Aetheria

Maelis had Mira's measurements before breakfast and her patience exhausted shortly afterward. Mira stood on a small platform inside Thread & Thorn while strips of black cloth, ivory lining and translucent Crystal Fibre accumulated across the worktable behind her.

"If you move again, I'll pin the sleeve to your arm," Maelis warned as she adjusted the cloth around Mira's shoulder. Mira looked down at the needle between the woman's fingers and decided the threat was credible.

The finished outfit would take several days. Maelis intended to rebuild the entire travelling set around the materials Mira had brought from the Glass Hollows rather than reinforce the temple robes one repair at a time.

Mira had opinions about almost everything.

The coat needed to remain short enough around her legs to fight freely. The ivory sections could not become yellow or cream merely because Maelis had a cheaper cloth available, and the gold stitching around the collar had to remain visible after armour panels were added beneath it.

Maelis endured the list until Mira asked whether Hollowglass Fibre could be run through the sleeves in branching lines that carried Essence toward the hands. The tailor stopped complaining after that and started sketching.

Kael found Mira downstairs almost an hour later. His greatsword had gained another narrow silver reinforcement near the guard, and he carried two folded guild notices under one arm.

"Shellhorns first," he said as he placed the papers on the counter. "Two gold for the mature one, twenty small silver for each juvenile driven away from the irrigation line, and we keep half the usable materials."

Mira finished examining Maelis's sketch before looking at the second notice. "What's the other one?"

"Ironjaw Rooks tomorrow if we're still alive."

Maelis looked up sharply from the worktable. Kael corrected himself after a moment and said, "When we're still alive."

Mira collected her staff and satchel. The heavy awl went at her hip, while six faint points of light drifted around her shoulders before folding themselves into the edges of her scarf.

Maelis watched one disappear beneath the ivory cloth. "Those are the moths Joric was talking about?"

Mira nodded and called one back. The little golden shape crawled from the scarf, opened its wings across her fingertip and remained there until Mira allowed the light to dissolve.

"They're going into the coat somehow, aren't they?" Maelis asked. Mira looked toward the branching design on the table and said, "Eventually."

The south irrigation line began several kilometres beyond Bellhaven's walls, following a broad channel that carried river water toward several farming villages. The guild road remained busy for the first hour before splitting among smaller tracks crossing fields and wooded ridges.

Kael walked with his sword across one shoulder. He had spent most of the journey experimenting with the new ability that had appeared when he reached Level Five, although his experiments were restrained enough that nearby farmers remained unaware of them.

He let the greatsword fall through a short diagonal cut and abruptly altered its path halfway through. The blade snapped into a rising return that should have required considerably more time to recover into, and Kael repeated the transition several times until the second movement flowed into the first without jerking his shoulders.

"Momentum Break?" Mira asked. Kael nodded and rotated the sword back onto his shoulder.

"It changes where the weight goes when I commit too far. I'm getting better at carrying it into another strike instead of killing the movement completely."

Mira understood why he liked it. Kael's enormous weapon already depended on keeping its mass useful between attacks, and the new ability gave him another way to turn a bad position into the beginning of something else.

Her own Level Five skill had been quieter.

A fine golden strand appeared between two of her fingers while they walked. The light extended toward the whispertail riding on her shoulder, attached gently beneath its foreleg, and carried a small current of restorative Essence into a scratch it had acquired in the Glass Hollows.

Light Thread — Common

The strand persisted as the cub moved. Mira had already discovered that the connection carried more than healing, because every change in tension returned a faint impression through the Essence flowing between them.

The cub jumped from her shoulder onto a roadside wall.

Mira closed her eyes for two steps.

The thread angled upward and forward. When the whispertail changed direction, Mira felt the shift before its paws touched down.

She opened her eyes.

The road narrowed when it entered a wooded stretch overlooking the irrigation valley. Tall silver-barked trees crowded the slope, their roots breaking through old stone and forcing travellers onto a winding path between rocky outcrops.

The whispertail became uneasy first.

Its ears turned toward the forest. Five tails lifted gradually behind Mira's shoulder, while Kael lowered the greatsword from its resting position without being asked.

They continued another hundred metres before the woods went silent.

Mira heard leaves move above her.

She looked up.

Something enormous dropped from the canopy.

The head was wider than Mira's torso, covered in overlapping green-black scales that disappeared into darker markings along the neck. Two hooked fangs passed either side of her body before she could fully move.

The jaws closed around her.

Kael shouted her name.

Mira's staff jammed crosswise between the teeth and kept the bite from closing completely, but the impact still drove her into the serpent's mouth. Its head snapped upward almost immediately.

