this moment to be. It’s a victorious laugh. A sad, ironic laugh.

Because I know I’ve won.

I flare my flames and pitch forward, rocketing toward the enemy.

My flight is still precarious. A missile aimed in one direction. It will take time to master this kind of flight, but I don’t need agility or precision right now. I just need speed.

I close the gap terrifyingly fast. The Jorrians look over their shoulders as I approach, and they cry out, their faces full of fear. The sight fills me with grim satisfaction. They’ll regret attacking us. They’ll regret hurting Mirzayael and Ollie. I descend on the Jorrians, prepared to do what I must.

[Role Requirement.]

Echo’s voice makes me flinch. Role Requirement? What does she mean?

[Role Requirement,] Echo repeats. [Now leaving The Dark Lord’s territory.]

[Sanity Level: 95%]

“Ah!” My flames falter as a painful static rips through my mind. I drop several feet before catching myself. Snuffing out one of my flames, I press a hand to my forehead. “What is this?”

[Role Requirement. The Dark Lord must return to her kingdom.]

[Sanity Level: 91%]

The pain is only growing worse. A sudden, lancing headache starts from my skull and shoots down my spine. A numbness immediately follows, clouding my thoughts and blurring my vision. I pinch the bridge of my nose, but it won’t stop.

[Sanity level: 83%]

My flames sputter. I fall again, still managing to catch myself before I hit the ice. The Jorrians are getting away. I can’t let this stop me. I can’t let them take Mirzayael! I push forward, desperately trying to follow, and the static erupts through my whole body like I’ve been struck by lightning.

[Role Requirement,] I hear distantly as I crash into the ice. [Return to designated territory immediately. Sanity Level: 76%]

I try to push myself up, fighting the pain of every movement. For a moment I forget what I’m even doing, staring dumbly at the snow beneath my hands, watching as snowflakes melt against my skin.

The Jorrians. I have to go after them. I look up and can make out a blur of dark colors against the white, steadily retreating.

[Sanity Level: 64%]

It’s becoming hard to think. Difficult to concentrate on anything but the all-consuming static, the overwhelming mental pressure urging me to turn back, retreat to my fortress, where I instinctively know I’ll be safe—where the pain will stop.

But even giving into that urge is starting to seem like a remote possibility.

[Sanity Level: 52%]

Darkness starts to tunnel around my vision. I have to get back. I need to protect Fyreneth’s people. My people.

[Sanity Level: 46%]

I’m crawling. Which direction, I don’t know. I just know I have to move.

[Sanity Level: 39%]

A blur overhead. Screams.

So many screams.

The darkness closes in.