[ Ratha Guild – Training Grounds, Bae's Forest ]
The forest blurred into green and shadow as they ran, their breath tearing from their lungs and their boots pounding over roots, fallen logs, and scorched earth.
Behind them, something vast crashed through the canopy. Branches snapped, trunks split, and the ground shook beneath each thunderous step as a screeching wail tore through the forest, rattling Sera's bones.
"Move!" Darien shouted.
Kael surged ahead, fire bursting from his hands in great roaring arcs that blasted apart undergrowth and fallen timber, carving a jagged path through the woods.
Yoru kept to the left flank, glancing back just long enough to call, "Left clear!" On the right, Mira snapped, "Right side – closing!" just as a clawed wing swept down from above.
Darien intercepted it immediately, driving a punch into the strike and knocking it aside before it could tear through the group.
In the center, Hibiscus flinched but kept running, her breath ragged as she clutched the red gem to her chest, her knuckles whitening around the crystal. When she stumbled, Ophelia caught her at once and hauled her upright without breaking stride.
Sera ran behind them with her head turned, watching the incoming reptilian mass lunge forward, its jaws spread wide.
"Holt! Behind us!"
He moved like a flash. A burst of force detonated from his fist, snapping the wyvern's head off course. Its jaws slammed into a nearby tree with a splintering crack, wood exploding outward as it recoiled with a furious screech.
It roared again, deafening and wild. Hibiscus gasped, eyes wide with panic, but she did not let go of the gem.
Mira's needle whistled past Sera's shoulder toward the front. "There," Mira shouted, pointing. "A cave – twenty meters!"
Kael didn't hesitate. Following the line of Mira's needle, he hurled a volley of flame forward. Fire tore through the undergrowth and blasted a clear route toward the dark opening in the hillside.
"Go!" Darien shouted.
They sprinted.
Behind them, the wyvern gained ground with terrifying speed. Heat surged at their backs as the creature inhaled.
"Dodge!" He snapped.
Fire tore through the space behind them, searing earth and igniting trees as they hurled themselves forward and burst into the cave.
Darien entered last. He turned at once and drove a punch into the cave wall. Rock answered in a tumbling roar as the entrance collapsed into rubble. Dust and fragments rained down until the opening was completely sealed.
Ophelia raised her staff immediately. Her eyes closed, and with one hand pressed in prayer against the polished wood, she began chanting in a foreign language. Sera felt cool mana spill outward from her in a steady stream that glided across the ground toward the rubble. Gold, curving script bloomed over the collapsed entrance, then settled into a soft luminous glow.
"It'll hold for five minutes," Ophelia said.
Fire struck the barrier almost immediately. The impact slammed through the cave with a deafening roar. The rubble trembled, heat bleeding through the collapsed stone until it glowed red, but the structure held.
"Less," Ophelia amended, "if it keeps doing that."
Heavy footsteps sounded from behind the barrier. A low, irritable growl rolled through the stone and vibrated through the cave walls and into their bones. It would keep hunting.
Hibiscus collapsed to her knees, breath coming in uneven gasps, her hands still locked around the crystal. Ophelia dropped beside her at once. "It's alright. Breathe. You're alright." Hibiscus only shook her head, unable to answer.
Sera bent forward and braced her hands against her thighs as she dragged air into her lungs. Her ears were still ringing from the blast outside, and the heat had not yet left her skin.
"Well," Yoru said between breaths, dragging a hand through his damp hair, "fun way to start, huh?"
Fun, indeed, Sera thought, her gaze drifting to the gem trembling faintly in Hibiscus's hands. Its red surface caught the dim cave light as though something inside it pulsed.
Understanding came to her almost cold in its clarity, and with it the memory from this morning rose so vividly that for an instant the cave, the forest, and the wyvern all fell away.
✦ ♡ ✦
They were standing on the muster field again.
Espers and Guides stood in perfect formation, shoulders squared and spines straight beneath the commanders' gaze. The air itself had felt heavy that morning, taut with anticipation, as though something unseen pressed down upon the assembled squads and demanded stillness.
Commander Rena Swift stepped forward.
Her presence alone had been enough to still what little movement remained, and when she spoke, her voice carried effortlessly across the field – not raised, not strained, but absolute in a way that allowed no room for misunderstanding.
"Welcome to Formation."
No one moved. No one spoke.
"In one week," she continued, her sharp gaze sweeping across the ranks, "we will be raiding a Gate."
