Abyssal Skein enveloped them both as they slipped from their room. Felix had been granted the most decadent of apartments in the Water Palace, situated in the highest tower. Which meant he had access to balconies on every side.

His Shadows patrolled the rooms, walking the halls in an effort to protect their emperor. He almost felt bad for deceiving them, but no one could know he had left. They slipped out into the afternoon sun. The sun felt a touch cooler with the oily embrace of the Void on his skin, but it was enough to bake the balcony flooring.

"Follow close," he murmured, before leaping from the balcony. He summoned the wind.

Sonata of Dominance is level 131!

It had taken him a long time to get the hang of maneuvering with just the air. At first he’d tried to manipulate wind currents like Yin, but the Drake moved as fluidly as if he were swimming in water. That had never worked for Felix. Instead, he’d taken inspiration from an old Skill he’d once stolen from an assassin. Cloudstep had hardened the air into platforms beneath his feet, and duplicating that feat proved exceedingly simple with shaping magic.

Stride of the King!

Felix bound across the bright blue as fast as his incredible Strength and Agility could propel him. Vess, however, had no such limitations. She flew, her Skill On The Wing allowing her to navigate the air Mana around them as easily as a fish in water. It allowed her to keep up with him even as he flared his stats.

Together, they traveled north, a solid distance from the Water Palace, until Felix found what he was seeking. With a gesture to Vess, he descended onto the surface of a small pond. “It’s here.”

His foot tapped onto the water and it held firm, its substance seized by his Will. Vess landed next to him, alighting on a small boulder sticking from the surface of the water.

"That shaping Skill is quite unfair.”

He laughed. "If it's any consolation, it takes a lot of attention to maintain.”

“And what are your Will and Intent scores again?"

Felix rolled his eyes. Void Nexus.

The world split, another Dark Passage opening before them in a slash of torn reality. Star-flecked shadow extended through it, and without another word they both stepped into the dark. The rift sealed back up behind them with a soft sigh, and Felix pivoted. They stood on a grassy island surrounded by small mountains festooned with moss-draped trees. Above them was a star-flecked night sky, the way ahead as bright as it was before.

"Will you summon your Sailwhale?" Vess asked, examining where their island stopped and dropped into the endless expanse below.

Felix sighed. He was never going to get away from that name. "No. Manifesting a ship is for safety and we don't need that here. We'll move faster without it."

"Alright." Vess' Dragon wings returned. He'd always considered them ghostly, but they seemed heftier now than before, a shade more solid, though his hands passed right through them.

"That Skill's gotten stronger. How close is it to Master?"

"A single level."

Felix grinned. "We can fix that.”

“Do you wish to exhaust ourselves on the way to battle?”

“Movement in liminal spaces depends on Will and Alacrity far more than our Stamina, but our movement Skills will help us go that much faster.”

“Then you'll use your Stride of the King?"

"In part. Ready?"

Instead of answering, Vess' wings flapped and she shot off into the dark. Felix grinned and followed after. Together, they blurred into the night.

Their flight was wonderfully uneventful, and less than a handful of minutes passed before they reached the edge of Gharion Territory. Initially, Felix had wondered if he would be able to tell when they passed through into Amaranth. Dark Passages didn't simply end within Territories; they did not truly respect the Corporeal Realm like that. Yet, when they reached it, the border between Gharion and Amaranth was as stark as night and day.

The organized nature of the Dark Passages that sat astride Gharion shifted. Plant life withered away into nothing on what few rocky islands he could see, and the blue motes faded entirely.

This was a difference of Authority.

Felix had never passed over the edge of Territories in Dark Passages, let alone between a Territory he claimed and one he had not. This was a strange feeling, similar to how Abyssal Skein felt as the cold Void slid over his skin.

The pair of them slipped through a near-physical membrane, and it was immediately apparent to Felix how his Authority thinned. Where Gharion was dominated by an order imposed by his power, in Amaranth it was left to chaos. Things became unmoored. The featureless black returned, shrouding the distant islands and filling the vast emptiness with an impenetrable fog.

