Layla’s in danger. Her body is broken and doesn’t have the means to rip her beast out of the fight.

  “Hold on!” I scream into the wind.

  Two wyverns tumble in the air, lashing at one another as I soar in straight for the source. Tesstalia ambushed us as soon as we crossed over the wall, and picked Layla’s wyvern—the bigger target—to incapacitate first.

  Fear dissipates into determination. Consolidating the reins into one hand, I unsheathe my dagger and spin it on its chain. This was supposed to be a simple cultivation mission, to better understand the makeup of enchanted steel.

  So why in hell is this House Sivus traitor attacking Layla?

  “Boe! Is this Lacor? Is this a blatant attack from the other side? What do you smell?”

  My dragon spirit is still nowhere to be found.

  The wyverns level out, and with an angry chomp, Tess’ mount rips a chunk out of Layla’s. Its neck bleeds as it screeches out visible sound waves into the air, making me tilt my head to cover one ear with my shoulder.

  Shit!

  Ears ringing, I glimpse Layla holding her chest in pain as her wyvern flaps desperately toward the ground. Tess reorients herself triumphantly with a bloody-mouthed beast swallowing what it took. Nasty monster.

  The screeches get farther and farther below me, until—Pomf!

  With a puff of dirt, Layla’s wyvern lands abruptly.

  Anger seethes through me, combining with my warring dark. I’ve never thrown a chained dagger with this kind of wind resistance—save for the Dane’s wind magic. I have to be close, and my aim has to be true.

  “Fight, Rainy.” I kick. “Go!”

  My gryphon soars straight for the bloody wyvern and dips at the last second, swerving hard to bend the wyvern’s neck. She dives in straight for its belly.

  Gods! Pull up!

  I catch my dagger and brace with two hands. Rainy is out of her damn mind! Dodging the wyvern’s sharp claws is a game of skill for her and luck for me. Up close, they’re massive. Like the culling blades back in sub-tier, they’d sever me in two with one failed duck. I bob and weave until she makes it to the soft underbelly.

  Oh no. She’s not slowing down. No. Shit.

  A loud caw is my only warning, right before she front flips with talons out, tearing the scales open.

  My world spins as my arms and legs hug for dear life. Again, I’m jerked abruptly when Rainy pushes off the beast with a momentous flap and escapes to round again.

  Vision reorients right in time to duck the wyvern’s wing.

  Holy shit. I exhale.

  I like my gryphon.

  As I round the angry warrior trying to stabilize her mount, we make brief eye contact. “Why?” I shout

  “Fucking dragonborn! Ten merits are why!” She flips me the middle finger. “Ten merits are greater than three!” she shouts back, then whips the reins to send the angry wyvern my way.

  What the hell is she talking about?

  Is there a gods-damn bounty on my head?

  Tesstalia’s eyes glow white-hot, and out of the palm of her flexed hand emerges a ball of condensed fire.

  High magic. Great.

  She whips the ball in my direction with insane precision—timing exactly where Rainy will be. The ball splashes over her beak, making her caw frantically as it spreads over her feathers. The wind does wonders to snuff out the attack, but damage was done. Rainy’s face is all soot, the tips of her feathers blackened.

  The gryphon tips awkwardly in a daze, causing me to shift my weight to hold on. I’m staring at the wall upside down as gravity threatens a fast dismount. My heart hammers in my ears, vomit traveling up and down my esophagus. There’s nothing I can do but wrap the reins so hard my hands turn purple. I’m not letting go.

  “Level, girl. C’mon!” I squeeze my legs tight around her muscular frame.

  Woosh!

  The gryphon finds her equilibrium, shaking off the blow. It’s time. Now or never. Kill or be killed.

  Tess’ wyvern has to be near full grown. Its massive wingspan dwarfs Rainy.

  No matter. We’re faster.

  “You good?” I pat the gryphon, who caws back at me. “Good.” I whip out my dagger again, glancing at Layla’s wyvern crawling on the ground far below, then up to Tess. “Go!”

  Rainy soars on a wide path, and as she begins to dip for the wyvern’s belly, I pull the reins up. I’m going for the source—Tess herself. Her budding flame accumulates in her hand once more, reminding me of the Head Magus.

  I tighten the reins, readying to dive straight for her.

  Fffff!

  She whips her ball of flame my way and I yank the reins to the left, forcing Rainy to lean ninety-degrees where I’m holding on for dear life.

  Fff! The ball nicks her talon, but barely, and she levels again. Tess is at arm’s length now, the weight of her wyvern terrifying up close. But I won’t get another chance like this.

