Derpy stood in a place that wasn’t a room.
It had edges, but no walls.
It had air, but no wind.
A pocket dimension stitched into existence by his own power—anchored inside the Elven Empire, but not in it. A seam-space. A private fold. A place the world couldn’t find unless it knew the thread.
His dream-self was here.
And he wasn’t alone.
Celica stood closest—silver presence, protective posture, arms already half-raised like she could block fate itself if she tried hard enough.
Phantasm hovered near his shoulder with a warmth that didn’t match her name, her expression soft like she was trying to make this easier.
Blight was the loudest thing in the space.
She threw herself at him and hugged him like she’d been waiting a lifetime for permission.
And she laughed—bright, satisfied, possessive.
“I missed you,” Blight said into his chest. “I was with you before she was.”
Phantasm’s eyes narrowed.
Without warning, she hooked Blight under the arms and lifted her clean off the ground like she weighed nothing.
Blight kicked her legs, furious.
“Put me down!” she snapped, swinging at Phantasm with tiny fists that didn’t reach. “I want to be closer to him—more. I was with him before you!”
Phantasm didn’t flinch.
“True,” she said calmly. “But you’re not entirely linked with him.”
Blight’s eyes flashed.
Phantasm’s gaze shifted past Blight—past Derpy—into the air.
And an image formed.
Lewd.
Not physically here. Not present. But present enough to be a knife in the conversation.
“She needs you more than he does,” Phantasm said simply.
Blight’s face twisted.
She scoffed like the word need offended her.
“When I agreed to this,” Blight said, voice sharpening, “I was promised I would be his second calamity.”
She stopped swinging.
Exhaled.
And the smugness cracked into something more serious.
“We can’t hide the truth from him much longer,” Blight muttered. “You ladies can feel it.”
Celica’s eyes didn’t leave Derpy.
His bracelets—yellow, cracked—were warm again.
Not gentle.
Not safe.
Blight’s grin returned, but it wasn’t cute.
“His power’s been growing,” Blight said softly. “Substantial.”
Her eyes gleamed.
“I don’t know if just the three of us can manage him.”
Celica’s jaw tightened.
Blight continued anyway, voice turning hungry with certainty.
“Even if I’m just a joint contract… I feel it. I have to be fully linked like you, Celica.”
Her gaze slid to Derpy’s wrists.
“To keep that old power locked away.”
She smiled wider.
“Yes,” Blight whispered. “He’s our sister Lunara’s kid.”
Her eyes brightened like she’d tasted blood in the water.
“But he’s coming. I can feel it.”
Celica finally spoke, voice low and tired.
“As much as you say is true…” She swallowed. “He may become something more than a calamity.”
Her eyes softened for a heartbeat.
“Disaster,” she added quietly, “depending on how he handles what happens when he wakes up.”
Derpy’s brow furrowed.
“You’re talking like I’m not here,” he said.
Celica flinched, then forced herself to meet his eyes.
“You are wielding me at seventy-five percent of my power,” Celica said. “And you don’t even realize it.”
Derpy blinked.
Celica’s voice trembled on the next words.
“Anymore… I don’t know what you would turn into.”
Phantasm stepped closer, smile warm.
“And you’re unknowingly using me at the fullest of my power,” she said, like she was proud of him.
She hugged him—tight, affectionate.
“You’re much better using my power than the doll who found me.”
Derpy stiffened.
He pushed her away, not gently.
“That doll has a name,” he said, voice sharp enough to cut. “And I consider her a sister.”
Phantasm’s smile faltered.
Derpy’s eyes burned.
“Her name is Riven.”
The seam-space shuddered.
Red smoke spilled from Derpy’s skin.
Black smoke followed—thicker, older.
His body folded down into something smaller.
A small red wolf shape—compact, bristling, feral, with eyes too old for its face.
Celica’s arms snapped out instinctively, shielding.
Blight’s expression sharpened.
Phantasm went still.
And then—
the air tore.
A black-and-purple wing shot upward through the seam-space like a blade breaking the sky.
Lunara stepped in as if she’d always belonged here.
Curved purple horns. Black hair with colored streaks. Fangs in a smile that didn’t pretend to be kind. Purple-black wings that made the pocket dimension feel smaller just by existing.
