Anisa’s ears were still ringing when the world decided to stop trying to kill her.

  She was on her back, staring up at a sky choked with dust and moonlight. Shards of broken earth still glittered above like a falling constellation. A few scraped her exposed skin, leaving shallow, stinging lines along her cheek and arms, but that was fine. Being able to feel pain meant she was alive.

  “... My lady,” Yasmin breathed. “Are you hurt?”

  Anisa blinked once. Twice. Then she turned her head. Yasmin was kneeling beside her, one hand still braced on the earthwall she’d raised, the other reaching to steady Anisa’s shoulder. The earthwall was pitted with embedded stone shards, while several more smaller earth bulwarks had bloomed nearby, each one cracked and crumbling where they’d intercepted most of the shard storm.

  Her steward’s hands were trembling. Just a little.

  “I am… intact,” Anisa managed, sitting up with a soft groan. Her ribs complained, but nothing felt broken. “You have very good timing, Yasmin.”

  “Good timing would have blocked the shard storm entirely,” Yasmin said, turning to look at the other townsguard. The men were scattered across the street in various states of pain with dented armor and bloodied faces, but all of their chests were still rising and falling. No one had that awful, silent stillness.

  Most of the magic beasts across the town, however, were not so fortunate. Silthide bisons and cyclone ibexes lay impaled on shattered spikes or sprawled where shards had punched through their bodies. The galehorn rams had it worse. The fact that they swirled wind around their horns meant most shards had been swirled, punching through their eyes and throats. They reminded her of…

  The war.

  She gulped, pushing to her feet.

  “Lower the walls,” she whispered. “What’s going on with Dain?”

  Yasmin hesitated, then stabbed the butt of her swordstaff against the wall. The stone began to slump and crumble, and as soon as a gap opened, she slipped through—and froze.

  A shadow leaped over the barrier of giant stone spikes in the middle of the street, cloak snapping behind her. For a heartbeat, the one-eyed’s silhouette was etched cleanly against the moon: stonescale mantle, lean build, and the void of that single black eye in that smooth white mask.

  Then she landed on a rooftop and sprinted, bounding from house to house as she fled towards the forest.

  Anisa’s hand went to her crossbow on pure instinct. She yanked it up, set her cheek to the worn wood, and tried to track the fleeing figure, but the one-eyed moved like smoke. Too far. Too fast. Her shoulder still ached from getting knocked onto her back and her hands were still shaking so when she fired, it was of no surprise to her that she missed.

  She exhaled harshly and lowered the crossbow as the one-eyed vanished into the treeline.

  Damnit!

  She hadn’t even seen the one-eyed’s face.

  But maybe it was a good thing she missed the shot, because if she’d landed it, her head would be preoccupied with thoughts of chasing the one-eyed down. Instead, she remembered the man she’d got up to help.

  The last glimpse she had caught before the shard storm hit had been Dain lying on the ground with a blade poised above his chest.

  No, no, no.

  She broke into an unsteady run toward the wall of spikes. Rather than wait for Yasmin or any of the townsguard to shatter them, she grabbed a protruding edge and hauled herself up, gritting her teeth as stone scraped her palms. She scrambled along the rough face of the spike, then dropped down on the other side.

  Her breath hitched.

  Dain lay in the middle of the street. He was on his back, a bloody hole gaped in his chest where the one-eyed’s blade had pierced straight through his heart. His silverplume wings moved on their own, and the only word she could use to describe them was ‘frantic’, sweeping and scooping at the blood pooling underneath him as if they could gather it back into his body. Even his owl construct shrieked in despair beside his head, and it was only when it noticed her that it started shrieking at her instead.

  She sprinted over and dropped to her knees at Dain’s side, but the moment she did, his silverplume wings suddenly slashed at her. It was quick. It was sudden. She fell back with a cry as the metal feathers drew blood from her forearms, and Yasmin, behind her, immediately shouted at her to stay back.

  She stared at the silverplume wings, and they stared back at her, pointing straight at her throat.

  They’re… really alive?

  Sentient wings?

  They would’ve cut her throat, but damn if she let them stop her now. She crawled forward again, undeterred, but when the wings lunged to slash at her again—fully intent on defending their fallen master—the owl construct slammed down on them with its talons, pinning them to the ground with a screech.

  While the sentient relics fought amongst themselves, she placed her hands on his neck and tried to feel for a pulse. There was none.

  “Wake up, Dain Sorowyn,” she whispered. “You have yet to apprehend the one-eyed. You have yet to prove it was not you who destroyed Corvalenne. You have yet to…”

  The words tangled in her throat, and she ran out of breath.

  Then something tugged at her collar.

  She looked down to see her family crest: the Amulet of the Stoneheart Dragon encased in a small locket in the shape of a Stoneheart Ram. The pure platinum glint was a sign that it was harvested straight from the Grand Argent Vein under the capital. It was a priceless piece of Obric craftwork, and she’d worn it for as long as she could remember, for there was an old Obric saying: ‘the crowns die twice—once when their titles devour them, and once for their people’.

