The word lands flat. Clinical. The same tone she uses when identifying the Arbiter’s magic or reading divine manipulation.
I don’t respond. Don’t have a response that wouldn’t prove her right.
After a moment, I hear her settle against the far wall. The sound of her breathing evens out—not sleep, but rest. She’s storing energy the way a soldier conserves ammunition. Strategic. Practical.
I face the entrance and let my senses extend outward.
Time passes. Minutes bleed into longer stretches. The blue light from the ley-roads shifts through cycles I can’t predict. Zephyra’s breathing stays steady behind me, and I track its rhythm without meaning to. Each exhale. Each pause. Each sign that she’s still alive, still recovering, still present.
My dragon doesn’t stand down. It won’t, not until we’re clear of this.
An hour in, the wards flicker.
Subtle. A brief stutter in the ancient magic that surrounds this place. Most people wouldn’t notice. I’m not most people.
I go still. Let my awareness sharpen to a knife’s edge. The ley-roads beyond the entrance look the same—blue and pulsing and empty. But the quality of the air has changed. The pressure’s different. Heavier.
We’re not alone anymore.
“Zephyra.” I keep my voice low. “Wake up.”
She’s on her feet in seconds, no transition between rest and alertness. Her gaze locks onto me across the cramped space. “What is it?”
“The wards stuttered.”
“I felt it.” She moves to my side, her attention extending toward the entrance. “The magic shifted. Tracking magic. Power signature identification.”
Crown Hounds. The Arbiter’s hunters.
“How many?”
“I can’t tell yet. They’re masking their approach.” Her mouth tightens. “Intelligent. They’re not charging blindly.”
No. They wouldn’t. Crown Hounds set ambushes. Exploit weaknesses. Hunt with purpose rather than mindless aggression.
The Ice Sentinels were a test. This is the real hunt.
“Get to the wall.” I move toward the entrance, placing myself between her and whatever’s coming. I push my power outward. The divine ice around the waystation entrance fractures slightly—my presence rejecting the Arbiter’s control that gives the hounds their power.
I hear her shift into position at my back, her magic gathering in preparation.
The ley-roads go dark.
Not dim. Dark. The pulsing blue light cuts out entirely, leaving only the faint glow from the waystation’s failing wards. In that darkness, I see them.
Eyes first. Burning with crown-fire, orange-gold and hungry. They float in the blackness beyond the entrance, multiple pairs spreading outward in a hunting formation. Then the bodies emerge—canine in shape but wrong. Too many joints bending in directions joints shouldn’t bend. Too many teeth crowding mouths that stretch too wide. Limbs that move with fluid wrongness, like a creature imitating a dog rather than the real thing.
Four of them. No—five. A fifth set of eyes blinks open above the others, positioned on a ridge of ice that shouldn’t be able to support weight.
Pack hunters. Coordinated. Silent.
They move with a purpose that the sentinels lacked. The Sentinels were simple soldiers—blunt instruments designed to overwhelm through reformation and numbers. These houndsare hunters. Killers. They’ve tracked our power signatures through miles of corrupted ley-roads, and now they’ve found us.
The first one launches itself through the entrance.
Fast. Faster than the sentinels by a factor of three. It comes at me in a blur of wrong-jointed limbs and too-many teeth, jaws stretching open to reveal a throat that glows with inner fire.
I let my hands change.