A subtle ripple passed through the formation, not enough to break discipline, but enough to be felt.
"Many of you will die."
The words landed without emphasis, and somehow that made them heavier. Swift did not pause.
"Many more will die if we fail. Your friends. Your families. Everyone."
The silence that followed was no longer merely disciplined. It was understanding.
"Formation exists for one purpose," she said. "If you die here, you will die in the Gate. We cannot accept weakness. Your families cannot accept weakness. The citizens of this country cannot accept weakness. Your purpose is higher than yourselves. Stay alive. Protect each other."
Then she lifted her hand.
Three red gems gleamed between her fingers, polished and crimson as drops of fresh blood. Along the platform, the other commanders mirrored the gesture, each revealing their own set of stones.
"Guides," she called out.
A flick of her wrist sent the gems scattering. They arced through the air, glinting in the morning light as they flew toward the squads below. Around Sera, guides stepped forward to catch them. Beside her, Hibiscus caught their squad's gem with both hands, her fingers closing around it instinctively, as though she already understood its weight.
"Your rules are simple," Swift said. "There are two."
Her gaze sharpened.
"One. Protect the gem. Guides – do not let it go. If you fail, your lives and your squad's are forfeit."
She let the words settle before continuing.
"Two. Kill your wyvern…or die trying."
A distant roar rolled across the field.
Heads turned as one.
At first the shapes on the horizon were little more than dark smudges against the sky, but they grew larger with terrifying speed. Winged. Massive. Descending.
The sky seemed to split as the wyverns broke through the cloudline, their shadows sweeping across the ground as they dove. As they neared, the details sharpened: scaled hides, snapping jaws, and collars gleaming at their throats.
Not wild, Sera had realized at once. Controlled. New technology. Her thoughts had flicked instinctively toward the research division, toward the citizen researcher Yuria.
The creatures struck the earth with bone-rattling force, wings beating and claws tearing into the ground. In the same instant, every one of them turned – not toward the strongest or the nearest, but toward those holding the red stones.
Formation shattered.
Shouts rang out as bodies scattered, discipline dissolving beneath instinct as the first attacks came crashing down.
Sera threw herself aside as a claw tore through the space she had just occupied. When she looked up, she saw a guide in a neighboring squad seized and torn apart in a violent spray of blood, the motion so sudden it barely registered before it was over.
Her squadmates screamed.
For a moment, Sera froze.
One guide – gone already.
And with her, that squad was finished.
The wyvern lowered its head and crushed the red gem it had torn from the dead guide's body, the crystal snapping between its jaws with a sharp final crack. In the same instant, the rest of that squad collapsed where they stood, as though whatever force had sustained them had been cut cleanly away.
Sera's eyes had lifted instinctively to the commanders.
They stood exactly as they had before: silent, composed, expressionless as they watched the chaos below. There was no urgency in their posture and no sign of alarm or intervention.
Understanding settled into her chest with chilling clarity. They had never intended for everyone to survive – this was not training.
It was a threshold.
Those who fell here were the same ones who would fall in the upcoming gate. Better to lose them now, under controlled conditions, than later, when failure would cost far more lives than these.
Necessary sacrifices. It made sense. The Great Filter showed compassion to no one. Anyone who died here would only hold the rest back later. Sera knew that better than most.
For the briefest instant, her thoughts slipped to her Instructor, standing alone in a field of bodies with blood soaking into the earth beneath his feet. She clenched her fists.
I have to survive.
She scanned the horizon and saw a familiar shade of pink a few yards away. Hibiscus lay collapsed, trembling, clutching the gem tightly to her chest.
"Squad Nine! Western forest–now!" Darien's voice barked cleanly through the chaos.
Sera moved immediately, closing the distance in seconds. Hibiscus's eyes were wide and unfocused, tears streaming down her face as she gasped for breath. Sera grabbed her by the arm and hauled her upright.
"Move."
She had not waited for a response. She simply dragged Hibiscus with her, eyes locked on the treeline ahead, mind and legs racing.
Hibiscus is strong, but she's inexperienced. She'll panic. She'll freeze. She'll drop it if she breaks.
Her gaze had found Yoru in the distance, ducking a burst of fire. Their eyes met for an instant. Sera gave him a sharp nod.
He pivoted toward them immediately.
"Varos, Ophelia, Calder?" Sera had called, breath tight as she ran, her grip clenched tight on Hibiscus's shirt.
