“Tivya Jorl,” Bramon’s voice was devoid of all warmth, all emotion, sharp as a blade on a whetstone. “You are under arrest for high treason.”
The metallic cuffs dangled from his fingers, a glint of cold steel in the dim light of the private quarters. His eyes, now completely unreadable, fixed on her. The earlier heat, the possessive glares, the shared intensity – all vaporized. He was the enforcer, the hunter, and she was the prey.
Arrest? Elder Yulon’s smug face flashed in her memory. He had framed her, using her own work, her own name. She would not be his sacrifice.
“No,” Tivya said, her voice a low, hard whisper utterly unlike her usual bubbly trill. The messenger flinched, startled by the sudden shift in her demeanor. Bramon leaned forward, sensing the facade crumble.
Her gaze darted around the opulent parlor. Heavy curtains, plush seating, polished brass. Nothing useful. But a decorative plinth in the corner, holding a shimmering Orb of Sylvium – a minor elemental beast-core, purely for ambient lighting, but still volatile if destabilized. It hummed with volatile charge.
Without a second’s hesitation, Tivya launched herself towards it, a blur of motion. The messenger, still reeling from the ledger’s implications, cried out. Bramon, faster, lunged, his hand reaching for her, but she was already there.
Her fist, fueled by a desperate surge of adrenaline, slammed against the Orb. A crack splintered through the Sylvium shell, followed by a searing white flash. The concentrated light exploded outwards, a blinding supernova that momentarily vaporized all shadows.
“Agh!” The messenger stumbled back, hands clapped over his eyes. Bramon, his vision burned by the sudden brilliance, roared, a primal sound of frustration and fury. The parlor plunged into a dizzying afterimage of purple and green.
Tivya did not wait. She ducked beneath Bramon’s reaching arm, ignoring the searing pain in her fist, and sprinted for the heavy exit door. The Talon-Keep was a fortress, but she had spent weeks mapping its service conduits in her head, idly planning escape routes while pretending to count feathers.
She burst into the glittering sky-corridor, dodging bewildered elite guards whose eyes were still adjusting. “Stop her! She’s escaping!” Bramon’s bellow echoed behind her, clear even through the lingering visual distortions. Klaxons began to wail, a shrill, piercing cry that sliced through the night.
Her route was a desperate gamble. Not the main lifts, too easily secured. She veered left, plunging into a less-used service shaft, its narrow confines smelling of ozone and hydraulic fluid. Down, down, she scrambled, her expensive gala gown snagging on metal rungs, her breath tearing in her lungs. The whirring of maintenance drones grew louder, closer.
She emerged into a grimy, conduit-choked passage, far below the gilded sky-terraces. This was the mechanized spine of Ophalon, a place of grinding gears and humming distribution conduits, where colossal beast-cores pulsed with raw current, feeding the city above. Footfalls pounded behind her. They were gaining.
A turn, another, into a wider service tunnel. Ahead, she saw the glint of polished metal and the distinctive uniforms of Talon-Keep’s specialized marksmen. Three of them, positioned at the mouth of the tunnel, their long-range laser-rifles already trained on her. They issued no warning. They simply aimed.
**Jolt One.**
Trapped. The tunnel was too narrow to dodge, too long to outrun. Their shots would be precise, lethal. This was it. Yulon won.
Just as the first sniper’s targeting laser settled on her chest, a shriek ripped through the air, deafening and wild. A blur of nascent feathers and razor talons plunged from a high ventilation shaft, slamming into the lead sniper. It was the baby griffon Tivya had treated days earlier, its down now replaced by iridescent emerald plumage. It squawked indignantly, flapping its disproportionately large wings, creating a whirlwind of dust and confusion.
The sniper yelped, staggering as the griffon, disoriented but furious, clawed at his helmet. His shot went wide, ricocheting off a pipe with a deafening clang. The other marksmen, momentarily stunned by the unexpected avian assault, hesitated. This was not in their training manual.
“Go!” Tivya yelled at the confused beast, scrambling past the chaos it had created. “Go, fly!”
The griffon, as if understanding, gave one last squawk, then ascended back into the shadowy vents, disappearing as quickly as it had appeared. Tivya looked only ahead. She plunged deeper into the maze of the city’s underbelly, the sharp taste of zinc and copper coating her tongue.
The air grew heavy with the scent of raw elemental power and stale oil. Thick, braided cables snaked along the walls, occasionally sparking with pressurized vapor. She could hear the distinct, heavy thud of Bramon’s boots, closer now, impossibly fast. He wasn’t just pursuing; he was hunting.
She rounded a corner into a vast, cavernous chamber, filled with the deep, resonant hum of the main city-core. Pipelines the size of tree trunks crisscrossed the space, glowing with elemental radiance. And there he was, standing in the center of the chamber, illuminated by the pulsating light of the core, his dark uniform a stark silhouette. Bramon.
“Tivya.” His voice was a low growl, devoid of any pleasantry. He breathed without strain. “The chase ends here.”
Her chest heaved. “I didn’t do it, Bramon. Yulon framed me. He has my contract page, the original. He’s breeding illegal cross-breeds, using my research.”
“Lies,” he bit out, advancing slowly, deliberately. “The ledger, your name. The scar. It all fits. You played me for a fool.” The last words were laced with a venomous fury that made her instinctively recoil.
“I never played you!” she protested, even as the words felt hollow. She had. She had hidden, lied, manipulated. But not for treason. Not for this.
As Bramon closed the distance, his eyes burning with accusation, a shadow detached itself from the labyrinthine pipes above. It was sleek, obsidian black, and moved with a terrifying, unnatural silence. Its eyes, twin points of sickly green light, locked onto Tivya.
A fully-grown assassin-hybrid. Yulon’s final solution.
**Jolt Two.**
The creature launched itself, a living projectile of honed muscle and chitinous scales. Its tail, tipped with a needle-sharp barb, whipped forward, aimed directly at Tivya’s heart. She saw the glint of venom, felt the icy grip of impending death.
Before she could react, before she could even scream, Bramon moved. He was a blur of protective motion, throwing himself in front of her. The beast's venomous barb, meant for her, buried itself deep into Bramon’s chest, just above his heart, with a sickening thud.
He gasped, a choked, ragged sound, his body stiffening. The predator shrieked, its strike landed, and vanished back into the overhead piping. Bramon swayed, his dark eyes wide with shock, then glazed over. The healthy flush of his skin turned ashen. A dark stain began to bloom on his uniform.
He crumpled to the ground, his body collapsing with a heavy thud. And then, a guttural, inhuman roar ripped from his throat. His entire form began to convulse violently, his muscles seizing. The suppressed beast-curse, held at bay for so long, violently erupted, threatening to tear his heart apart.