"This is under the Authority of the Hierophant," Vess said.

"Lucky for us, she has no sway over it," Felix said. "Otherwise, this would be far riskier. As it is, we need to focus."

Zara had given him advice before he'd left. She had experience in the wild, Dark Passages and had warned him of their many dangers. Though Felix had many advantages from the Pool of Halcyon Oaths and his Titles and Skills, he was still at risk.

Speed and Intent were key.

Instead of summoning his Sailwhale, they flew on, pushing themselves through the dark. Felix lined up his Intent, forming a tunnel around themselves. His newfound Authority over the Dark Passages ignited within himself, and blue motes sparked back to life throughout the black. They swirled around them, a vortex leading them onward.

“This chaos. I can sense creatures closing in on us already," Vess adjusted her glaive, her eyes sweeping the dark ahead of them. "They're weak, but they'll attract others. Do you wish to continue as we were?"

"Intent shapes reality here," Felix said, floating forward, "and I don't intend on getting caught.”

Adamant Discord!

Vess was swift to follow, her wings flapping in powerful, steady beats. They flew swiftly, but voidbeasts were nothing if not relentless. They came for them, shapeless things, more teeth and claws than proper forms. Mindless, except for a bestial cunning that sought them out over and over, crowding against their swirling path. They were knocked aside by Felix's Intent, the blue motes flaring with their approach, knocking away those that got too close. Vess speared through them, slicing them aft to stern as they passed.

Monstrosities died by the hundreds, but there were always more to fill the breach.

"It's a waste of time taking them all down," Felix sniffed and curled his lip as he scented something. "They're barely more than a mouthful of significance, too.”

“Fly faster, then?”

“Fly faster."

Lightning crackled around Felix, and wind roared through Vess' spectral wings as they shot through the dark. Monsters trailed after them, their multitudinous forms growing stranger and larger, their limbs thinning but lengthening, grabbing at them with every chance they could. A wave of ichor-soaked gristle tipped by ten thousand teeth surged in their wake, trying to catch them as it climbed across one another, slaughtering each other in their thousands, all for a taste of mortal flesh.

Explosions shook the distance, threatening to shake Felix's concentration on the bonds he pulled against. Ahead, stone islands smashed together, two ships in the eternal night crushed to powder by immense, amorphous creatures that crowded their path, not so much blocking their way as trying to hunt them down.

"We have to kill them!" Vess shouted.

The blue motes shifted, focusing and spinning in the distance. A far island, shaped unlike any other, jumped into Felix's Perception. Tall and squared off, it tapered toward the top, like two disembodied towers at the gate of some great city.

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"The exit," Felix said. "It's there, and they can't follow us once we reach it." His Authority rang within those words, bringing a certainty he couldn't pin to any rational thought. A remnant, he knew, of Castarius's stolen power.

The monsters converged, uncaring that their exit was so close. It was a literal tide, smashing into his column of blue motes, scattering even Felix's incredible Intent.

Adamant Discord!

Lightning burst from Felix, brighter than all of the blue motes combined together, searing through monster flesh as Vess tore through the rest with her spears. They pushed faster and faster as that tide closed in.

“Get back, monsters!”

Vess shouted, her voice backed by Adept Tier lungs. Her wings widened, the tips of her draconic webbing fizzling with a gleaming white-green light. The beasts were torn through, their sheer weight blasting through gristle and ichor until Felix and Vess slammed into the squared towers.

He hit shoulder first, stone splintering beneath him before he flipped and landed with a stumbling step. Felix spun around, claws lengthening and teeth bare as the voidbeast wave fell atop of them.

He needn’t have worried. His intuition had been right.

The voidbeasts splattered against a spherical ward like the outside of a snowglobe. He saw no sigils to indicate some written warding. The power was deeper than that; more primal. It was a forbiddance, an invisible force that simply did not allow their approach. There was a piece of him that echoed with the magic, resonating with the forbiddance and something else, further up the towers.