Kael ran.

The serpent moved faster.

Its body uncoiled from the trees in sections, each thicker than Mira's waist, and vanished through the forest with Mira trapped between its jaws.

Kael released Crescent Sever.

The pale arc cut through branches behind the serpent and clipped several scales along its trailing body. The creature accelerated, carrying Mira downslope through undergrowth faster than Kael could follow on foot.

He jumped from the road.

The pursuit lasted less than thirty seconds.

Something struck the earth ahead of him.

The entire slope moved.

Kael stopped hard enough to tear soil beneath his boots.

A massive animal rose from what he had mistaken for a boulder.

Its body resembled a broad six-legged boar covered from shoulders to hips in layered slate-grey plates. Two shorter horns curved along the jaw, while a third projected from the centre of its skull like a thick wedge of polished stone.

Kael looked past it.

The serpent disappeared between the trees.

He moved left.

The plated beast moved with him.

Kael tried right.

Its horn lowered.

"You're kidding."

The animal charged.

Kael barely brought the greatsword around before the horn struck.

The impact blasted him through a tree.

Mira's surroundings became a blur of leaves, scales and teeth.

The serpent had not swallowed her because the Briarwatch staff remained wedged across its mouth, though the wood groaned every time its jaws tightened. Mira had one arm pinned against the lower jaw and just enough room to keep her skull away from a fang leaking clear venom.

The whispertail was still with her.

That became apparent when five pale shapes ran along the serpent's neck.

The real cub appeared beside one eye and raked glowing claws across the lid.

The serpent thrashed.

Mira's world became considerably worse.

She lost the staff.

The serpent opened its jaws while shaking its head, and Mira fell through branches before striking the slope below.

She rolled.

The serpent came after her.

A name appeared as its head crossed the trees.

Duskscale Canopy Serpent

Elite

Level 8

Mira got one foot beneath herself.

The serpent lunged.

Three Lumen Moths scattered around its face.

It ignored two and snapped toward the third.

Mira moved in the opposite direction.

The serpent's body followed with terrifying speed. Thick coils flowed between trees without losing momentum, and every change in direction seemed to begin halfway down its body before the head committed.

Mira used the awl because there was no time to retrieve the staff.

The first opening came when the serpent passed beside her.

She drove the point beneath a scale.

The metal barely penetrated.

Mira pulled free and ran.

The serpent's tail came through the undergrowth behind her.

A golden plane appeared against one tree.

Mira planted a foot on it and pushed upward.

The tail destroyed the trunk beneath her.

She landed on a branch, jumped again and felt the whispertail moving above through a thin Light Thread she had attached almost without thinking.

The cub crossed from one canopy to another using Whisperstep. Its mirages separated whenever the serpent tracked it, and the larger creature wasted one bite on a pale afterimage before realizing the real whispertail was already behind its head.

Mira sent two moths with it.

The serpent twisted.

One moth vanished between its scales.

Mira felt the Light inside change direction.

The scales overlapped too tightly to reach anything important directly, but thin reflective membranes lay beneath them. Light travelled farther there.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Mira landed.

The serpent's head came around.

She raised her hand.

Light Thread extended from the moth buried beneath its armour back to her fingers.

The connection gave her a faint sense of where the moth had gone.

Mira pulled its path sideways.

Gold travelled beneath three scales.

The next several minutes became increasingly violent.

Mira stopped trying to pierce armour from outside. She used the moths to find gaps, then sent Light through the spaces beneath the scales while the whispertail harassed the serpent's eyes and jaw.

The Duskscale adapted.

It began crushing moths against trees with its body.

Then it started attacking the cub whenever the little creature committed to a landing.

Mira adjusted with it.

Light Threads spread between her and three moths at once.

The strands became faint lines through the forest, carrying the smallest changes in position back through her hands. She knew when one moth passed behind the serpent even when she could not see it.

Her attention widened.

The head mattered.

The tail mattered.

The nearest coil behind her mattered because it could become either.

The cub's position stayed present through the thread.

So did the route of the moth beneath the scales.

Mira ducked before the serpent attacked.

Its jaws passed over her.

The awl entered beneath the jaw.

Light followed.

The serpent threw her away.

Mira hit the ground, rolled onto one knee and moved before the tail arrived.

Her body was beginning to change with the fight.

The Bone Disciple's method had started as something she understood on parchment. Against the serpent, there was no time to arrange herself into positions and check whether weight travelled correctly.

She felt it instead.

Her right foot caught the ground.

The turn reached her hip.

The shoulder followed.