  For their people.

  She stared at the amulet, mind suddenly very, very empty. The owl screeched again, and when she looked back at it, those bright amethyst eyes were fixed on her. On her hands. On her amulet. There was a strange, pleading intensity in the construct’s gaze that made her feel like she was the one being appraised, as if… as if the owl was alive, and judging her for it.

  Do something, those eyes seemed to say.

  Her fingers curled around the amulet.

  “... Come here, everyone,” she said softly. But no one heard her. The street was filled with the townsguard’s groans and the sounds of Ilvaren, Kargun, and Sahlir bashing angrily through the stone spikes.

  She drew in a breath that hurt and raised her voice.

  “Heed my words!” she bellowed. “Come to me! It is not over yet!”

  That cut through the noise. Ilvaren, Kargun, and Sahlir finally stumbled into view from three directions, bloodied and bruised, but not broken. Yasmin helped some of the townsguard get on their feet, and now all of them were able to take a good, long look at Dain Sorowyn. No doubt they saw a dead man, but not her.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  She rippled her amulet off her neck and lifted it for all to see.

  “I am Anisa Hallowmortar, Second Princess of the Autonomous Land of Obric, Heiress to the Grand Argent Vein, and this man has not been dead for ten minutes yet!” she shouted. “If we act quickly, we can bring him back with this amulet! Come closer so you can pour your mana into it!”

  A ripple of confusion moved through the adventurers. The townsguard even more so. Then the words finally seemed to hit everyone like a hammer-strike. Even Ilvaren, Kargun, and Sahlir—outsiders from continents across the seas—froze at the sight of her Stoneheart Ram amulet.

  No one moved. No one breathed. She felt the weight of a dozen stunned eyes on her, utter disbelief carved on every face.

  Then one of the townsguard—a lower-ranked Plains Marshal by his armor’s markings—took an uncertain step forward.

  “Um… miss… I mean,Your Highness,” he stammered. “If memory serves me correctly, that amulet… is a one-time-use relic, isn’t it? It’s meant for you, Your Highness. Not… not for some adventurer you’ve been traveling with—”

  “He is not just ‘some’ adventurer!” Anisa snapped. “He is the only man alive in this world who might still be able to prevent a Second Black Exhibit War! Because of what he knows! Because of what he has seen! His death will damn millions! His life will save even more, and his life is… at this turn, even more important than mine!”

  The townsguard flinched, taken aback at her intensity.

  Then silence swallowed the street. A deep, stunned silence. She felt Yasmin’s eyes on her; she felt Ilvaren, Kargun, and Sahlir all stiffen in the same breath.

  Even the wind held still.

  “... Please,” she whispered. Her gaze dropped to Dain’s bloodied face. “This man has saved my life more times than I can count, and while he talks endlessly about fair trade… he is also a wretched man who only pretends to make fair trades.” A thin laugh shook out of her. “I still owe him. How can a princess possibly owe a common man?”

  And the street remained hushed—until Yasmin moved.

  Her steward stepped forward without a word, knelt beside her, and gently pried the amulet from her hand.

  “Very well, my lady,” Yasmin murmured. “Let’s do this properly.”

  Yasmin laid the amulet flat on Dain’s chest, right beside the blood-slicked hole. Anisa’s throat tightened, but she nodded once all the same.

  “Thank you.”

  Sahlir was the next to move. The hawkkin limped forward, dragging one leg, and his segmented blade clinked softly as he knelt opposite Yasmin. “Is resurrection ritual,” he said quietly, more to himself than anyone else. “Is… very big honor, yes?”

  Ilvaren followed, grimacing as she dropped down beside Sahlir. Her leathers were torn, but her eyes were clear and sharp as ever. Kargun lumbered in last of the three, metal gauntlets hovering behind his shoulders as he sank to one knee as well.

  “Ye heard the princess,” he rumbled. “If this relic’s got even a chance o’ dragging the boss back from the Deep Tunnels, I’ll pour every drop I’ve got.”

  Anisa drew in a breath as the four of them formed a rough circle around Dain, but they were still only five. The hesitation finally broke when one of the townsguard—near the edge of the scene—suddenly straightened, snapped to attention, and shouted:

  “By command of the Second Princess of Obric—attend her, you lot! To the amulet!”

  And that did it. The spell of shock shattered. One by one, the other townsguard limped, staggered, or dragged themselves around Dain, forming an even larger ring around Dain. Even still, they weren’t going to be enough. Anisa already knew it. Ilvaren was the only elf here, which meant while she could probably contribute at least two to three thousand mana alone, the rest of them combined would only have about a thousand mana—far from the ten thousand they needed to activate the amulet.

  Her teeth sank into her lower lip. If she could chew her own mana core out and feed it to the amulet, she would do so in a heartbeat, but…

  Hoofbeats.