"Behind us," Yoru replied without looking back.
Hibiscus let out a small, broken cry. Sera's expression had hardened. "Hibiscus," she said, voice low and cutting, "if you drop that gem, I'll kill you myself."
They broke through the treeline moments later, branches whipping past as the forest swallowed them whole. Light fractured through the canopy above and scattered across the ground in shifting patches.
Sera surged ahead, still dragging Hibiscus with her.
Kael caught up in a flash and pivoted mid-stride, a controlled arc of fire blasting into the undergrowth behind them and swallowing the path they had just taken.
"Don't slow down!"
Mira's needle flashed overhead, spiraling up through the branches before snapping back toward her hand.
"Thirty meters," she called. "It's coming down through the trees!"
Ophelia came up close to Hibiscus's side, one hand pressed lightly to her back as a shimmer of mana passed from her palm into the trembling guide, smoothing her breathing just enough to keep her moving.
"Stay with me," Ophelia murmured.
Behind them, the forest erupted.
The wyvern tore through the canopy in pursuit, forcing its massive body between the trees, wings folding tight as branches splintered beneath its weight. Its attention fixed completely on the gem.
"Find shelter!" Darien had shouted.
✦ ♡ ✦
Then Sera's thoughts snapped back to the present – back to the cave they were trapped in.
Another deafening roar rolled through the stone, followed by a blast of heat that struck the sealed entrance and turned the barrier red once more.
"How do we kill it?" Mira asked, already crouched, one needle hovering ready at her side while her hand drifted toward the quiver at her back.
"Well, it's a wyvern," Kael said with a sharp tsk. "Fire won't do much. I'll have to hit it the old-fashioned way."
He slipped a thin rod from his sleeve, scarcely longer than a chopstick. A pulse of mana ran through it, and it lengthened in his grip into a full staff.
Darien's gaze remained fixed on the entrance.
"We don't fight it outside. It'll just take to the air. We use the choke."
His eyes moved over the squad in quick succession.
"Mira, pin its movement." Mira nodded, drawing three more needles.
"Yoru, disrupt its footing. Keep it off balance." Yoru flicked a hand in acknowledgment, drawing twin daggers from the sheaths at his thighs.
"Kael, strike when it commits. Neck or eyes. Try not to waste time anywhere else." Kael tightened his grip on the staff.
"Ophelia, can you give us a buff?"
"Minor shielding," Ophelia said. "Physical resistance. It won't stop anyone from dying."
"Good enough."
Darien's gaze shifted briefly to Hibiscus.
"Don't let go of that gem or we all die."
Hibiscus gulped and nodded frantically. "I won't. I–I won't let go."
Then Darien looked at Sera.
"Stay close. Watch for openings."
His gaze returned to the entrance.
"We end it fast. Ophelia, release it on my signal."
The cave shuddered beneath another violent impact. Cracks spread through the sealed entrance, and dust sifted down in a choking veil as the wyvern hurled itself against the barrier outside.
Each strike reverberated through the stone and into their bodies, the force of it pulsing through the confined space. They could hear the rhythm clearly now – the scrape of claws, the heavy recoil, the brief pause as it gathered itself before throwing its weight forward again.
Darien stood still, his gaze fixed on the trembling rubble as he measured the timing.
Kwang! Crunch. Kwaa!
Another impact struck the barrier and flared gold under Ophelia's spell.
The wyvern dragged itself back. A single, suspended heartbeat of silence followed as it committed to the next charge.
"Now!" Darien shouted.
Ophelia's eyes snapped open, and the golden script woven across the rubble unraveled at once, its light dissolving as the mana sustaining it vanished.
The wyvern slammed into the entrance. This time, the stone met it without reinforcement and the barrier gave way immediately.
Rubble shattered and surged inward under the force of the impact as the creature crashed through in a violent mass of scale and muscle. Its momentum carried it forward, unchecked and overextended, forcing its body into the narrow mouth of the cave as claws scraped and ground against stone, its bulk compressing as it drove itself inside.
Mira moved like lightning the moment it crossed the threshold.
Fingers pressed to her temples, her needles shot forward in a precise arc. With a sickening shhk, her needles drove into the wyvern's wings and anchored deep into the cave walls. For one heartbeat the beast was pinned in place, stretched wide and held by steel and force.
Then it screamed.
The sound was deafening in the enclosed space. Its body thrashed, straining against the restraints until cracks spread through the stone around the embedded needles. With a violent wrench, one winged claw tore free.