The awl arrived without being pulled back first.

When the serpent struck her forearm, Mira moved with the impact and let it carry her around the outside of the head. A small Shelter plane caught her next step where there was no ground, giving her enough support to drive the awl into the thin membrane beside its eye.

The serpent screamed.

Mira was smiling when it threw her through a bush.

She stood again.

The Duskscale stared at her.

Its eye was bleeding golden light from beneath the damaged scales.

Mira raised the awl.

"Again."

The serpent attacked.

Kael had stopped counting how many trees the plated beast had broken.

The creature's first charge had taught him that meeting the horn directly was a terrible idea. The second taught him that dodging did not solve much when six heavy legs allowed the animal to turn with astonishing speed.

Ridgebreaker Karkadann

Elite

Level 8

Its armour resisted Crescent Sever.

Frost barely penetrated the outer plates.

Lightning travelled across the shell and grounded harmlessly through the creature's feet.

Kael was having an awful time.

He was also learning.

The Karkadann charged again.

Kael lowered the sword.

He waited longer.

The horn came close enough for him to see scratches across its surface.

Kael stepped aside and let the greatsword touch the horn rather than stopping it.

Momentum Break caught the violent contact.

The blade should have been thrown from his hands.

Instead, Kael allowed its weight to turn with the beast.

His hips followed.

The sword circled behind him.

The Karkadann passed.

Kael came around with the momentum it had given him and struck the rear plate hard enough to crack stone.

He laughed.

The Karkadann did not share his enthusiasm.

It spun and drove one side horn into his ribs.

Kael flew.

He hit the ground and barely raised the sword before the creature was on him again.

Gravebreaker erupted beneath its front legs.

The force lifted the Karkadann just enough to ruin the charge.

Kael rolled away.

He had used the skill differently this time.

The eruption had been shallow.

Wider.

Less Essence had gone into throwing stone upward, and more had travelled beneath the creature's footing.

Kael stood.

The Karkadann charged.

He used Gravebreaker again.

This one erupted diagonally beneath the right legs.

The beast stumbled.

Kael entered.

His sword struck the same cracked rear plate.

Frost flooded the fracture.

The creature twisted.

Kael let the blade remain in contact.

Momentum Break turned the forced withdrawal into another angle.

The greatsword rose.

Crescent Sever released almost against the armour.

Frost exploded inside the crack.

A plate shattered.

Kael stared for half a heartbeat.

Then the Karkadann kicked him through another tree.

He got up more slowly.

Blood ran down one side of his face.

His left arm hurt when he raised the sword.

Essence was falling too quickly.

Kael looked at the creature.

The creature lowered its horn.

"Okay."

He shifted his grip.

This time the greatsword did not rise into one of the forms he had practised.

Kael rested the flat against his forearm.

Lightning gathered along only the lower half of the blade.

The Karkadann charged.

Kael moved.

He slid the sword along the horn.

Momentum Break caught the impact.

Lightning entered through the contact.

The Karkadann's head jerked.

Kael redirected the greatsword downward.

Gravebreaker travelled through the blade and into the beast's own horn.

The ground beneath its skull exploded.

The Karkadann somersaulted.

Kael landed beside it.

His grin returned.

"Mira would like that."

The Karkadann rose.

Kael's grin disappeared.

"Of course."

Mira's serpent had learned to avoid the moths.

That made the moths more useful.

Three hovered around its left side.

The Duskscale kept its head angled away from them.

Mira stayed on the right.

She had stopped attacking the visible gaps between scales because the serpent now protected those too.

Instead, she watched how its body moved.

A long creature could not turn everywhere at once.

The head committed first.

The nearest section followed.

Then the force travelled down the body.

Mira began moving before the tail knew where she was going.

The difference became dramatic.

The Duskscale lunged.

Mira stepped inside the line of its jaw rather than away.

Her left hand touched the outer scales.

Essence travelled through her arm.

The strange connections holding her skeleton together tightened along a continuous path from hand to shoulder, through her spine and into both legs.

She pushed.

Her body accelerated around the serpent's head.

The awl entered near the damaged eye.

The Duskscale snapped sideways.

Mira's feet left the ground.

Light Thread tightened between her and the whispertail above.

The cub had wrapped two tails around a branch.

It pulled.

Mira changed direction in midair.

She hit the serpent's neck instead of the ground.

The cub released.

Five tails flared.

Tailwave burst across the side of the serpent's head.

Mira drove the awl deeper.

Gold entered.

The serpent convulsed.

Its body wrapped around the tree.

Then around Mira.

The pressure arrived all at once.

Several ribs cracked.