She looked at Derpy like she’d been handed something rare.
“Well,” Lunara purred, voice rich with amusement. “I go to the other world to see what my spawn looks like…”
Her eyes slid to Celica, who was still shielding Derpy with her arms stretched wide.
“…and I find my sister claiming him.”
Lunara’s smile sharpened.
“Who decided you get to do that?”
Derpy’s wolf ears flattened.
He didn’t answer fast enough.
He didn’t know how.
Because he didn’t know what she was to him yet.
He only knew she felt real.
And dangerous.
“I don’t know how I was brought into this world,” Lunara continued, almost conversational. “But I’m happy I was brought here.”
Her gaze lingered on Celica like she was measuring her.
Celica didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Just held the line.
Derpy exhaled.
The wolf shape bled away.
He stood up in his humanoid form again—taller, tired, eyes too old for his face.
He walked away from Celica, Phantasm, and Blight like he needed air.
Blight grabbed his arm.
“Please don’t,” she said.
The words came out wrong. Too soft. Too real.
Celica’s eyes flicked to Blight, startled.
Blight never got emotional.
Derpy looked down at her.
Then he knelt.
Patted her head once—gentle, disarming.
And then he picked her up.
Like she was a child.
Like he was the adult.
Blight froze in his arms, shocked.
Tears welled in her eyes like she hated herself for it.
Derpy’s voice went calm.
“I want answers,” he said.
Then he said a name like it was a key.
“Miasdrake.”
Blight’s breath caught.
Her eyes went wide.
Derpy held her steady, not letting her wriggle away from the truth.
“It wasn’t fair,” Derpy said quietly. “I didn’t give you an answer back when we had joint custody between Lewd and I.”
Blight’s lips trembled.
Derpy’s gaze didn’t.
“If you want this contract,” he said, “no more secrets.”
He paused.
“Tell me how you feel.”
A presence moved.
Not a dragon.
A wolf.
Folded arms. A posture that screamed authority even when the body didn’t match it.
Vorath.
But wrong.
Reduced.
Small.
A deity forced into a lesser shape.
He stood there like he was annoyed by his own size.
“I sense a beast in my kid,” Vorath said, voice deep enough to shake the seam-space. “That’s good.”
Derpy blinked at him.
Dumbfounded.
“…Huh?”
Lunara’s eyes dulled as she looked at the small wolf.
Then she picked him up like he was a misbehaving pet.
Her voice dripped contempt.
“Huh,” Lunara said. “My lover from the old days has been reduced to a small incompetent wolf.”
Vorath bared his teeth.
“It’s hard being in two places at once,” he snapped.
Lunara’s gaze sharpened.
“Tell me,” she said, tone turning cold. “If you’re out…”
Her wings flexed once.
“…then someone opened the chambers in the Valley of Dragons.”
Vorath’s eyes narrowed.
“Indeed,” he admitted. “I hate to say it, but I’m not the only wolf deity that’s on their way here.”
Derpy’s head turned slowly.
He listened.
Lunara. Vorath. Words like chambers and opened and on their way.
Blight pleaded behind him.
Celica’s breath hitched.
Phantasm’s warmth dimmed into caution.
Derpy set Blight down carefully and walked toward Lunara and Vorath.
A gold chain snapped into existence.
It stopped him inches from them.
Celica’s voice cut through the seam-space.
“Don’t you forget, partner,” Celica said, trembling with anger and fear. “You and I are together.”
Her eyes flashed.
“Even if my sister over there is your mother.”
Derpy stared at the chain.
Then at Celica.
Then the air behind him darkened.
A black aura formed—familiar, mocking.
Sinister Derpy.
“Hey now,” the aura purred. “He’s taking a gamble here.”
The aura tilted its head toward Celica like it was amused by her panic.
“He summoned the rest of the calamity here like you requested when we first met.”
It smiled.
“And you’re stopping him from trying to get to know his mother.”
The black aura vanished.
Derpy’s voice came out colder than before.
And it hit Celica like a slap.
“Tiamat.”
Celica went rigid.
Her eyes widened in horror.
The bracelets on Derpy’s wrists cracked louder.
Heat surged.
The seam-space shook.
Celica’s body began to glow as if her true self was trying to surface through her skin.