  Lots of them.

  She lifted her head, heart leaping. At the edge of the crater, shapes appeared through the dust and moonlight: a line of rams cresting the ridge, then another behind them, armor and horns gleaming. Dozens of them. Scores of them.

  Reinforcements.

  Of course. The flares Rashan had ordered the townsguard to shoot up earlier. Before she could even find her voice again, the men around her bellowed again, this time with all the force of men begging the gods for a miracle.

  “The Second Princess of Obric commands you!” the Plains Marshal roared up the slope. “Down into the crater! Now! There’s an amulet relic in need of mana, and we need every man down here!”

  The new arrivals hesitated, but only for a moment. Disciplined training took over. Dozens of four-horned mountain rams thundered down the slope, and men and women dismounted just as quickly. There was chaos and confusion and lots of chatter, of course—the giant stone spikes around the town were impossible to ignore, and neither were the sentient owl construct still grappling and clawing at the sentient silverplume wings—but within minutes, the town square was packed with bodies.

  A hundred and fifty men, perhaps, if she included the adventurers. A small army gathered around a dead man.

  The wind still blows in your favor, Sorowyn!

  You cannot die here!

  “Pour your mana into the amulet on his chest!” Anisa commanded. “Think of it as a basin! Free your mana into the air, and let it be drawn to that focus!”

  Mana surged in the air. It only prickled her nape at first, but then it thickened into a palpable current she felt brushing against her skin. The Amulet of the Stoneheart Dragon blazed, its platinum shell blooming with tarnished silver light. As more and more mana poured in from every direction, it began to spin atop Dain’s chest, faster and faster, humming, raging—until the hum deepened into a roar.

  A Dragon’s roar.

  Light erupted from the amulet. Dain’s chest wound knitted shut in a heartbeat, the blood on his skin evaporating in bright vapor, and his breaths came back not with a gasp—not even with a jolt—but with a quiet, steady rise of his chest as the amulet cracked straight down the middle.

  The raging, bloodthirsty silverplume wings stopped trying to attack the owl construct, and that was Anisa’s cue to fling herself forward, pressing her ear to his chest.

  She held her breath.

  The world held its breath.

  Come on.

  Come back.

  For a heartbeat, nothing.

  Then…

  One pulse.

  A second.

  A third.

  A soft, warm tear ran down her cheek.

  She lifted her head. Yasmin was staring at her. Ilvaren’s mouth hung slightly open. Even Kargun looked shaken.

  “... He’s back,” she whispered.

  However, as the collective breath of relief washed over the square, Anisa felt her own chest tighten rather than ease. Reality pushed its way in and sank its teeth into her neck.

  The one-eyed had escaped. They had no proof. No testimony. Nothing her father or elder sister could act upon. Everything they had gambled this mission on to force both Obric and Auraline’s crowns to act—gone.

  All they had was a town full of dead and wounded men.

  Her stomach sank.

  At this point…

  What do I even—

  “Um, Your… Highness?”

  Rena’s small voice piped up from her right. Anisa blinked as the lady suddenly trotted into view, squeezing past the townsguard as she hugged a small, cloud-swirled orb against her chest.

  “It’s a bit strange addressing you now as ‘Your Highness’, but… here,” Rena said, holding out the orb. “I captured the whole thing.”

  Anisa stared.

  “…You what?”

  “The whole thing,” Rena repeated proudly. “The scenery inside this Reality Bubble contains the full conversation between Dain and that lady. They talked about… Corvalenne, I think? I’m not sure. I was hiding in the alley the entire time, so I didn’t hear much, but Dain saw me before the lady killed him. I figured that he wanted me to capture the entire scene with the way he was looking at my Reality Bubble, so it must be important, right?

  Anisa could only gape at her.

  Then she stood, stepped forward, and gently seized Rena’s hands with the orb between them.

  “... Could I have the orb?” she asked.

  “But of course!” Rena said cheerily. “Anything for the Second Princess of Obric. Ah, but—keep in mind Reality Bubbles are one-time-use relics. Once you capture a scene, you can only release it and view it once until it fades away forever. If you’re planning on seeing it or showing it to someone, you best make sure to burn the moment into your eyes.”

  Anisa took the Reality Bubble, cradling it carefully.

  Relief spread through her chest in slow, warm waves. With this—this single relic—she could corroborate Dain’s every claim. She could prove the one-eyed existed. She could finally act.

  But first…

  She turned to face the mass of townsguard, adventurers, and stragglers.

  “From this moment onward, nothing that occurred here leaves this town!” she shouted. “When we return to Braskir, all of you will report that we have slain the tamer who sought to unleash a stampede of beasts upon our walls! There will be no mention of any assailant we failed to apprehend! No mention of this revival! In exchange for your discretion, you will all be compensated greatly by the crowns of Obric, and I swear this upon my honor as the Second Princess! Does everyone understand?”

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