Mira's arm disappeared between coils.

The awl fell.

The Duskscale tightened.

Mira could barely move.

One moth remained beneath its scales.

Another hovered outside.

The third rested against her scarf.

Mira felt each through Light Thread.

She drew them together.

The three lights responded through separate paths.

One travelled beneath scale.

One entered through the wound beside the eye.

One passed from Mira's scarf into the coils around her.

The paths converged inside the serpent's head.

Golden light flashed through its eye.

The coil loosened.

Mira dragged one arm free.

The whispertail attacked the injured eye.

The serpent screamed and threw both of them.

Mira flew across the clearing.

The Duskscale's tail followed.

It struck her in midair.

The world vanished into motion.

Kael saw the Karkadann's horn glow.

He had enough time to hate that development.

The beast drove the horn into the ground.

A compressed wave exploded through the slope.

Kael raised the greatsword.

The force hit him.

He left the ground.

Trees disappeared beneath him.

For several seconds, there was nothing to fight.

Then someone flew past him in the opposite direction.

Kael turned his head.

Mira was rotating through the air with half her robe torn away and a furious Level Eight serpent following beneath her.

Mira saw him too.

Behind Kael, the Ridgebreaker Karkadann tore through the trees.

Their eyes met.

Mira looked at the Karkadann.

Kael looked at the serpent.

Neither said anything.

They passed.

Kael twisted in the air.

Frost spread across his greatsword.

Mira gathered three moths around one hand.

They landed in each other's fights.

The Karkadann reached Mira first.

She hit the slope, rolled twice and came up with the awl in hand.

The plated creature charged.

Mira smiled.

This was much better.

She stepped aside.

The horn passed.

Her hand touched the armour.

The Karkadann was enormous, but everything about it was easier to read than the serpent.

Six legs.

Clear weight transfer.

Rigid plates.

A limited turning radius once it committed.

Mira's awareness settled over the creature almost comfortably.

The next charge came faster.

She sent moths toward its eyes.

The Karkadann lowered its head.

Mira went under the horn.

The awl entered the fracture Kael had already opened.

She felt cold inside.

Frost.

Kael had prepared the armour for her.

Mira pushed Light through the crack.

The Karkadann bucked.

She moved with it.

Her staff was gone somewhere in the forest, and she no longer cared.

The awl stayed close.

Light Threads attached moths to three damaged plates.

Every movement of the beast pulled information through them.

Mira felt which plate flexed before the leg beneath it moved.

The relationship between armour, muscle and footing became obvious.

The Karkadann charged again.

Mira crossed its line.

A Shelter plate caught one foot against empty air.

She pushed sideways.

The awl struck behind the front leg.

A moth entered the fracture.

Mira redirected the light beneath the shell.

The Karkadann stumbled.

Its own weight finished what she had started.

One knee hit the ground.

Mira moved along the falling body.

Her foot found a plate.

Her hand found another.

The pathways through her skeleton linked each contact without conscious adjustment.

The Bone Disciple's method was becoming difficult to separate from the way she moved naturally.

Mira reached the creature's shoulder.

The awl entered beside the neck.

The Karkadann roared.

Its horn began gathering force.

Mira saw the vibration travelling through the skull.

Three Light Threads tightened.

The moths moved.

They entered separate cracks around the head.

Mira drove Essence through all three.

Light crossed beneath the armour.

The horn discharged early.

The blast tore apart the ground beside them.

Mira nearly lost her grip.

She drove the awl deeper.

The moths converged.

The Karkadann collapsed.

Mira remained on its shoulder until the enormous body stopped moving.

Her Essence had fallen to almost nothing.

Several ribs were broken.

Her right hand shook around the awl.

Mira slid to the ground.

Then she looked toward the forest.

Kael was somewhere beyond it.

Kael hit the ground beside the Duskscale and immediately understood why Mira had looked so angry.

The serpent was horrible.

Its first bite nearly took his arm.

Kael caught the jaw on the greatsword, but the creature's body wrapped around the blade and dragged him forward.

He abandoned the contest.

Momentum Break changed the direction of the sword.

Kael turned with the serpent.

Frost spread through the portion wrapped around his weapon.

The Duskscale released.

Kael cut.

The greatsword finally found the kind of target it wanted.

Scales split.

The serpent recoiled.

Kael chased.

Its speed was still monstrous, but its body offered more cutting lines than the Karkadann ever had.

He stopped trying to control the entire weapon.

The sword flowed.

High cut into shoulder rotation.

Reverse cut through Momentum Break.

Low sweep into rising return.

Each movement carried the next.