  I swing the dagger chain with all my might, warring dark radiating to grant me strength unknown. Rainy dodges the wyvern wing, and I let it fly.

  Tesstalia lifts her arm to block.

  Tsst!

  Blood splashes into the wind. Human blood. And a very human cry.

  Rainy dashes under the wyvern to avoid a swift bite, and I feel the pressure of my dagger before it dislodges from Tess’ arm. As we dip under the wyvern’s belly, Rainy rips a piece of its neck to pay her back in kind.

  Yes!

  I look back with a wide smile, dagger dangling on the chain like a long, sharp tail. But my smile falls when I notice the momentous whip of the wyvern’s tail on a straight course for us.

  Wtsh!

  It latches around the gryphon’s hind legs, and the whole world stops. I’m launched so fast the reins unravel with a snap. My body flies into a flip, Rainy’s face in an open squawk from the pain.

  All I see are my desperate flailing hands before registering that I’m in free fall. My organs lift into my chest, legs tingling as my whole body comes to terms.

  The warring dark pulses more intensely than ever before, but I don’t know what to do with it. I’m falling. Fears from climbing the spire and from riding a flying mount all come to fruition in this moment. I press my ring contraption so hard it pierces my finger to the bone. I hardly feel it. The release of blood is all I can hope for.

  Create a shadow to save me.

  Wrap me in indestructible armor.

  Give me wings.

  Something!

  The ground zooms into view, my periphery a blur. Chilling winds push against my whole body, chain rattling in my ear as my dagger chases me from above. When warring dark and bond both betray me, I shut my eyes and pray… to Kane.

  I’ve been to the afterlife before, or at least peeked inside it. I’m not afraid.

  A dagger to the heart hijacked my fear. Death is just another passing.

  I open my eyes with fury this time, watching the wall, the trees, the ground rush faster into view. If this is my fate, if ten merits is all I’m worth, then so be it.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Clenching my fists, I steel myself. “Take me!” I grit my teeth. “I won’t give up, no matter where I am! I’ll find you, Brother! Take me!”

  A low growl radiates through my mind. A familiar one.

  My warring dark stills suddenly, then bursts with one gigantic pulse that radiates to my core. Black wisps rush out of my entire body, forming into gray scales, manifesting in the same way as in the spirit realm Scorius threw us to.

  “Boe.” My breath hitches.

  With a powerful one-winged flap, my momentum stops and confidence restores. I hold my hand up and instinctively catch my falling dagger by the hilt.

  “It’s not your time yet, mortal.” Boeru’s crystal eye bores into mine.

  A shot of adrenaline sends goosebumps lining my whole body. The warring dark shifts into a double heartbeat, one for him and one for me. Separated but tethered.

  Power radiates through me like never before. An unstoppable confidence keeps me strapped on a magical saddle with two dark ethereal handles digging into his spine. It’s a literal representation of our separating bond. I know it like I know I have two hands.

  Scorius provoked this. He tore us further apart so we could become separate entities. But I fear I might lose him entirely if this continues.

  Woosh!

  I’m dragged back to the present.

  The power of an ancient dragon spirit is nothing like riding a gryphon. Boeru’s wing doesn’t flap. It beats. He doesn’t use the wind. He makes the wind.

  A part of me wants to dig the magical handles into his spine for abandoning me. But my anger can wait. More pressing matters are at hand. Tesstalia. Layla.

  I have to end this assassination attempt now.

  Leaning forward, I grasp the handles and command Boeru to turn—which happens so fast it feels like my neck might snap.

  “Not ready to go back to the afterlife?” I challenge, squinting from the powerful gusts washing over my face.

  The power of Boe’s singular wing sends us soaring terribly fast toward Tess, her wyvern screeching at the sight.

  “There are complications, mortal.”

  “Complications? Or more manipulation?” I test. “Scorius sent us to that plane on purpose.”

  Boeru shakes his head and grunts. “Sefene.”

  The intensity ramps up the closer we get. Tesstalia’s face is of utter disbelief. My gryphon must’ve wriggled away, or fell to her death. All the more reason to crush her.

  I lean with all my might, Boeru’s wing beating harder.

  He flies on a crazed path, able to shift because of the Arkitus deformity. His affliction is his advantage.

  All of his pain, all of his history built him into this.

  The wyvern snaps and Boeru spins into a barrel roll, ending with one talon gripped around the beast’s long neck. The retching back and forth from the desperate wyvern is tenfold any thrashing stable beast I’ve tried to best. My skin rips against the magical handles as I fight to hold on.

