Lilau awoke in the air, her mind grappling at the reason she floated. Her arms flapped a steady rhythm at her sides as she bobbed in mid-air.

Our body.

The thoughts flowed like hot water, infiltrating every part of Lilau. Her consciousness sharpened to a point as her host shared its knowledge with her.

Simurtahl, the desert Fokla of life and rebirth, whose sole purpose was to protect the Spirit Tribe from spiritual forces. Yet, it keened, it could do nothing about the physical. Your power gave me physical form. I give that form to you. Destroy that which I could not. A heavy sorrow descended. Too long had its people suffered, called out to it. Too long had it battered itself against the veil between worlds. Hope and anger rose, burning away its sadness. Now was the time for revenge.

Flame enveloped Lilau once more, yet these she could control. These were a part of her.

The metal City stretched below, dots of living essence shining among dead steel. A red creature, awash in blue light, flinging people as if tossing pebbles, moved toward the center dome.

Not the center, Simurtahl thought. Not yet.

Lilau looked toward one of the remaining towers. Her allies on the other side had stopped their pacing and now stood with their faces upturned, hands in the air, and knees on the ground in supplication. She eyed the tower, the blockade keeping her allies from their goal, and screeched. The structure took what didn’t belong to it with no regards to the cost. Such a thing should not exist.

Lilau breathed in, arching her neck as essence pooled in the back of her throat. With another screech, the essence broke free, flying in a ball of light. It collided with the shield around the City, and for a moment, stopped. The hum grew deafening, then sputtered out. The tower had little chance. It collapsed on itself as the ball of essence split it in two. A cloud of dust covered the debris from view.

Lilau pivoted with a flap of her wings, bringing the last tower, and the City’s last defense against the outside, into view. No allies waited on the other side of this one, but its existence was an affront. Its great height became twisted metal in an instant. The shield fizzled out for good. Nothing kept her from her enemies.

She folded her fiery wings and dove at the dome. Tubular veins fed into the metal half-sphere, pulsing Earth’s Blood into the unnatural heart of those who dared take what wasn’t theirs.

Talons bit steel, and steel gave way. Lilau tore at the dome, leaving deep grooves in her wake. She hated the thing, hated the way the veins in its sides pulsed, hated the smell of hot metal under her feet, hated hearing the cries coming from underneath.

A roar, full of all the wrath she felt, came from beside her.

Tirijuki, now tall as a tree, attacked the veins feeding the heart with all six limbs. The fox Fokla’s eerily person-like shape and jagged bone mask sent ice through Lilau, but it melted quickly in the inferno.

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The metal groaned beneath her weight. A metallic scream echoed out as the dome collapsed, splitting apart to reveal its guts. Iron bars enclosed a series of underground cages, where people covered in filth peered up at her with awestruck, terrified eyes.

Our people, Simurtahl corrected.

Lilau didn’t bother acknowledging it. Whoever they were, her talons were far too big to tear the bars free without killing those locked inside.

Tirijuki leaped into the split dome and went to work. Lilau had better prey.

City citizens, armed to the teeth and beating back the camp fighters, had shifted their focus to the dome when the Fokla hit, and now gaped at the raging spirits. Narasten’s haughty children never learned.

Simurtahl’s consciousness filtered further into Lilau’s. The Fokla would not be denied the feel of the blasphemers between its talons, or the taste of their blood on its tongue.

Lilau-Simurtahl struck. Red-hot fury and bloodlust merged into mindless destruction as people fell. Narasten’s children had been given more chances than they deserved, yet returned to their sickness again and again.

No!

Lilau writhed in Simurtahl’s essence, wresting control from the furious Fokla a moment before its talons closed in on a group of three Great Cats and riders bearing Spirit Weapons. The riders’ faces paled as their cats hissed and jumped away.

She forced Simurtahl into a hover.

The Fokla, its rage denied, lashed out at her, sending electric shocks through her essence. Blasphemers, it raged. All must die, or they will continue to destroy!

These are not our enemy, Simurtahl. They are here to help the Spirit Tribe escape. They are here to arm them.

For now, Rae-Lini. To consume is their nature. A beast always returns to its nature in time. Even the Fokla must follow their course.

I know nothing of the future, but I know these people. They have lost so much to their own tribe to help another. They don’t deserve your hate.

You have not lived history. Their children’s children will forget, eventually.

But these people will not.

Shards of pain dug in. Lilau cried out as Simurtahl’s attack, its body screeching and drawing back in response. She pulled the fire keeping its body solid toward herself, leveraging it to keep it facing away from the fleeing outcasts.

The Great Cats scattered and bounded away toward the broken dome.

Simurtahl would not be cowed so easily. Neither would she. The outcast Cat Tribe had suffered enough, struggled enough, to get to this point. She wouldn’t let them die for something they were not guilty of.

The bird Fokla’s limbs grew heavy, distant, as it pushed her down. Her sight grew hazy.

Its wings pumped, bringing them above the City’s walls as they fought. Simurtahl locked onto a small group huddled outside the walls. Lilau twisted, burning the bird’s essence as she tried to take control. It shoved her back, swooping in on its prey with a shriek that tore at the sky. The pressure on Lilau lessened as the Fokla’s focus shifted. Its sight became clear, telescoped in on its prey.

A white-tipped black wolf curled around a small robed body. Another larger robed person set next to them with head bowed.

The second person tuned. Lilau knew who it was before their face came into view.

Radai.

Simurtahl’s fury wrapped around Lilau’s thoughts, strangling her memories of him even as it surged forward to destroy the real thing.

Cold fire burst in Lilau’s mind. Simurtahl’s flames, her flames, rushed into the cold expanse, put out by a terror she couldn’t pin down. The Fokla’s body blinked away, yet the fire still rushed in. From the Fokla, and from the City it crashed, seeking to thaw the ice where embers should have been.

Lilau’s consciousness swirled withing the clash of elements. All lost meaning as she fell into the void.