Gareth stood thirty paces down the road, the polished steel of his longsword gleaming in the afternoon light. His aura remained pressed flat against his skin, smooth and refined, ready to burst into a lethally precise strike the second Vince took a step forward.
Vince didn’t draw a blade. He turned his head slightly, his purple eyes meeting Vetra’s dark, slit-pupiled gaze.
No words were spoken. None were needed. The unspoken message passed between them instantly: He’s all yours.
A slow, vicious grin spread across Vetra’s face. She rolled her broad shoulders, her knuckles popping with crackling sound. She wore no armor beyond her leather tunic, nor did she reach for a club, a sword, or a dagger. She relied entirely on what nature had forged—heavy, dark red dragon scales coating her forearms, ending in razor-sharp obsidian claws that glinted like polished iron.
Before Gareth could register the shift, Vince grabbed Lyrielle by the waist, slung the bound, black-threaded bundle containing Kira over his shoulder, and coiled his legs.
BOOM!
The dirt beneath Vince shattered. In a blur of black motion, Vince launched high into the sky, vaulting over the treeline in a massive kinetic arc toward the western gate of Oakhaven.
Gareth’s eyes narrowed. "Escaping?"
Gareth shifted his stance to leap and intercept the airborne path, but the air to his right instantly turned scorching hot.
"Look at me!"
Vetra closed the thirty-pace gap in the breath of a second. She didn’t use a stance or a weapon; she threw a direct, brutal bare-handed right hook straight at Gareth’s temple.
Gareth snapped his longsword up into a two-handed guard, his physical aura flaring into a dense blue barrier to absorb the blow.
CLANG!
The sound rang out like a heavy siege hammer striking a cathedral bell.
The sheer, staggering weight of Vetra’s dragon-kin strength overwhelmed the guard. Gareth’s boots dug deep trenches into the dirt road as he was skidded backward twenty feet, the vibration shooting up his arms and numbing his wrists. He stabilized his footing, his calm demeanor finally cracking as he stared at the bare-handed woman before him.
Vetra lowered her fist, smoke rising slightly from her dark, scaled skin where the edge of his aura had scraped her. She flexed her clawed fingers, her smile widening into a terrifying show of fangs.
"Real steel?" Vetra chuckled, her voice deep and vibrating with dragon blood. "Let’s see if your blade can cut through real scale, blademaster."
Gareth readjusted his grip, his gaze turning deadly serious. He dropped into a low, predatory stance, no longer underestimating the juggernaut standing in front of him.
---
A quarter-mile away, hidden inside a dense copse of pine trees just outside Oakhaven’s western gate, Vince landed with a low, heavy thud. He set Lyrielle down safely and dropped the bound Kira into the tall grass.
"Are we rushing in?" Lyrielle whispered, peering through the tree branches at the heavy oak doors of the western gate. Imperial guards stood atop the battlements, crossbows rested on the stone walls, completely unaware of the figures in the treeline.
"No," Vince murmured, crouching down in the shade. "We wait for Vetra."
He sat back against the trunk of a pine, completely unbothered by the delay. Vince knew better than to enter an unknown killing box without his full vanguard assembled.
While they waited, Vince closed his eyes and activated the core-vision he had taken from Rin.
The physical world melted into lines of shimmering mana. Vince looked past the stone walls, scanning the subterranean structures beneath Oakhaven’s streets. Beneath the main thoroughfares, he saw dozens of dormant, dark-elemental stakes driven into the bedrock. They were unpowered for now—holding back their spatial-jamming signal so as not to alert the archmages in the city.
They’re holding off until everyone is trapped inside the council hall, Vince calculated silently. Once the doors lock, the stakes spark, and the whole city becomes a quiet tomb.
---
Inside Oakhaven’s central council chamber, the air was thick enough to choke on.
The hall was grand, built from polished white stone with a massive round table made of dark ironwood sitting in the center. Large silk banners hung from the rafters, but nobody was looking at the decorations.
Queen Moriele sat gracefully on one side, flanked by Elder Everwood and six silver-armored spell-swords. Her face was serene, but her amber eyes flickered with a quiet, restless focus—her hand lingering near her chest, feeling the persistent, faint warmth beneath her gown.
Across the table sat King Golrath. The massive Beastkin king leaned back in his oversized chair, resting his mud-caked boots directly on the polished ironwood table. His iron war-axe leaned against his knee, its blade nicked and stained from past battles. His Vanguard lieutenants stood behind him, arms crossed, staring down the human guards lining the walls.
At the head of the table sat Duke Owen.
Owen sat perfectly upright, his hands clasped so tightly over his lap that his knuckles were white. He took a slow sip from a silver goblet of wine, his eyes darting toward the double doors at the back of the hall every few seconds.
"You’ve checked the sun three times in the last five minutes," Golrath rumbled, his deep voice echoing off the stone walls. "Where is this Emperor of yours? The sun is past its peak."
"His Imperial Majesty’s convoy is navigating the mountain pass, King Golrath," Owen replied, his voice strained as he forced a smooth tone. "The Emperor does not ride without his full honor guard. We ask for your patience."
"Patience?" Golrath spat on the marble floor, causing Owen’s guards to grip their sword hilts. "I came here to sign a border treaty, not to sit in a human birdcage waiting for an old man to finish his parade."
Moriele did not speak. She glanced down at the floorboards beneath her boots. Her sensory field, refined over centuries of high-elven magic, picked up a strange, rhythmic thrumming deep within the foundations of the building—like the faint ticking of a clock waiting to strike zero.
Deep in the cellars beneath their feet, imperial mages stood in the dark, hands hovering inches above the activation runes of the spatial-jamming stakes, waiting for Duke Owen’s signal to turn the key.
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