  Boeru grunts and claps his second talon over the neck, not an ounce of fear in him. A deep, throaty inhale is followed up by an exhale of cerulean-blue flames that incinerate the wyvern’s head in a magical fury I’ve never seen.

  Wait… it’s not exhausting me this time.

  The opposite.

  Power runs through me like a god highjacked my body. The warring dark mixed with high elements. What is this?

  Visions of Boeru flying over an enemy castle and blanketing it with fire flash through my mind. Him tumbling midair with his roost brethren and winning shines in my vision.

  I was wrong. My bond didn’t shift to antagonistic.

  It’s both. We are symbiotic and antagonistic together.

  Scorius awakened both.

  With a strong inhale I feel roaring fire twist into my lungs, concentrating through my arm. And when the wyvern’s writhing talons come to rip Boeru, I release the flames. His strength… is mine.

  Cerulean fire curls out of my fist like an inferno.

  Twin waves of fire burst in opposite directions—mine and Boeru’s—making the wyvern go limp, making Tesstalia’s orbs of flame suffocate instantly upon touching mine.

  I am the warring dark, and I am the elements.

  No one can stop me.

  The flame exhales for a full ten seconds before it peters out. All that’s left is fried meat with blue embers dancing around the roast. And as the wyvern falls as dead weight from the sky, Boeru grunts and rips Tesstalia off her saddle with one claw.

  Our thoughts are connected. He knows exactly what I need to have happen without me even steering the handles. He soars straight down toward Layla’s wyvern.

  “You fare better when I leave you to your own devices,” Boeru chuffs.

  “That’s not true,” I protest. “I’ve lost my edge against potential betrayers, and wait up every night with a dagger under my pillow because of it.”

  “And somehow discovered how to harness my strength as your own.” Boeru adjusts his flight path as trees come closer into view.

  “Come back to me. We will figure this out together.”

  Boeru tucks his wings for an even faster descent, speaking to his irritation. “The Danes have no intent on leading me to Elden magic—”

  I go to cut him off, but he huffs smoke out of his nose and into my face.

  “—even if you do,” he finishes.

  With one momentous beat, the wind from his wing rips the grass clean out of the ground, and I nearly face plant into the handles before tensing my whole body to fight the force.

  He tosses Tesstalia into the grass, making her land with a thud as she rolls.

  I hop off to face my dragon spirit. “You chose me for a reason, Boe. You know I’ll go to the ends of the realm to find what you seek. I owe it to you. Like I owe Lay and Kane for keeping me alive this long.”

  He turns his back on me. “The care you hold for your siblings is what binds us.” Without another word, his form dematerializes, and his voice is lost in my mind once more.

  I let my arms fall to their sides in surrender. Seeing Sefene inside the dark realm—or whatever plane Scorius threw us into—did a terrible number on him. At least now I know he’s not gone for good.

  “Lay…” My sense returns and I sprint for Tesstalia’s body. Rushing in the direction Boe tossed her, I find her lying unconscious, half submerged in a bush. With no time to waste, I wrap my dagger chain around her hands to bind her and drag her body toward Layla’s wyvern.

  Her arm is burnt where my dagger bit into it.

  “You cauterized the wound with your high magic. Commendable,” I speak to the wind. “But maybe you should’ve let yourself bleed out, because when Layla gets her hands on you—” I gasp when making it to Layla’s wyvern… and find she’s not passed out atop it.

  Relax. That’s good, I suppose.

  “Lay!” I shout, scouring the vicinity of high trees and full bushes. “Lay!”

  When my voice finishes echoing, I stop in my tracks to see if there’s any movement besides my own. The silence is deafening, leaving me a moment to realize my body is spent. Ears ring from enduring high winds and shrieking wails, fingers sliced raw from those handles.

  Rustling beside me shakes me out of wallowing.

  I turn to see her holding one side, one eye squeezed shut.

  My eyes brighten.

  “Hale,” Layla winces, flashing a smile of genuine relief. “Thank the gods. Thank the fucking gods.” She whips her head down in sadness. “On every turn this tier tries to swallow us. And on every turn, I fail as your guard.”

  “Nah.” I roll up the chain harshly to show the body I’ve been hauling around. “You helped get us this.” I dangle her like she’s a turkey we just hunted.

  “That bitch.” She hobbles forward and grabs Tesstalia by the hair, frowning with disgust. “I tried to get back up there, Hale. I searched for materials to patch up the wyvern’s wounds—”

  I hold my hand up. “Please. What happened up there was impossible for both of us. We simply didn’t have the experience to combat a full-grown wyvern with our ragtag mounts.”