“Haaah,” Vess breathed, and Felix nearly jumped.

The Dragoon had smashed the earth the same as him upon landing, but she hadn’t moved. She knelt there amid a splintered circle, glaive abandoned, her armor covered in ichor and her wings nothing more than steaming nubs. Wind Mana poured out into the sky like vaporous blood and veins protruded from her neck, her mouth open in a silent scream.

“Felix! I’m…Tempering!”

He rushed forward, snagging the Essence Draught from a pouch at her waist before ripping the seal off of it. Tilting her head back gently, he poured it down her spasming throat. Some of it spilled, but Vess slung back the rest and her rigid muscles eased enough for her to breathe. She put a hand to the ground and the other clutched at her sternum.

“Are we safe enough for this?”

“Yes. I’ll handle anything that comes our way.”

She gave a tiny nod before she no longer saw him. Her eyes glazed over and power swirled around her, surging inward from the Void in visible bursts, as if she were sucking in all of the Mana around them.

Time passed. Nearly an hour of watching monsters bash themselves bloody against the barrier.

Felix stood watch, carefully eyeing the voidbeasts that crowded the edge of the forbiddance, while Vess knelt unmoving and silent as her body shook beneath the effects of her Tempering. Then, after turning off a light switch, it was over.

The flow of Mana ceased, and a soft ring of white-green vapor puffed outward from around her knees. She took a long, shuddering breath and stood, leaning heavily on her glaive.

"Are you good?"

"I am." Her throat was raspy and dry, and she shivered as if shaking off a great weight. A smile dimpled her cheek, though her eyes were bloodshot. "I really am. On The Wing."

Those wings extended from her back once again, only this time, instead of spectral or ghostly, they looked a hundred percent real and twice as wide.

"Dragon wings," Felix whispered. "That’s so cool."

She turned, inspecting them. "You think so?"

"You don't?"

Her smile turned into a grin. "Yin will be so jealous."

He laughed. "What did you Temper with?”

"Manifestation. It's grown them to greater proportions and given them this heft." She touched one of her wings and blinked. "They're hot to the touch.”

“And clawed," Felix said, looking at the topmost joint. The three sharp claws had emerged from the scales there and they flexed with new muscles and tendons.

"I have a measure of control over them too," she marveled. "This will prove useful in battle."

"You're not kidding." He turned, watching the monsters, looking back at the monsters as they mashed themselves against the forbiddance. "We need to get out of here. The exit's up there."

While she’d been Tempering, Felix had studied the terrain from his location, though he hadn’t moved very far. Behind them, there was a winding path, leading to a platform midway up the two large towers. There, he could feel the exit waiting, like an itch he couldn’t reach.

Without discussion, both of them jumped, pure physicality sending them right to the top. They landed on a smooth platform, as flat as if an immense sword had sheared the top right off. The squared towers extended another three hundred feet in height and half that in thickness, and the platform sat between them—it’s only feature being an angular altar that resembled a cluster of stars, and a curved stone wall that rose behind it.

The stone wall was white flecked with green crystal, and it was spread between two thin pillars of blackened wood that looked a single flame away from charcoal. They hardly seemed capable of holding up an expanse of rock, but the thing was sturdy. Bas-relief sculptures were carved into all of it, with winding vines and leaves up the wooden pillars, while the white stone was dominated by a series of figures that seemed to tell a story. Long-limbed creatures with angular features grabbed stars from a swirling sky before holding them out. Men and women in armored robes took the stars from the long-limbed, seeming to trade nothing for it, before lifting them up over a great landscape of forests, mountains, and lakes.

“That looks like Castarius’ final form, does it not?” Vess asked, pointing to the long-limbed creatures.

Felix nodded. “And those stars are what the Nym use to symbolize their magic in every artwork I’ve seen.”

“Does that mean his people, whoever they were, gave magic to the Nym?”