The creature reared back, drawing in a breath that seemed to pull the air from the cave. Darien moved to intercept, but even he was a fraction too late. Flame erupted.
A torrent of fire surged forward, but Darien drove his fist upward into the wyvern's jaw, snapping its head violently upward. The flames veered with it and crashed into the ceiling, igniting the stone in an explosive bloom as a wave of heat rolled through the cave stinging Sera's skin.
Smoke thickened instantly.
Through it, Yoru slipped in low from the flank, darting beneath the creature's bulk and driving his daggers toward its left ankle. The blades struck and skidded uselessly off its hide. "Too thick," he muttered, springing back. "I have to go for the eyes."
Kael charged through the heat without hesitation. Staff already extended, he leapt and swung a heavy side strike that cracked against the wyvern's skull.
In the same motion, its claws lashed out and closed around Kael midair. The sound was sickening.
Its grip tightened, crushing him in its grasp, before it hurled him across the cave with brutal force. He struck the wall hard enough to crack stone with a nasty squelch before dropping heavily to the ground.
"Ophelia!" Darien roared.
"On it," she gasped, already sprinting toward Kael.
"Mira–again!"
Mira answered at once. Her needles rose and shot forward once more, again driving into the wyvern's body and pinning it back against the cave wall, locking a wing and shoulder in place. A thin line of blood slid from her nose, but she didn't pay it any mind.
Yoru moved the instant the creature was restrained. He sprinted in, planted a foot against its hind leg, and scaled the length of its body with practiced speed. In seconds he had climbed high enough to meet its head.
The wyvern's eye snapped toward him. Yoru leaned close.
"Boo."
Then he drove his blackened dagger into the creature's right eye.
The wyvern convulsed with a shriek so violent it shook the cave. Its body bucked against the restraints, and the needles pinning it were violently yanked free, tearing loose from the rock with sharp, jarring cracks.
Mira shook from the mental strain of her needles pried loose, and she doubled over, coughing up blood. In the same instant, Yoru was ripped away, flung from the creature's body and sent skidding across the cave floor.
The wyvern twisted at once toward Mira. Its injured head snapped around, jaws opening wide as it lunged for her position. Mira's stance broke.
"Holt!" she screamed.
He was already moving.
Dashing in from the side, Darien drove his fist forward, the burst of force catching the creature in the jaw and wrenching the bite sharply off course. Its teeth snapped shut against empty air as its skull met the cave wall with a concussive crack.
For one instant, it seemed controlled. Then the creature adapted. Its body followed through where the redirected head could not, and a massive tail swept across the cave with brutal force.
Darien had no time to reset.
The blow caught him cleanly in the side and hurled him across the cavern, head snapping against the rock face. He struck the far wall hard enough to send stalactites crashing down.
The wyvern reared again, one eye ruined, the other blazing golden with feral focus as it recalibrated.
Its attention snapped back to Mira.
Mira forced herself upright, palms pressed tightly against her head, eyebrows furrowed – her expression strained, bright green orbs quaking. She channeled her mana – needles rising once more into the air despite the tremor in her legs. She sent them forward again, aiming to pin the creature where it thrashed.
But now the wyvern was ready.
It twisted violently, contorting with unnatural speed as three of the needles struck its sweeping tail and glanced away with a metallic scrape. Only one found purchase, driving into the wing joint and anchoring deep into the cave wall.
The wyvern roared. Mira staggered as the force hit her, her footing slipping as more blood ran from her mouth and nose. She buckled to one knee.
Across the cave, Darien pushed himself upright, one hand braced against the wall, the back of his head wet with blood.
"Hold it, Mira!" he shouted.
Yoru was already moving again, darting through the smoke toward the creature's blind side, his focus fixed on its remaining eye.
If he could take that, they might still have a chance.
But the wyvern had learned. With a violent wrench, it tore the embedded needle free from its wing, blood spraying dark across the stone. The severed connection from her needle struck Mira like a blow, and her vision went black as she fainted.
At the same time, the wyvern had reared back and lashed its tail in a wide, brutal arc. Yoru was forced to break off, skidding back as the tail tore through the space he had occupied a breath before.
The wyvern's movements grew more violent and erratic as rage consumed what little control it had left. Then it turned, its focus snapping with sudden clarity – not toward the strongest or nearest, but toward the gem. Toward Hibiscus.
Darien saw it at the same moment.