  Layla nearly foams for a chance to rip out Tesstalia’s throat.

  “She did it for ten merits. Apparently, they can be offered outside of official class channels,” I say.

  “A bounty?” She looks up at me slowly. “Pricks. Who? Tutors? Students?”

  “I’m not sure. But I figured you’d like to interrogate her when she wakes.”

  “Damn right,” she seethes, then doubles over in pain.

  “Whoa.” I rush onto my knees to look at her. “You’re overdoing it with your heart. It’s touched by bliss—”

  She slaps my hand away.

  “We need to get you back to the Healer’s Wing.” I grab her hand and hold it.

  “Rr!” She swipes me away again. “No. I’ve waited long enough. Come on, this way… before this bitch wakes. I’ve been scouring the dakerate plants you pointed to on the map. We’re not returning without the ingredients Mathis expects of us.”

  “Lay…” I look at her dumbly. Even after being ripped out of the sky and left for dead, she focuses on the mission. I’m not sure if it’s a noble or worrisome sentiment.

  She hobbles on with purpose, trying her best not to let her agonizing moans escape. “You know… I knew in my heart you’d take her down somehow. Boeru…”

  There’s jealousy in her voice as she tries to swipe at the oversized leaves in her way.

  “You’re becoming something great, Hale. I watch every day as you grow stronger. In duels, in the library, with our marked. The tables have turned since the sub-tier.”

  I swallow past a lump in my throat. The truth is, I’ll never think any less of her. She fights no matter what kind of shape she’s in, and stands up when she very clearly should be down. But anything I say would only hurt her in a state like this. So, I’ll just silently take her hobbling steps as a much-needed win.

  If she only knew I was seconds away from plummeting to my death. Actually, maybe she should know.

  “I should be dead, Lay. Not only today, but back in the sub-tier. The brutes should’ve eaten me alive. It’s just the way of things. Happened to Rafas and Duley.” I shrug. “Luck is on my side in the form of you. Kane. And now this troubled spirit.”

  “I would’ve agreed with you some time ago,” she says, slowing down near a black, decrepit plant with strange wispy essence floating around it. “But then I asked myself why we protect you.”

  I lift Tesstalia’s body over a log instead of letting her head bash into it like I want. “Why’s that?”

  “Because you’re worthy of it.”

  I push my lips to one side, not really sure how to take the compliment.

  “Here it is.” She presents the plant, changing the subject for me.

  Mathias was right. These plants have the same aura as Kyard harvesting. I sense it almost immediately.

  “Shit, Lay. Good job. C’mon, quick, go to the opposite side and sit, holding your palms up.”

  “Just like in the sub-tier?” she asks.

  “Yep. Feels the same as Kyard. Remember, the substance responds to living energy working together. We’ll move in unison to show we’re here to harvest.”

  “This brings me back.” She struggles to find her seat, then holds up her calloused hands opposite my shredded ones. “Gods. What happened to you?”

  “Was flung off my gryphon, and Boeru saved my ass by manifesting into his full form.”

  Layla’s whole face scrunches like she’s been punched in the gut. “Flung off? As in free fall?” She shakes her head. “I’m sorry.”

  “For what, getting ambushed? Are you serious? If anything, I’m sorry. It was me she was after. Is after.” I glance at Tess to make sure she’s still face down in the dirt. “On the count of three, I push, you pull.”

  I count down, and for a moment, we’re back in the black forest, doing our best to harvest Kyard and avoid lashings from House Mother when we get back. She moves her hands toward her face as I push toward the plant, and we row the next way effortlessly. It’s like combat. We understand one another. Always have.

  “So he saved you. Then what? How is this evil bitch in your custody?”

  “Because of his blue fire. It’s a mix of warring dark and the high elements,” I say as we keep rolling back and forth—the plant wisps growing in intensity like glowing ribbons.

  “And you’re awake to tell the tale? You said that depleted you almost to death.”

  “Not anymore.” I smirk. “I wielded the flames myself, even curled and bent them to my will.”

  Layla’s eyes widen. “Your trait?”

  I shrug. “Not sure. Prominent says I’d know when I unlock my trait. It was powerful, but I don’t think that was it.”

  She sighs. “How strong you’ve grown.”

  As the wisps manifest into tangible ore clunking to the ground, we both smile.

  “Hah!” Layla let’s herself laugh for the first time in a while. “After all that, four total merits might be ours after all.”

  Tesstalia groans awake.

  I crack my knuckles. “Maybe even a bonus ten.”