[Note from the Haelionthyne, the Original Author of The Hybrid: Chasing Destiny: This novel is only published and freely available to read on My Patreon, Royal Road and Tapas. Support me directly with your readership there. No other websites or reading platforms have my permission, express or blanket, to publish my novel or distribute it further.]

Ava waddled up the staircase back to her room, chewing a piece of bread lacklustre. She was not hungry, but she needed to show all these fresh new guards a reason for her impromptu visit to the kitchens.

Pilfering from the people who housed and guarded her did not sit well. But she needed to stock up on food without raising an alarm.

Beast’s presence at her side had been valuable in keeping the guard a bit more distant so she could do it successfully. The saber cat had been irritable lately, hissing and growling at anyone who stepped too close. Part of it had been at her request but the other part was due to how uncomfortable Beast had become with the unbearable heat. He had been shedding like mad, leaving tuffs of fur floating everywhere.

With enough of the poison now in hand, Oswin, Graeyson, Elise and Eliza had managed to engineer an antidote that nullified all three of the effects. She just needed her wound to close, but her recovery was far too slow and painful.

She felt every ache now with each careful step. The peaceful haze over her mind disappeared along with the fountain’s song. The tune was still stuck in her mind though. It was a beautiful song whose words she could not recall but all the feelings within it remained. She caught herself humming it mindlessly sometimes.

She waddled to her door and opened it. Then suddenly, she was forcibly pushed into the interior. Her stitches stretched and she grimaced in pain as she stumbled inside, struggling to regain her balance without ripping them. The door slammed behind her, and she turned at the sound of the lock falling into place.

Bethany stood before it, panicking and panting, pushing against it as it rattled from Beast’s growling thrusts. She heard guards shouting from the other side.

“Get out!” Ava grunted, stifling the rage that flared up.

Lady Bethany had some gall to show up after everything she had done. It was enough that she had to keep quiet about it so as not to ruffle the wrong feathers. Kael and Caeden needed Raeburn’s support and Bethany’s mishap had put the King of Everard in a weakened political position, making him more open to negotiation. The empire’s never-ending dance was exhausting and getting on her nerves.

Ava nursed her wound and pushed the noblewoman out of the way to unlock the door.

Bethany removed her hand from the lock.

“Wait!” she said desperately. “I have come to broker a deal!”

“What?” Ava blurted, utterly dumbfounded by the suggestion.

“Let me speak plain, demonkin. You can have Prince Caeden – and the Queen’s throne if that is what you want. I will not interfere with your plans for him. But let me have Kael. Give me the power to hold sway over him again and I will help you accomplish your aims,” she panted breathlessly.

Ava stared at her in utter shock, incapable of comprehending this woman’s state of mind. Was she willingly trying to sell out the Empire, including the man she claims to want, to someone she considered a demonkin?

“You’re insane. Leave, I said.”

Ava turned to enter her bedroom and hoped to lock herself in until Bethany left. She was getting faint and there was a ringing in her ears. She had little energy left to deal with this woman’s madness.

“No!” Bethany shrieked and reached for her arm. The noblewoman’s nails dug into her skin. “I will lose everything! I cannot become a nobody!”

“Let go of me!” Ava grumbled miserably.

Bethany’s ambition was overwhelming. She was the daughter of a King. Regardless of whether she married into the Imperial family, she would never be a nobody.

Ava doubled over. Her skin crawled and a pit of fear coiled in her stomach. She felt dread and alarm, but not from the lunatic woman standing before her.

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The ringing turned to screaming, so loud she had to block her ears. She smelled something burning in her room.

“What is wrong with you?” Bethany asked with a haughty brow, her mania changing into wary curiosity.

Ava pushed the woman out of the doorway. A pile of ash was left dumped on her bed. Her bedding smouldered around it, igniting into small patches of flame. Her brow creased with confusion at what she was seeing.

“That was not my doing,” Bethany blurted self-consciously, picking up a cushion in the sitting area. “We need to put it out before the room catches fire.”

Ava stopped the woman before she bounded to the bed, cushion held high. She remembered Prince Caeden’s report about the piles of ash he found in The Haunted Keep, and how he suspected them to be the Fiends rumoured to be wandering the Ashen Fields. But those were inert, just harmless piles. This one was aflame, screaming and in pain. Its jumbled thoughts blared into her mind.

‘Pain! Kill! No! Break… the Bond.’

The ash pile shifted, falling to the ground like sands rolling down a hill. Two malformed legs and torso constructed themselves from the roiling pile. Then two misshapen arms and a deformed face appeared from the smoldering mass. A red rune glowed hotly at its chest, and she recognised the feel of a mortal soul within.