The serpent attacked between them.

Kael let it.

A fang scraped his shoulder.

His blade entered behind the jaw.

Frost travelled into the wound.

The Duskscale twisted around him.

Kael changed enchantments.

Lightning filled the greatsword while the serpent's body remained in contact.

The discharge travelled farther than it had through the Karkadann's grounded armour.

The serpent convulsed.

Kael's eyes widened.

"Oh."

He did it again.

The Duskscale responded by smashing him through the ground with its tail.

Kael coughed blood.

He rolled away before the jaws arrived.

Essence was almost gone.

The serpent still moved.

Kael rose with the sword hanging low.

The damaged eye Mira had created was easy to see.

So were the golden burns beneath several scales.

She had already built pathways through it.

Kael didn't understand exactly what she had done.

The serpent attacked.

Kael drove the blade into one of the damaged channels.

Lightning entered.

The Duskscale spasmed.

He changed to frost before pulling free.

Cold expanded beneath the scales.

The serpent twisted violently.

Kael went with it.

Momentum Break caught the forced movement.

The greatsword circled.

Crescent Sever formed during the return.

The sword wave entered the frozen wound at point-blank range.

The serpent's neck opened.

It still did not die.

Kael stared at it.

The Duskscale stared back with one functioning eye.

"You're as bad as her slime."

The serpent lunged.

Kael met it.

His last useful Essence went into the blade.

Lightning flashed.

The greatsword entered the open neck.

Kael stepped through the strike and let the entire weapon continue until its point hit the earth behind the serpent.

The head struck the ground separately.

Kael remained standing for almost three seconds.

Then he sat down beside it.

Mira found him twenty minutes later.

She was limping.

Kael was using his greatsword as a walking stick.

The whispertail travelled between them, apparently unharmed enough to be unbearably energetic.

They stopped when they saw each other.

Kael looked at the blood and cracks across Mira's ribs.

Mira looked at his shoulder, forehead and the way he favoured his left leg.

"You killed it," Kael said as he glanced toward the slope behind her. Mira nodded and looked toward the serpent corpse visible between the trees.

"You killed mine."

"It was much easier."

"So was yours."

They considered that.

Kael started laughing first.

Mira joined him after several seconds.

The laughter hurt both of them enough that it ended quickly.

They returned to Bellhaven after sunset with the whispertail carrying the Duskscale's core in its mouth and Kael dragging one section of scale behind him. Mira had taken the Ridgebreaker's horn and several fractured armour plates, though the weight forced them to leave most of the carcass marked for guild recovery.

The guild clerk listened to their explanation twice.

"You went south for Shellhorns."

"Yes," Kael said.

"You killed a Ridgebreaker Karkadann and a Duskscale Canopy Serpent."

Mira placed both cores on the counter. "They were in the way."

The clerk stared at them.

A senior hunter identified both monsters from the materials and immediately sent a recovery party toward the marked locations.

Neither creature had an active guild contract.

That did not mean they were worthless.

The Duskscale had been responsible for three missing livestock reports and one abandoned merchant cart over the previous month. The Ridgebreaker had forced two logging crews from the western ridge.

Bellhaven paid hazard bounties for both.

Duskscale Canopy Serpent

Hazard Elimination Reward: 2 Gold

Recovery Bonus: 35 Small Silver

Materials retained by party: 50%

Ridgebreaker Karkadann

Hazard Elimination Reward: 2 Gold, 50 Small Silver

Territory Clearance Bonus: 1 Gold

Materials retained by party: 50%

The Shellhorn contract remained unfinished.

Kael looked at the notice still attached to Mira's satchel.

"Tomorrow?"

Mira's left arm hung at an angle that suggested Harven would have objected strongly to the question.

"After healing."

"Good."

They made it six steps toward the infirmary before Mira stopped.

Several Lumen Moths drifted from her scarf.

Kael looked back.

The moths divided between them.

Two settled over his shoulder and ribs.

Three landed against Mira's own damaged bones.

Minor Heal did nothing to her skeletal structure.

The light remained there anyway.

Mira felt the pathways she had used during the Karkadann fight.

Hand.

Shoulder.

Spine.

Hip.

Leg.

She circulated Essence through them again.

Her damaged structure steadied slightly.

The moths carried the flow along those routes.

Mira looked down at her hand.

Kael watched her.

"New idea?"

"Maybe."

The whispertail climbed onto Mira's shoulder.

Five tails settled around the glowing moths.

Mira continued toward the infirmary.

Tomorrow they still had Shellhorns to hunt.

Neither of them seemed particularly concerned anymore.

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