“There’s no stopping what comes next,” Celica whispered, tears spilling. “I’m holding you responsible.”
She backed up—shaking—until she stood beside Phantasm and Blight.
The three calamities looked helpless for the first time.
Not because they were weak.
Because Derpy had just bargained without realizing it.
Derpy blinked, as if waking inside the dream.
He muttered to himself, half-distracted.
“I wonder how Selene is doing back at work…”
The name Selene snapped Lunara’s attention.
Vorath’s ears twitched.
Derpy didn’t realize what he’d done.
He just shook his head and looked at them again.
“I may not know you,” he said, looking at Lunara, “but I want to get to know you.”
His voice hardened.
“I want the truth. I don’t want games. I don’t want riddles.”
He stepped forward until the gold chain pressed against his chest.
“Tell me straight and honest,” Derpy said. “Are you my mother?”
His gaze shifted to the small wolf in Lunara’s hand.
“And… assuming you, mister wolf man, were on her shoulder… you’re my father?”
He held out his hand to Lunara.
“If you weren’t there when I was growing up,” Derpy said, voice rough, “then I ask you now.”
His palm stayed open.
“Will you be there now?”
A pause.
Then something softer—dangerous because it was sincere.
“As a companion,” Derpy said. “And a mother.”
He swallowed.
“I know I see your physical appearance of what you looked like many centuries ago… but will you work along with me and your sister to bring a new law to this world?”
Derpy looked to Vorath.
“And you,” he said. “You said there were others. Stop them at all costs if you can.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Then I would love to spend some time with you when this is over.”
Vorath stared at him.
Then jumped from Lunara’s hand onto Derpy’s shoulder—eye to eye, level, close enough to be a promise.
“I’ll do more than that,” Vorath said.
Smoke began to peel off him as if his true form was waiting behind the veil.
“I’ll tear the Elven Empire to the ground if I have to.”
And then he vanished.
Derpy looked back at Lunara.
Held his hand out again.
“Well?” he asked.
Lunara’s evil grin formed like she’d been given the prize of a lifetime.
“Sure thing,” she said.
She reached for his hand.
Shook it.
The contact glowed.
Derpy didn’t pull away.
He tightened his grip—steady, deliberate—like he was anchoring the dream by force of will.
“I have conditions,” Derpy said.
Lunara’s grin widened, amused.
“Oh?” she purred. “Look at you.”
Derpy’s eyes didn’t soften.
“One,” he said, voice flat. “You will not try to push me into becoming evil.”
Lunara’s smile twitched—almost offended, almost impressed.
“Two,” Derpy continued. “If my sinister side tries to claw its way out without permission—you stop him.”
Lunara’s wings flexed once.
Derpy didn’t blink.
“Only you can let him out,” Derpy said. “And I don’t want him taking over my body without consent.”
Blight’s breath caught behind him.
Celica’s eyes tightened.
Phantasm went still—listening.
“Three,” Derpy said. “No world-end disasters. No ‘teaching me a lesson’ by burning cities.”
Lunara’s fangs showed.
Derpy’s tone didn’t change.
“And four,” he finished, “no fighting with your sister. You and Celica will not turn me into a battlefield.”
A beat.
Derpy’s hand stayed in Lunara’s.
His voice lowered—dangerous because it was honest.
“I’m not asking you to be good,” he said. “I’m asking you to be mine to negotiate with—without games.”
Silence.
Then Lunara laughed softly, like she’d been handed a challenge she actually wanted.
“Seems fair,” she said.
She squeezed his hand.
“But I have terms as well.”
Derpy’s eyes narrowed.
“Say them.”
Lunara’s gaze gleamed purple.
“Seek out my other sisters,” she said, voice turning sweet in the worst way. “From the Sister-Series.”
Her grin sharpened.
“I’m sure they would love to meet my heir.”
A purple band formed—alive, pulsing.
It slid toward Derpy’s wrists.
The cracked yellow bracelets flared.
Black heat answered.
Yellow. Purple. Black.
The bands merged.
The dream began to fade.
The seam-space dimmed.
And Derpy felt the pocket dimension he’d made start to loosen its hold on his sleeping mind.
Derpy’s eyes opened.
