Power rushed through me, unlike anything I’d ever felt. Like the void had come into our world and the connection I had with it had grown to the breadth of the Hssyri itself. But, like the river, there was a chill current under the warmth of the surface.

I’d dipped into that current before. Nearly been frozen by it.

Now, it felt like it flowed through me.

That terrible presence wasn’t too far distant, but it seemed almost… less. Not less in magnitude, but less in the sharp contrast between me and it. Less in its otherness.

That feeling, almost like it found me less interesting, was what gave me pause. It was what had me sink into my own thoughts in the way I’d learned from Phaeliisthia even as I rushed through the uncertain darkness toward two—no three—burning motes of harsh light. Three lamia and their magic arrayed against my opponent.

Going closer felt like fighting a current up a waterfall. I passed by bodies, some living, and others with frost already starting to rime their scales. The elf, Ussent Andriel, was like a familiar boulder, nearly whelmed and staggering on one knee.

His eyes when he noticed me went wide, and he flinched. That moment was all it took and the darkness swept him away. I dared to look back; glittering in the distance, two familiar, painful pips of light burned at my eyes.

Painful? Burned?

I recoiled from one source of pain to move to another. Ahead was a dance of light and shadow, of expertly-woven sigilcraft and monstrous, raw power. Shadows carried me forward and I threw myself and my mass of shadows against the other darkness.

We met, and I was driven back like a river pushed by a storm’s wake. I rolled, flowed, and slid under, body light and agile—swimming in the tar-black darkness. I didn’t need the eyes in my head to see, and I searched for a weakness.

Above me, I saw a flash of blue-green scales, a strike of one of my many limbs grazing Ezyna. Immediately, I poured everything toward that one spot.

The moment I’d left an opening, foreign shadow invaded, crushing me so swiftly I felt the whoosh of air from my lungs even in the void. White flashed across my vision, and I shook as rib after rib started to snap along my body.

My head felt like it was going to explode, but I could still sense, and I wasn’t the only one suffering. Chill shadows met chill flesh, but I didn’t constrict. I’d never done that in street fights—I was too small, it took too long, and too much energy.

I preferred to bite.

I tasted Anqi’s eye on my tongue again as fangs of shadow drove into Ezyna. Her shriek rattled around my mind as I felt the pressure ease. On the first breath, I almost passed out from the pain.

On the second, a wave of light washed over me. Familiar warmth turned into burning fire and my own scream joined Ezyna’s.

I need to get away!

Burning, I scrambled on failing tendrils as hideous warmth poured into me, pulling my wonderful shadows apart and leaving me with bare scales. Foreign shadows pushed against me, and I held them back, forced them to stay in the light.

Used them as a shield.

Behind me, the screaming grew to a fever pitch before another wave of darkness rolled forth, granting me icy comfort. My tendrils started to regenerate, feeling coming back into them, even if I was a fraction of the size I should be.

Invigorated, I turned back toward the danger, knowing I’d need to kill it before I could enjoy all the meals still around me and their flickering, dying warmth that was shielded only by a weakening aura. I’d need to be fast, too, or my competition would snatch them away.

Coiling, I prepared to burst forward toward the three flickering lights, when another—one that had just been so far away—blocked me.

I swatted it aside and—

PAIN

Roaring, I closed around it.

AGONY

I pushed forward, trying to choke off its horrid screaming, but it. Wouldn’t. Die.

WARMTH

“—ssa! Issa!” Its voice was familiar, breaking across different pitches, straining with effort.

I pushed forward again, sure I would finish it off except… I didn’t move.

I shivered, suddenly cold. My lungs burned and blinding shadows surrounded me, pressing in from all sides. Somewhere, Kyrae was shouting, and the hurt in her voice was enough to start one heart beating. Then my other.

I choked on shadow, then retched, vomiting it out into the awful, blinding, freezing soup around me. I reached to try to take some, to make my own and push this dead mass off me. Instead, the whole mass moved like a half-numb limb, peeling away from my body.

