The Executioner.
Creator of the chains that had imprisoned Dragon for so many years.
Vector’s chest rumbled with alow, lethal growl.
Alrik moved witheerie precision, hisblack cloak whipping around him, hisblack hair untouched by the chaos. His piercing black eyes swept the battlefield withcold disinterest.
Then—he lifted a hand.
And the world changed.
Magicrippled outward, spreading like a shockwave. The airtwisted,thickened?—
And suddenly, the entire estate wasdrowning in fog.
Suffocating. Blinding.
A living, breathing thing.
Another wail rang out—high, unnatural, agonized—a Guild operativescreaming in the fogbeforesomething unseen finished him.
Ahorned shadow loomed within the mist. The thick, shifting air swallowed sound, muffling voices, making the battlefield feelendless, stretched, unreal.
One of the Guild men turned in atight circle, his breath coming inragged, uneven gasps. His fingers trembled around the trigger of his rifle, his eyes wide, pupils blown with terror.
"Where are they?!"
His panicked whispercurled into nothingness, swallowed whole by the dense magic pressing down on his chest. The fogslithered, creeping into his lungs, making himgasp for air.
Then—movement.
The manspun, fired blindly into the fog.
The bullet struck flesh.
A scream.
Human.
A mancrumpled to the ground, his hands clutched to his stomach.
He was shooting at ghosts.
Vector felt no pity.
TheGuild had nowhere to hide.
Vector growled low, instinct snarling at the sensation of elven magic slithering over his scales.
His dragon hated it.
The last time he had felt elven power against his skin, it had been in the form of enchanted chains, forged with magic designed to keep him docile—to keep him trapped in human skin, caged, helpless, broken.
Never again.
A growl rumbled deep in his chest, his scales bristling as the energy wrapped around him.
But this time…