He was still in his pocket dimension—still inside the seam-space he’d created, still anchored in the Elven Empire.
But the dream was gone.
And the noise was not.
Eight voices.
Eight presences.
Eight calamity dragons in humanoid form arguing like the world was a courtroom and Derpy was the evidence.
Pyro stood forward like a blade drawn.
His heat rolled off him in waves.
His eyes were fixed on Derpy with something that wasn’t anger anymore.
It was decision.
“He’s an abomination,” Pyro said, voice low and final. “Spawn of two different gods.”
Eco shot forward, green light flaring.
“That doesn’t make him guilty,” Eco snapped. “It makes him alive.”
Celica’s eyes were wet.
Blight’s jaw was clenched.
Phantasm hovered close, tense but protective.
And Lunara—
Lunara smiled like she was enjoying the argument.
Tempest stood off to the side.
A guy. Quiet. Watching.
He didn’t join the shouting.
He just tracked the room like he was counting exits.
His eyes flicked to Derpy.
He noticed the exact moment Derpy’s focus sharpened.
The exact moment waking became awake.
He said nothing.
Marionette did.
He moved like a strike of thread and fury.
Humanoid dragon form—fast, brutal.
Mina was with him—held tight as he dashed, like he refused to leave her behind for what came next.
Marionette’s fist slammed into Derpy’s face.
A clean punch.
A shock to the system.
Derpy’s head snapped sideways.
Before he could breathe, Marionette followed with a kick—hard, meant to hurt, meant to keep him from speaking, meant to keep him from becoming.
Derpy hit the seam-floor and tasted blood.
The argument above him didn’t stop.
It got louder.
Because waking up wasn’t the danger.
Waking up was the beginning.
Derpy lay on the seam-floor where Marionette had put him.
Blood in his mouth.
Heat in his wrists.
Yellow-purple-black bands still humming like they hadn’t finished deciding what they were.
He didn’t move.
Not because he couldn’t.
Because every dragon in that pocket space already knew the truth.
He was awake.
Mina’s voice cut through the arguing first—sharp, small, furious.
She was perched with Marionette like she belonged there, like she’d decided she did.
“Why did you do that?!” Mina snapped at him. “He saved me from that queen!”
Marionette didn’t soften.
He held Mina tighter as if bracing her for what he knew was coming.
“I hit him because I know what happens next,” Marionette said. “And I’m not letting it happen with you in the splash zone.”
Mina’s eyes flashed.
“That’s not an answer!”
A shadow moved at the edge of the seam-space.
Lunara stepped forward.
Her smile was gone.
She crossed the distance in a blink and returned Marionette’s violence like it was a debt.
Punch.
Kick.
Clean. Fast. Mean.
Marionette staggered back with Mina still in his hold, forced to twist so the impact didn’t throw her.
Mina yelped.
“Stop!” she shouted—at Lunara, at Marionette, at all of them.
No one listened.
Derpy’s fingers flexed against the floor.
Slowly—deliberately—he pushed himself up.
Not rushing.
Not panicking.
Standing like a man who’d decided he was done being moved.
Pyro turned toward him.
The heat in the seam-space sharpened instantly.
Pyro’s eyes weren’t just angry.
They were resolved.
He grabbed Derpy by the face.
Not the throat.
The face.
A grip meant to humiliate as much as restrain.
Derpy’s hands shot up, claws half-formed, trying to pry Pyro’s fingers off his jaw.
He struggled.
Not enough.
Pyro was older. Stronger. Built like a verdict.
Lenora’s scream tore through the pocket dimension.
“PYRO—PUT HIM DOWN!”
Pyro didn’t even look at her.
He kept his hand on Derpy’s face like he was holding a dangerous animal still.
“What,” Pyro said, voice low, “your friend? Your lover? Your companion?”
His eyes narrowed.
“Doesn’t matter.”
He leaned closer to Derpy, heat rolling off him in waves.
“He is a threat to this world.”
Lenora stepped forward like she’d throw herself between them.
“Put him down,” she snapped, voice shaking with fury, “or our partnership is over.”
That finally made Pyro hesitate.
A fraction.
A crack.
His grip loosened just enough for Derpy to breathe.
Pyro’s jaw flexed.
Then his eyes hardened again.