I felt it sliding out between my lips, from under my scales, and dripping in streams out of my eyes. Blackness gave way to blurry vision, and Kyrae stumbling toward me. Ssiina held our sister fast, the weight of her lower body anchoring against the frigid tide. A flickering, dying halo of light with shaking, sloppy sigils surrounded them.

They were so far below me, but getting closer as I slid down through shadow, my emerald scales freeing themselves from the darkness. I felt tired, almost as tired as that night in the alley. Like the frigid mud of then, the shadows wanted to pull me down.

I hit the floor, and I passed through it. My scream turned into a hoarse croak. I threw my upper body for it even as I sank into frigid, endless cold below. Two hands grabbed mine: one from Kyrae and one from Ssiina.

They pulled me up, and they were warm. Below me, I felt floor, and the moment I slid through their still-painful aura of warmth, I threw my head forward and vomited. Black, semi-transparent ooze splattered across the floor, and when I wiped my face an even darker kind of pitch stained the back of my hand.

Before I could try to talk, Kyrae wrapped me in a hug. Like hitting the ground from too-long fall, pain from my ribs exploded through my thoughts and I slumped forward, head swimming.

Not yet!

“S-sire!” I choked, then gagged and spat out more goo. “We need to—”

“Issa!” Ssiina hissed in a quavering voice over Kyrae’s shaking sobs. She stared into my eyes, and I saw the pain in hers. “You’re hurt; we’re hurt. We need to get who we can and get out of here.”

“Ssiina!”

“We can’t fight this, Issa!”

In both rage and pain, I hissed. Kyrae squeezed harder and I swooned, biting my lip to keep my vision clear. My elven sister looked up at me, and her expression broke something. My body was hurt—I’d almost become something terrible.

But, even dissociated as they were, the shadows were mine. Fight through the pain, and I could help. A shockwave rolled over us, followed by another flash of light. The whole hall was still covered in oily darkness, but I could see through it at least a little—and more with my shadows.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

I forced my chin up. “Go then.”

“Issa—this isn’t the time! Sire would want us to escape!”

“I’m not going to die!” I hissed back, something cold in my voice.

“P-please, y-your eyes,” Kyrae whimpered haltingly. “I’m almost…” She fell limp in my arms.

Ssiina and I met gazes and her jaw hardened. For a moment, I wondered if I’d have to go through her.

She took a breath and it hitched. “G-go. I can’t stop you and save our sister.”

Ssiina slithered forward and I let Kyrae fall limply into her arms. Quickly, she made to leave, moving away from the fight.

“Thanks,” I mumbled, and I wasn’t sure she’d heard me.

Hissing out a breath and wincing from the pain in my ribs, I brought the shadows back over myself, trying to keep them from slipping inside again. As soon as the soothing cold ran over broken bones, I slipped.

Shadows plunged inside me. I wished for air, then no longer needed it. I blinked and the darkness was perfectly clear. My limited vision had expanded to all around and through me, and my injured tendrils ached for revenge against my opponent, Ezyna.

In the darkness of my realm, I sailed forth, toward the dimming lights that burned as they tried to stand against the shadows of the void. This time, I made it closer. The largest, and the brightest was in the back, hair hissing just as loud as she was while four shaking hands formed sigil after sigil. In the middle was an injured one, her light stained with darkness and flickering wildly. One arm ended in a stump, pink flesh recently healed over.

The final of the trio coiled at the front, impressive fangs bared in a snarl as she batted aside tendril after tendril. She was… familiar. Pain-but-not-pain. She shouted, and the other two, injured one almost hesitant, threw their magic forth.

As it struck, I did too. Bright magic burned with how close I got. A pressure from above scored away some of my mass and drove me to the ground, but I did not stop. I reached my opponent, shadows tearing at hers even as they burned away. Tendril met flesh, screams met air, and I pressed on until blood welled up through broken scales and screams turned to gasps.