"Dodge!" he roared, already forcing himself forward, but he was too far away.
Sera saw the fire before it came.
Hibiscus was still on her knees, frozen, eyes locked on the blaze gathering in the deep recesses of the creature's throat.
There was no time to think.
Sera lunged, grabbing Hibiscus by the arm, and hauled both of them sideways out of the path of the descending flames. Heat tore past them, catching Sera's exposed arm and burning through fabric and skin. Sera winced as the sizzle bit and buried into her skin.
They hit the ground hard.
Sera rolled through the impact and forced herself back to her feet, her balance wavering as the breath was driven from her lungs. The world had barely steadied when she saw the wyvern's claw descending toward them, far too fast and far too close for her to evade.
Kael intercepted.
He jumped between them and the strike, driving his staff upward to meet the incoming claw. With a heavy thwong, the collision rang through the cave, force and heat erupting where wood met scale. For a single, straining instant he held it there, muscles taut, blood matted in his hair and streaming down into one eye.
His grin was sharp and feral. "Time for a little payback," he muttered, half breathless.
"Kael, keep it occupied!" Darien shouted as he met the wyvern's tail head-on once more, his steel knuckles slamming into scale and knocking the blow off course.
His gaze snapped toward the flank.
"Yoru – take the eye!"
Yoru was already moving.
Behind them, Ophelia had dropped beside Mira. "Stay with me," she murmured, one hand steadying the collapsed Esper. "You've pushed too far. Your mana's destabilizing."
Ophelia lifted her head, her voice cutting through the chaos. "Yaret!"
There was no response.
"Guide Yaret," she called again, sharper now. "Mira needs you."
But Hibiscus did not react.
She knelt where she had fallen, the gem clutched tightly in her hands, her pink bangs damp with sweat, her gaze fixed somewhere beyond the cave walls. The roar of the wyvern, the shouts around her, even Ophelia's voice – none of it seemed to reach her. It was as if she had been sealed off from the world entirely, trapped behind the panic that had taken hold of her.
Sera moved at once.
She dropped into a crouch in front of her and seized her shoulders, shaking her hard enough to jolt her body. "Hib." Nothing. Not even a blink.
"Hib," she said again.
Hibiscus's eyes remained wide and distant, her breathing shallow and uneven, her grip locked tight around the gem.
Sera raised her hand and struck Hibiscus violently across the cheek.
The crack cut cleanly through the chaos.
Hibiscus's head snapped to the side, for a heartbeat, she simply stayed there, frozen – then her breath hitched, and something in her expression fractured as awareness rushed back in. Her golden eyes locked wide in fear on Sera.
"Sera–"
"Calder needs your guiding," Sera said, her voice low and steady, grounding. "Now."
Hibiscus faltered, her fingers tightening reflexively around the gem as if she still didn't fully understand what was happening.
Sera reached forward and closed her hand over it.
"I've got it."
For a brief moment, Hibiscus resisted, her fingers tightening instinctively around the gem as if letting go would mean something worse. She was told not to let it go. Then the tension broke and Sera pulled it free.
"As long as a Guide is holding it, it counts," she said, already rising. "Go."
Hibiscus stared at her for a single, uncertain breath, the words seeming to take a moment to land. Then she turned and scrambled toward Mira.
Sera straightened, the weight of the gem settling into her palm.
Across the cave, the wyvern's movements shifted. Its remaining eye locked onto her and it lunged.
The bite came fast, teeth snapping down with crushing force, but Darien was already there, driving his fist upward into the wyvern's jaw. The creature's teeth slammed into the stone ceiling instead, sending fragments skittering across the floor.
"Move!" Darien barked.
Sera did not hesitate.
She broke away from the others and sprinted toward the opposite side of the cave, dragging the wyvern's attention with her. Behind her, she could hear the others re-engaging – Kael pressing in, Yoru circling, Darien forcing the creature's focus to split.
She dropped into a low crouch at the far side of the cavern, hiding behind a grouping of stalagmites, and forced herself to think past the smoke clawing at her lungs.
Even blinded, the wyvern would still tear them apart.
Mira was down. Darien could only parry. Kael's strikes lacked penetration, and Yoru's blades could do little beyond the eyes.
They were buying time, not winning.
We need something. Think. Think!
She swore at herself, recalling her Instructor. Hadn't he taught her how to handle this? Use your environment. Everything can be leverage. Her hand drifted to the dagger at her waist, but she dismissed it almost immediately. It was too short. Even if she managed to get close enough, it would never reach deep enough to matter.
