We find Crown Hounds near the Gate’s northern ruins.
The pack is six strong—tier two hunters rather than simple soldiers. Fast, vicious, intelligent enough to coordinate. The last time I fought Crown Hounds, I took a wound that nearly killed me. Zephyra spent hours tending it afterward, her hands steady on my body, her magic stabilizing what my healing couldn’t reach.
Today, I want to see what happens when we fight them together. Truly together, with our combined abilities working in concert.
“I’ll expose their coordination matrix.” She positions herself behind me, using my body as a shield while she works. Professional. Tactical. The placement presses her against my back, her breath warm on my shoulder. “The magic that lets them share awareness. If I can disrupt that?—”
“They become six individual threats instead of one coordinated pack.”
“Exactly.”
The hounds spot us. Six heads turn in unison, crown-fire flickering in their too-many eyes. They spread into huntingformation—a maneuver I’ve seen dozens of times, designed to flank and overwhelm.
Zephyra’s magic flares.
The effect is immediate. The hounds stumble, their coordinated movement stuttering as the link between them fails. One lunges left while another tries to go right; they collide, crashing to the frozen ground in a tangle of limbs and teeth.
I’m already moving.
The first hound dies before it regains its footing. My hand tears through its skull, divine ice dissolving at the contact. The second snaps at my arm; I catch its jaw and wrench, separating head from body in a spray of silvery blood. The third and fourth attack simultaneously from opposite directions—uncoordinated, their timing off by crucial fractions.
I kill the third with a punch through its spine. The fourth’s teeth close on empty air as I sidestep, then my heel crushes its skull against the frozen stone.
Five and six try to flee. The dragon doesn’t let them.
I shift mid-stride, my human form opening into dark scales and wings that distort space at their edges. The transformation is faster than it used to be—the mating has accelerated my magic in ways I’m still learning. Dragon-sized, I cover the distance in two beats of massive wings and destroy both hounds with a single sweep of my tail.
Silence falls.
The bodies don’t reform. Even in full dragon form, I feel my power radiating outward, preventing the Arbiter’s magic from reassembling what I’ve destroyed. The divine ice that composed the hounds lies scattered across the frozen ground, inert and powerless.
I shift back, the change rippling through me like water returning to its container. The process used to take effort—control, focus, a conscious compression of dragon into man.Now it flows as naturally as breathing. Another gift from the claiming, though gift isn’t the right word. Evolution. Transformation. The mating changed us both at a fundamental level.
Zephyra is watching me with an expression I can’t quite read. The analytical evaluation she brings to everything.
“Thirty-four seconds.” She checks some internal clock I can’t access. “Six tier-two hunters, full coordination disrupted and destroyed. Previous attempts took…”
“Three minutes. With injuries.”
“Efficiency improved by a factor of five. Casualty rate dropped to zero.” She nods, satisfied with the data. “The combination works.”
“Yes.”
I close the distance between us. My body still thrums with the energy of the shift, blood running hot through veins that barely contained my dragon form moments ago. She holds her ground as I approach, her body angling toward mine rather than away, my palm settling on the curve of her hip with familiar possessiveness.
“You’re running hot.” Her voice is clinical, but her body curves toward mine. “The shift and the combat and your expanded power—it’s generating excess energy.”
I don’t bother responding. She can read the answer in the way I’m looking at her.
“That energy needs somewhere to go.”
“Yes.”
Her hand presses flat against my chest. Through the thin fabric, I feel the coolness of her palm, the slight calluses from years of wielding magic. Her gaze lifts to mine, silver-bright with the remnants of her Auric Veil.
“We have more tests to run.” Her grip tightens on my shirt, gathering fabric in her fist. “More data to collect before we face the Arbiter.”
I don’t bother answering.