My enemy’s eyes locked onto mine, wide and frantic and filling with black ink from the inside corners. She made one last push, one last motion of her hands, and went limp.

Then her head jerked. Her black eyes seemed hollow, and her mouth unhinged into a silent scream that gushed pure, frigid nothing. The tendril I blocked with shattered. The light from behind burned, and I tried to escape both.

The gush became a geyser, and a tearing sound preceded a blast so forceful it sent me hurtling back. I watched the foremost light stumble, then glow brighter. She screamed, a blade flashed, and the torrent ended.

From somewhere close ahead, where Ezyna had been, I could feel another, oh-so-familiar presence. Larger, immeasurably ancient, and impossibly immense. It couldn’t fit into this realm. My head, deep within shadows, pounded, and I remembered sisters, sire, tutor.

From some great font above pressure washed over me again and drove me to the floor. Blinding magic. Burning heat. Pieces of me started to fall away once more and I watched as the room reappeared through the blackness in patches and streaks. Likewise my mind seemed to clear, and I remembered… Jaezotl, what had I done to Kyrae?

No, not now. I can’t… don’t think about this now… I pitched forward, pain blurring my vision that had only just cleared as tears, black tears, started. I tried to move forward, but my broken body wouldn’t obey and again all I could do was watch. Jaezotl, I’m such a fuckup.

Ahead of me, Jii’Hssen Ssyii, Hssen Zaiia, and my sire, Tyaniis, still held against the shadows’ chill. The Jii’Hssen’s shoulders—all four of them—were slumped with exhaustion. Hssen Zaiia’s blue eyes were wide, and she looked between the portal and the others, fang toying with a lip as one hand caressed the stump where the other had been. Sire, hands moving frantically through sigils and posture proud despite her many injuries, slithered forward toward the gaping, tar-dark hole in the middle of the room.

Aunt Zaiia moved faster than I’d imagined she could have and shoved Tyaniis.

Caught off guard, Sire stumbled. She shouted something, but it was lost to the pounding of my head as her sister reached for the portal.

Shadows flowed toward the stump where Zaiia’s hand had been, and the world seemed to shudder. From the tear gushed that same frigid nothing, enveloping my aunt even as Sire tried to pull her other arm free.

Sire’s grip slipped, and she fell back onto her coils, startling Aunt Ssyii out of her glassy-eyed expression. She screamed Zaiia’s name, and then the world went dark. Like someone blowing out a candle in a room with no windows, the world just went dark.

My next breath pushed out fog, and the next brought no air in. The shadows that flowed toward me barreled through mine and over me and I shot my aching hands up to my neck. Pressure tightened all around, my broken ribs grinding against each other and several more snapping. The last thing I saw before blacking out was an immense, dragon-sized talon catching me by the midsection and a familiar, near-burning warmth wrapping gently around me.

***

Dyni slumped against the wall, breath ragged. The wound was worse than she’d thought, and the chill would put her into torpor before long. Ironically, such a state might save her life—if it didn’t also end it. She had one more dagger, and no energy left to throw it. Down below her mistress and sisters fought against a terrifying monstrosity of shadow. She glimpsed a figure within, sometimes, but could never see a face. Once, twice, she thought she’d seen a flash of emerald scales in the mass.

The bodyguard hadn’t been able to warn her mistress or the Jii’Hssen of Zaiia’s treachery, and they’d clearly assumed the traitor’s wound a casualty of their opponent.

She watched as they seemed to finally win. Only for a hole to tear open in the very air. Her mistress moved toward it, magic still somehow strong and bright. At the last, Dyni saw the traitor, Hssen Zaiia, shove Hssen Tyaniis aside and reach for the portal with her damaged arm. The moving shadows hurt Dyni’s eyes, and then the world went dark. Her cold hand gripped the dagger as tight as she could.

Above, massive wingbeats lifted into the sky—the bodyguard hoped feverishly that Phaeliisthia was taking her charges to safety. She also raged at her inability, her mundanity that saw her hardly able to form more than a few basic sigils. Not enough power to aid her mistress, not enough to get her or anyone else to safety.