“That’s the story I’m seeing, yeah.”

Above them all, suspended as if in the sky above the Nym, was a symbol he had never seen before. It was sinuous yet angular, forming four distinct shapes interlocked with one another and set against a large, spoked wheel.

"Felix, I’ve seen these before."

“Really?”

"They resemble the murals I've seen within the deepest vaults of the Scalebreaker Citadel. Those are old. Dedicated to recording our knowledge of the ancient Dragons. The murals are largely symbolic, designed as word-images like this.” She tapped on a portion of one of the shapes separated by the quadrants. It was a series of looping swirls that formed what might have been a head and chest of some creature. “It’s a strange shape, but I've seen this word a thousand times. It means ‘beast.’"

“And this one?” Felix asked, pointing to the rear of the shape. Now that she pointed it out, he could see how each creature was formed of two words, but the shape of it was different each time. “What does it mean?”

"I’ve seen it before too, but not paired like this. It means ‘first.’”

“First beast," he muttered. “Of course.”

Cardinal Beast.

Their little sanctuary shuddered, impacted by one of the colossal voidbeasts as it splattered itself against the forbiddance. A thousand mouths gaped across the invisible expanse, sending tiny tremors through the air.

“Ugh, we don’t have time to study these.” Felix carefully ran his gaze over it all, committing every inch of the altar to memory. If they survived, he would have to come back later.

If he didn’t, none of it would matter anyway.

Void Nexus.

He clawed open the air, splitting again into the usual rift. But halfway through, Felix felt that resistance again—the same as he'd felt in Ajanadir, only weaker. He pushed against it, completing the rift. Around him, the Dark Passage flexed and the towers shook, the stone rumbling.

Nightlord Title Detected!

Altar Of Night Accessed—!

ERROR!

"Fuck, what now?”

Primordial Detected!

Traces Of The Cardinal Beasts Detected!

Ouranic Protocols Engaged!

Emergency Lockdown!

The rumbling increased to a cataclysmic quake, shaking through the squat towers and sending cracks splintering up their lengths. The Dark Passage around them distorted, and Felix felt it immediately as it happened. The forbiddance faded, and voidbeasts surged. Clawed flesh dropped toward them like a wave, and Felix bared his teeth.

“voidbeasts!” he snarled. “This is mine!”

Vess tackled him through the rift.

A flash of heat and pressure, and then a pop before the both of them hit grassy earth, rolling in fragrant grasses, their Vess’ glaive tangled up against his legs as she sprawled outward into the dirt. Behind them, the rift winked shut.

"What were you doing?” she asked, climbing to her feet. “Were you going to fight all of them?"

Felix stared down at his hands. "Yeah. I really wanted to."

"We don't have time. You said it yourself."

Felix looked up from his hands. Around them were rolling hills covered in fuzzy, four-legged creatures. They huddled in masses, several of them hustling away from their sudden appearance.

Meadows and grazing livestock. People had to be around them, but Felix couldn't sense anyone close. “We crossed the border. We're definitely in Amaranth.”

Vess gasped.

"What, am I wrong?"

"No, the sky."

Felix hadn't clocked it when they'd rolled out of the rift. He supposed he'd gotten too used to the Passage. To the dark.

Night had fallen.

"It's... We've lost hours," he said. Panic gripped his chest, but he fought it down. "You've been to Amaranth before, right? With your dad? Can you tell where we are now?"

Vess stared at the sky and licked her lips. "Yes, the stars tell me that we're south of the city, and these lands suggest the southwestern pastures." She looked back at Felix. "That means we're at least ten glasses away by Manaship.”

"And our attack begins in five. That error," he said, working through the issue. "The destabilized Dark Passage screwed it all up."

Ouranic Protocols. Anger welled up next to that panic, galvanizing it. Felix let lightning play across his hands. "We'll need to make it up. You ready to put those new wings to the test?"

Vess' Draconic wings unfurled with a leathery crack. "I'll lead the way."