Jake staggered to the cliff's edge, still dripping from the pool he'd crawled out of moments earlier. Above him, Avrae harassed the great airship like a gnat tormenting a beast far larger than itself. The dragon was tiny in comparison, yet he toyed with the vessel as if it were nothing more than a child's plaything. Jake couldn't understand how Avrae hadn't already torn it apart.
The metallic craft banked hard, engines screaming as it tried to outrun him. Halfway through the turn, a figure at the rear platform caught the moonlight.
Jake's heart lurched.
Anya.
She clung to the railing, exposed and vulnerable, seconds away from being flayed, eaten, or both by a creature Jake himself had shaped into existence.
"Avrae! Stop!" Jake shouted, voice cracking. "Anya!"
Neither of them heard him. The wind swallowed his words whole.
"Are you out yet?" Violet's voice echoed up from the shaft behind him. Jake flinched; he'd forgotten about them entirely.
He scanned the rocky ledge for anything useful. "I don't have anything to pull you both out!"
A long, suffering sigh drifted up. "Jake… please tell me you haven't forgotten how to conjure a simple rope."
He slapped a hand to his forehead. Of course. Rune magic might be complicated, but conjuring rope was beginner stuff.
"Right. Hold on."
The motes beneath his skin stirred, aligning with a clarity he hadn't felt before. A golden orb shimmered into existence, threads of light weaving themselves into thick coils of rope. It grew rapidly, then dropped heavily onto the stone.
"Not bad," Jake muttered.
"Jake!" Violet barked. "Less admiring, more rescuing!"
He tied the rope around a jut of stone and tossed the length down the shaft. Almost immediately, he felt the weight of both Violet and Asher pulling against it. He braced himself, digging his heels into the rock.
Leaning over the narrow opening, he spotted Violet first. Bathed in moonlight, she was smeared with wet soil, shimmying upward using her back and legs for leverage. Asher dangled below her, the rope wrapped securely around his waist, his head lolling but slowly stirring.
Jake hauled them up inch by inch, palms burning. Asher blinked awake just as cannon fire cracked overhead.
"My ship!" he croaked.
The airship's hull was ablaze, trailing black smoke. Sparks leapt from exposed circuitry, and deep gouges ran along its length where Avrae had raked it with furious claws. Moments later, the vessel vanished beyond the cliff, and a distant shockwave rattled the stone beneath their feet.
But Anya wasn't done.
Jake watched in horror as she launched herself into the air, matching Avrae's movements with impossible speed. She shouldn't have been able to fly; nothing they'd learned at Feldspar Academy resembled this.
Avrae lunged again, expecting easy prey. He was wrong.
Anya's hands blurred, leaving streaks of red light in the sky. Lines intersected, forming a star within a circle, a pentagram glowing with violent energy.
Violet gasped. "She's using dark magic!"
Before Jake could react, Violet tackled him to the ground, shielding him with her body. The sky ignited crimson. A yellow explosion erupted behind Anya, sending rippling waves of force across the cliff. The ground trembled violently.
A thunderous roar split the night.
Jake looked up just in time to see a monstrous shape forcing its way through a tear in the air, a portal of pure darkness. The creature emerging was impossibly huge, dwarfing even the airship. Its bull‑like head was crowned with jagged grey horns, its three burning white eyes locking onto the world with murderous intent.
Its shoulders scraped through the portal's edges before tearing free, revealing massive arms ending in razor talons. Its torso was broad enough to eclipse the castle far below, patches of coarse black hair clinging to its hulking form.
It stumbled at first, buckling under its own weight, but then bone‑thin wings burst from its sides, snapping open with a sickening crack.
Avrae was caught off guard.
The dragon fell, spiralling downward, blood splattering in his wake. His descent was slow, almost graceful, but unmistakably fatal.
Jake's chest tightened. Avrae was infuriating, reckless, impossible — but he didn't deserve this.
And then Jake saw her.
Anya landed lightly on the monster's back, perfectly balanced, perfectly in control.
The truth hit him like a blow.
She had done this. She had torn open the realms. She had summoned this thing.
And a heartbeat later, she vanished, leaving her pet monster to lumber onward.
For a long, breathless moment, Jake couldn't move. The cliff felt impossibly quiet after the chaos above. Violet steadied Asher beside him, both of them staring at the sky where the creature had disappeared.
"We need to move," Violet said softly. "If that thing comes at us—"
"It won't," Jake murmured. The motes pulsed again, tugging faintly at his chest. "Not for us."
Asher swallowed hard. "Jake… what does it want?"
Jake didn't answer. He already knew.
Whatever Anya had unleashed wasn't finished. And whatever it was hunting, Jake was somehow part of it.
The night sky still pulsed with the aftershock of her spell, the air shimmering with heat. The creature charged, its talons carving trenches into the cliff as it steadied itself. Each step sent tremors through the stone beneath Jake's feet.
Violet scrambled upright, dragging Asher with her. "Jake," she whispered. "What… what is that?"
Jake couldn't answer. The motes beneath his skin were reacting violently now, pulsing in frantic bursts. Not guiding. Warning.
Asher groaned, alert again and clutching his head. "Where are we? What happened to—"
He looked up, saw the creature, and went pale. "No. That's not possible."
"Apparently it is," Violet muttered. "And your girlfriend just rode it like a parade float."
"She's not…" Jake began, but the words died. He didn't know what Anya was anymore.
The creature lifted its massive head and sniffed the air. Its three white eyes glowed brighter as they fixed on the cliff. A low growl rumbled through Jake's bones.
"We need to move," Violet hissed.
But Jake couldn't look away. The creature wasn't just seeing them. It was recognising something, the same way the cavern had recognised him, the same way the motes had aligned, the same way the pool had shown him visions.
A sickening thought twisted in his gut.
It wasn't just summoned. It was connected.
The creature's wings unfurled with a wet crack, stretching wider than the cliff. Wind blasted across the ledge.
"Jake!" Violet grabbed his arm. "Go!"
The creature didn't attack. It turned toward the distant forest, nostrils flaring, then launched itself skyward with a roar that split the clouds.
Silence fell.
Jake collapsed to his knees. "She did this," he whispered. "Anya tore open the realms."
The motes pulsed again, tugging at him with a steady, deliberate rhythm. Not warning him this time. Calling him.
Violet crouched beside him, her voice thin. "Jake… what does it mean?"
He didn't answer. The truth pressed against him with cold certainty.
Anya hadn't just unleashed that creature. She had tied it to him.
The motes thrummed beneath his skin, responding to something far beyond the cliff, far beyond anything he understood.
And somewhere in the distance, the creature roared again, a deep, resonant sound that felt less like a threat and unmistakably like a summons.
Jake shivered.
It wasn't finished with him.