In the darkness below, there was a flash. Her mistress’s magic bloomed outward for a long, hanging moment. In that brief time, she saw the Jii’Hssen, arms wrapped around herself and shaking, hair hissing wildly. She saw the stump arm of the traitor Zaiia rising over Hssen Tyaniis’s head, capped with long black blades instead of fingers.

Her mistress’s magic flared. Dyni threw the dagger.

The enchanted blade clattered down the ramp with no real force behind it. She watched it fall, hearts falling with it.

Zaiia’s twisted hand came down.

Her mistress’s construct shattered.

The world went dark once more.

Dyni choked, unable to even scream as she watched the dagger, the last little glimmer in the dark, pulse and fade away. The cold crept in, and her hearts slowed.

She tried to tell herself she didn’t care. That she’d failed and she deserved even worse.

Before she slipped into torpor, the last thing Dyni heard was a scream. A scream from the Jii’Hssen, of pure, raw anguish.

***

Phaeliisthia rose above the ruins of the Emerald Palace into a sky devoid of stars. For the first time in a thousand years, the ancient sun-aligned serpent dragon was scared. Terrified, even. Her talons shook, and she used the last of her magic to move her charges into the palanquin on her back lest she drop them. All five were alive, and that would need to be enough.

For what, she didn’t know, as the Jii’Ssyri was the only person capable of stopping such an event before the entire city was consumed.

As it turned out, Phaeliisthia was wrong. She shouldn’t have heard the anguished cry of Jii’Hssen Ssyii Ssyri’jiilits from so high in the sky. But she doubted anyone in the city didn’t hear it. Alongside Ess’Sylantziis, the Hssyri glowed. Then the Greatriver. From above, for just a moment, the ancient being caught a glimpse of what could only have been Hse’Aazh as the serpent manifestation of Jaezotl descended toward the Palace with the speed of a lance of skyfire.

A burst of magic, ancient, familiar, sigil-less magic, rocked her in the sky. In an instant, the cold terror of the rift snapped shut. The stars flashed on like an enchanted brazier, and Phaeliisthia released a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding.

Pulling her wings in, she dipped low before stopping suddenly.

Issa.

Phaeliisthia wasn’t even sure her student was herself anymore. After this… the Temple would kill her. Perhaps not if given time to think, and time for Issa to prove she had not fallen, but tonight?

Already, a green streak of magic was shooting from the Grand Temple to the Emerald Palace, far later than it should have. The Jii’Ssyri, and someone Phaeliisthia could not—and would not—fight. Keen vision showed the ancient dragon serpent the bodies around the Grand Temple, the shattered symbol of Jaezotl splayed over the main ramp inside. This is larger than we feared, much larger. To detain the Jii’Ssyri so…

Quickly, Phaeliisthia turned skyward again and picked up speed. She had to pick a direction. Upriver was remote, but no good—she’d already violated their agreement and to even suggest she could be going to the Spring… No, that wouldn’t do at all. Uzh wasn’t an option either, even if her estate was protected—by treaty she was no longer allowed near the city. Or the Empire, but to fly away from the city would be in compliance, if only just. To fly south would implicate the elves and also risk more time flying over the…

Phaeliisthia needed a place to the north, and she didn’t want to go to a desert or to Ussen Anqi Ziilant’s—a conspirator of this whole atrocity—province of Kii’Zhaal.

Ess’Lakzhiil then. The port city northwest of Ess’Siijiil along the northern coast of the Empire. Ssiina had wanted to visit anyway, although this was perhaps literally the worst time to consider such a trip. But it was as good a decision as any. Phaeliisthia turned and flew along the Hssyri toward Uzh across the terminus of the Greatriver, turned and dipped her tail outside the city, then flew north.

She both hoped and assumed Jaezotl would forgive her infirm charges’ lack of proper respect.