The vault’s walls groaned, a mournful dirge echoing through the metal. Iskira pushed herself up, her ribs aching with a new, sharp pain. The darkened viewing glass reflected only her own haggard face, a thin trickle of black blood escaping the corner of her mouth. No Loom message, no countdown. Aethelgard Citadel, with Tavren still inside, had detached and plunged downward. Survival, she’d once thought, was a solitary equation. A precise calculation of resources and risk. But the image of Tavren, bleeding and smiling, tearing a kingdom from the sky for her, had irrevocably rewritten that formula. Her own life, once an expendable coin, now held a sharp, uncalculated priority. She pressed her palm against the vault door, feeling the faint, rhythmic thrum of its core-lock. Impregnable, designed to withstand siege. Not designed to withstand a self-destructing soul. Iskira closed her eyes. The parasitic tendrils that latticed her soul, usually a dull, persistent ache, flared with a hungry warmth. It wasn’t a pleasant sensation, but a familiar one. Like a parasite recognizing its feed. She drew on it, coaxing the rot up through her marrow, channeling the black bile into a needle-fine prick at her fingertips. If she miscalculated, the ensuing flare would erase her immediately. But Tavren was dropping through the clouds. [WARNING: SOUL INTEGRITY CRITICAL. EXPLOITING DECAY FOR RAPID ENERGY RELEASE WILL ACCELERATE EROSION. NEW COUNTDOWN ESTIMATE: 5 DAYS.] The message pulsed across the polished star-metal of the door, a cold confirmation of her choice. Five days. Five days to find him, to heal him, to dismantle an empire, and to survive. It was less time than she had wanted, but enough to act. She pressed her hand flat against the lock. The metal sizzled. A guttural groan ripped through the core-lock, a sound of agony and ultimate failure. The thick vault door hissed, then shuddered inward with a heavy clang. Air rushed past her, a howling gale that snatched at her tunic. The vault was a single, contained chamber now, plummeting through the open air. Below, the Khandaric Domains, usually a mosaic of sun-kissed spires, were a dizzying blur. Above, the city-states looked like distant, indifferent stars. Iskira didn’t hesitate. She launched herself out, a speck of defiance against the vast, empty sky. The remains of Aethelgard Citadel were a fractured ruin, an avalanche of masonry and sheared metal. Gravitic conduits, designed to channel celestial energy, now buckled and snapped, creating localized anti-gravity anomalies. Chunks of masonry, moments ago plummeting, would suddenly reverse course, rocketing upward before gravity reclaimed them with a violent jolt. Iskira navigated the lethal ballet with an almost inhuman precision, using the chaotic air currents and rogue gravitic pockets to steer her descent. She kicked off a tumbling spire fragment, spinning to avoid a shard of ornate glass, then deployed a hidden grappling wire, snagging a loose section of a royal solar panel. The wire hummed, taut, as she swung in a wide arc, scanning for a flash of dark hair, a familiar, lean frame. Then she saw them. Not far below, tangled in the wreckage of what looked like the Royal Observation Deck. Tavren, limp, a dark stain blossoming on his chest. And Ozek, his face a mask of furious, disbelieving rage, his arm wrapped around Tavren’s throat like a cruel, living vise. The prince was bleeding, a long, ugly gash tearing across his cheek, but his grip on Tavren was unwavering. He was using him as a shield. “You! You did this!” Ozek shrieked, his voice thin against the wind, his eyes fixed on Iskira. “You ruined everything!” He tightened his hold on Tavren, whose head lolled to the side. “Stay back, pariah! Or I snap his neck!” Iskira didn’t slow. Her gaze was locked on Tavren’s pale face, on the tremor in his fingers. He was alive. Barely. Ozek’s threats were a distraction, a desperate flailing. He looked for a frontal strike, waiting for her to plead, assuming she would freeze. She chose everything. With a flick of her wrist, Iskira deployed a second garrote wire, thin as a whisper, almost invisible against the backdrop of the falling world. It wasn’t the blunt instrument of an assassin, but a surgeon’s tool, precise and unforgiving. As she closed the distance, Ozek braced, tightening his grip on Tavren’s neck, ready to snap it. His pupils were pinpricks of frantic conviction. But Iskira wasn’t aiming for his throat. She arced her trajectory, using a sudden updraft from a ruptured gravitic conduit. The wire whistled. It lashed out, not at his neck, but at his right arm, the one holding Tavren. A clean, devastating strike, timed for the exact moment of his tensing. Ozek’s scream was ripped from his throat by the wind as his arm, severed just below the shoulder, flew free, still clutching at empty air for a gruesome second before plummeting away into the abyss. Blood bloomed, a dark cloud against the sky. Tavren, released from Ozek’s grip, began to tumble. Iskira lunged, her own momentum carrying her forward, her left arm snatching him around the waist just as he started to spiral. He sagged like lead against her ribs, but she clamped her arm across his collarbone. His lids twitched open, murky gray clearing into recognition. The corner of his mouth ticked upward. Ozek, his face ashen, stumbled backward, clutching the stump of his arm, his shriek echoing through the wind. “You… you demon!” Iskira ignored him. She had Tavren. That was all that mattered. Below, the Khandaric Domain’s great Lake Veridian, usually a placid mirror for the sun, was a churning cauldron. The royal structure, a ruined monument to arrogance, hurtled toward the green swells at terminal velocity. There was no escaping the impact. There was only bracing for it. She tucked Tavren against her, shielding his head, her body a desperate, fragile barrier. The water rushed up to meet them, a dark, hungry maw. The roar of the impact was deafening, a world-ending shriek of metal and stone. They plunged into the depths, the force of the collision ripping through her. Cold. Dark. Churning. Iskira fought for orientation, holding Tavren tight. She broke the chop, coughing foam, the water around them boiling with debris. The Loom’s malicious, silent text flared across the choppy surface of the lake. [SYSTEM OVERRIDE INITIATED BY AGENT BRIVANI. ELIMINATION OF HOST IMMINENT.]

Freefall