Her gaze swept the cave floor, searching–
More rocks. Maybe we can bury it? No, it's not enough. What else do we have? Daggers, staff, knuckle dusters…
Her eyes continued scanning until they caught on something metallic. One of Mira's needles lay half-embedded in the stone, the length of a rapier, its surface faintly gleaming beneath streaks of blood.
If she drove it through the eye, past the socket, into the brain – it might be long enough.
Her gaze snapped toward Yoru. Across the chaos, their eyes met.
For a brief moment, he frowned. What was she doing? Sera was too far from the others, already moving with the gem in her hand – not retreating, but angling toward the wyvern. What was–
His grey eyes widened.
Sera tore the needle free from the stone and hurled it toward him in one clean, decisive motion.
Yoru caught it instinctively, the weight settling into his grip. His gaze flicked back to her, the question still there for the briefest instant–
–and then it clicked.
She was giving him an opening.
Sera was already running.
The gem burned hot in her palm as she sprinted straight toward the wyvern, drawing its attention completely. The creature turned with violent immediacy, its entire body reorienting toward her as its tail swept out in a wide, brutal arc, aiming to slam her into the cave wall.
Sera twisted away at the last possible instant, the tail slamming into the wall beneath her. Sera was already scaling the rockside higher, her momentum carrying her up the stone as she ran a few steps along the wall before pushing off into a tight somersault.
"Sera–!" Darien's voice broke across the cave, sharp with alarm. "What are you doing–"
She hit the ground in a low roll as the wyvern's claw tore through the space she had just occupied, stone splintering where it struck. Sera came up moving, already shifting her weight forward as the creature drew in a breath, its jaws opening wide, a guttural roar building in its throat.
She did not slow. She did not hesitate. The distance between them vanished in a heartbeat.
The wyvern lunged with a snap.
In that suspended instant, Sera dropped low and pressed her palms against the ground, dodging the incoming bite and releasing her mana outward into the earth.
It did not surge wildly but moved with deliberate intent, spreading, hidden, within the dirt and stone in thin, searching tendrils. Iridescent light threaded forward with unnatural speed until they found the wyvern.
The moment they made contact, they forced their way inward, slipping past scale and flesh and into the creature's internal pathways. They followed the flow of it, moving through veins and channels, deeper and faster, until at last they reached the core.
For a single, impossible heartbeat, Sera felt it - the wyvern's vessel. Warm, alive, feral and thirsting.
And something within her rose to meet it.
It was not thought, nor was it decision, but a reflex older than either of them. Something that existed beyond.
How dare you. An eldritchian voice rumbled, echoing from deep within her body and directly into the wyvern's mind.
The thought did not feel entirely her own.
It rose from somewhere deeper, coiling through her mind with a clarity that was too vast, too absolute to belong to a single voice. For a moment, she could not tell whether she had formed the words – or whether something within her had spoken them first and simply used her as its mouth.
The feeling unfurled through her like a blade drawn from its sheath, cold and immense, edged with something ancient and merciless.
How dare you bare your teeth at me.
The anger that followed was not clean or singular. It flooded her all at once until she could no longer separate where it began or ended. It was hers – and it was not. Something within her stirred, vast and patient and furious, carrying a hunger that had never known restraint. It did not move apart from her, nor take control, but aligned with her until their thoughts became indistinguishable.
For a fleeting, terrifying instant, there was no boundary between them, only a single, unified intent that thrummed through her body. A deep, gut-rending thirst rose from within Sera, boiling up from the pit of her stomach and flooding her veins with something sharp and insistent, something that felt both alien and intimately her own.
The air seemed to tighten.
The wyvern faltered.
Its second snap broke mid-motion, the force of it stuttering as something deeper than instinct seized hold of its body. Almost unwillingly, its remaining golden eye fixed on her.
Sera did not look away.
She held its gaze, utterly still, as the thing within her leaned forward, not separate from her but moving through her, threading itself into the way she saw, the way she breathed, the way she existed in that moment.
For that single heartbeat, whatever lay coiled within her looked out through her piercing, red eyes.
The wyvern saw it.
Its body recoiled, the violence draining from it as its jaws halted just short of their mark. What had once been a predator now hesitated, caught in the presence of something it could not understand but knew, with absolute certainty, it should fear.
Its eye widened.
Deep within her, something vicious answered.