The soul seemed to strain against the body it found itself in. Each moment the unnatural bond continued was a torment it desperately sought the release of freedom from – the freedom her death could provide.

It lifted its hand, and warmth radiated in the air around it. It dithered between its conflicted and confused thoughts, fighting against itself on whether to attack.

“Move to the door, now!” she whispered to Bethany.

The woman was frozen in place, mouth agape as she stared at the fiend. Ava grabbed her arm to push her slowly to the door.

“No!” Bethany screamed, ripping her arm from Ava’s grip and pushing her toward the ash creature. “I will not die because of you!”

The creature flinched at her shriek and fire flared from its arm. Ava fell to the ground as her stitches ripped and her wound reopened. She stifled her painful grunt and crawled swiftly toward the balcony. She could feel the heat of the fire pass above her back and stiffen the material of her shirt.

Bethany screamed, the sound ringing in her ears. She could not see, but she knew as she braced against the balcony wall outside that the noblewoman had been caught in the fire stream.

Fire poured from the balcony doors, the heat causing her sleeve to darken and smoulder before catching alight. She furiously smothered the small fire and moved over the railing and along the ledge. She scanned the area for an easy escape, the closest cover she could find was the mountain lion statue built into the golden wall.

She clambered over the body and braced herself against another fire stream.

It careened against the statue, whorls of fire swirling over the side. Licks of flame burnt through her shirt and seared her skin. She shrunk further down to avoid the heat and fire. She hissed and groaned against the onslaught.

She felt the cold around her heart again. It was weaker than before, but a small gust picked up around her. Her arms trembled and strained against the icy magic building within them. She stifled it down, too afraid to lose the function of her arms while she was balancing on a ledge.

Ava heard a crack and crash from within her room.

“Gods! Ava! Where are you?” she heard Caeden yell.

“Here!” Ava gritted out through the bombardment.

She heard the ash fiend groan in pain, and she hazarded a look over the statue and saw Caeden facing the creature behind a shield, her sword in hand, while ice shards flew around him into it.

Flecks of ash flew off the creature where the shards made an impact, only to return to the spot and reform. The creature hesitated uncertainly. Its broken thoughts sought permission to attack its champion.

It was granted, judging by its sudden focus thoughts and it lifted its hand toward Caeden. The prince lifted his shield, bracing for impact. Her heart hammered in her chest, and she moved desperately along the ledge and grabbed into his shoulders. She felt them stiffen at her touch.

“Go back to cover, damn you!” he gritted out at her.

She clung to him tightly. She knew she was allowing her fear to overrule her common sense, but she could not seem to let him go and find safety.

Caeden grumbled with annoyance but backed up towards her, sharing the cover of his shield.

The ash fiend moaned, torn between twin minds. She felt it tug at her soul.

‘Break… the bond. Please… release me,’ it pleaded.

“What is wrong with it?” Caeden whispered, more to himself than her.

“It is in pain. We need to – break the bond it has with this ash body,” her voice broke.

“How?” she heard Elise ask within her room.

She covered Caeden's sword arm with her hand and pointed the sword toward the creature’s glowing rune. Would this work the way Oswin’s magic did with her diamond-crust arrows?

She tried focusing the frost she was stifling into the sword, her arm trembling from the exertion. The blade frosted over and steamed like hot ice. In the blink of an eye, the blade extended forward, slicing through the ash fiend’s sigil.

The rune on the creature’s chest turned pale blue and shattered along with the sword’s icy extension. She felt instant relief pour from the soul before dissipating into nothingness.

Caeden groaned and dropped the hybrid sword, his hand red from the ice she had poured through it. He held his wrist as it shook uncontrollably.

The world spun and she felt herself falling. Caeden grabbed at her, pulling her over the railing. His grip was punishing.

“Ah! Do not do this to me now,” she heard him mutter. “Stay with me!”

She tried to fight through the dizziness. She was still conscious, she thought. She could still hear the people milling about her in panic and could still smell burnt wood and flesh but could not feel anything. She was floating through her half-darkened room. Time had stopped.

“I cannot see! Kael...” She heard Bethany croak, afeared. And then… silence.

“Accursed woman, why could you not stay in your room like I told you to?” Kael lamented a moment later.

“Caeden, what happened? Is everyone well?”

She must have lost consciousness because she started awake to the sound of Lady Ella’s voice drifting to her in the grand staircase.

“No, mother. I warned you. You were to send that woman home,” Caeden responded, his jaw stiff with frustration.

She heard the clip-clap of Lady Ella’s footsteps moving swiftly down the hall.

“That girl is not safe here,” Queen Aileen stated. Her voice was even, matter-of-fact and lacked the fervour she had heard in it before. “We are not safe with her here.”

“I know,” Caeden agreed.