“A small price is worth it,” Pyro said.
And he tightened his grip.
Blight moved.
Not with a roar.
With precision.
A flick of poison—fast, mean, surgical.
It sank into Pyro’s arm.
Pyro’s muscles seized.
His fingers jerked open.
Derpy dropped.
Phantasm was already there.
She caught him like she’d been waiting for the moment Pyro’s hand left his skin.
She pulled him back—fast—shielding him with her body, her wings half-flared, her eyes bright with warning.
Pyro stared at his poisoned arm.
Then he looked at Blight.
His voice went quiet.
“I’m done playing these games.”
He vanished.
A dash so fast it wasn’t movement—it was intent.
Straight for Derpy.
A kill shot.
Pyro’s claw drove forward.
Not a swipe.
A thrust.
Aimed for the center of Derpy’s chest like Pyro had already pictured the hole.
Phantasm tried to shift.
Too late.
Derpy tried to turn.
Too slow.
The claw hit.
It sank into “Derpy’s” chest.
A wet sound.
A shock of heat.
Lenora screamed.
Lewd screamed.
Both of them ran—instinct overriding thought—toward the body that was about to become a corpse.
And then the body in Pyro’s hand…
didn’t bleed right.
It didn’t convulse right.
It didn’t die right.
Ice crawled out from the wound.
Not frost from pain.
A structure.
A shell.
A decoy.
Pyro’s eyes widened a fraction.
Lunara saw it at the same time.
She moved faster than Lenora and Lewd—faster than anyone who wasn’t a dragon built for murder.
She caught the “body” and clutched it like it mattered.
“No,” Lunara choked, voice cracking. “No no no no—”
Black flames erupted from her.
Electricity snapped through it—wrong, violent, unstable.
She looked up at Pyro like she wanted to tear him open and wear his spine as jewelry.
“You asshole!” Lunara screamed. “What do you have against me?!”
Her voice broke into something raw.
“Because I fell in love with a different god from a different race?! Or is it that face—because I became the leader of the Sister-Series faction?!”
Lenora skidded to a stop.
Lewd froze.
Because Lunara was holding an ice block.
Not a dying man.
A trick.
A message.
Derpy wasn’t there.
Pyro’s mouth curled.
“That’s cute,” he said.
And then he moved again.
Not toward Lunara.
Toward the smallest, easiest target.
Silette.
The rat witch.
She had been there—watching, calculating, trying to decide which way the thread would snap.
She raised her hands and fired magic at Pyro—rapid bolts, desperate, bright.
Pyro didn’t dodge.
He walked through them like they were rain.
Then he was in front of her.
He grabbed her.
One hand around her small body.
And squeezed.
Silette’s eyes went wide.
Her mouth opened.
No sound came out.
Her form shuddered—threads unraveling—like she was being erased by pressure alone.
She disappeared.
A hard blink of absence.
Pyro exhaled like he’d just cleared a nuisance.
A chuckle echoed.
Not loud.
Not in the open.
From the shadows.
A chain shot forward.
Wrapped around Pyro’s torso, his arms, his wings—tightening in a pattern that felt like law.
Pyro jerked, snarling.
“Who—”
The chain yanked.
And Pyro’s body collapsed inward like it was being folded into a shape he hated.
Heat compressed.
Flame condensed.
The humanoid form vanished.
A calamity book dropped into the seam-space with a heavy, final thud.
Silence hit like a slap.
Everyone stared at the book.
Then Silette reappeared—staggering, breathing hard, eyes wide like she’d just been pulled back from a void.
She snatched the book up with both hands like it was a live bomb.
Her voice shook.
“Master…” she whispered to the darkness. “What should I do with him?”
No one saw Derpy.
But the shadows felt like they were smiling.
The seam-space blinked.
And the world shifted.
Not to the mess hall.
Not to the dungeon.
To the World Tree Castle proper—higher, colder, sharper.
Vaeloria’s chamber.
Seraphine stood across from her like a blade that had learned to speak.
Vaeloria’s voice was a broken chant.
“Give him back. Give him back. Give him back.”
Seraphine’s crest glowed.
A joker.
Black tears.
Her eyes went dull as her queen-power rose—shadow thickening, obeying.
Two pillars climbed out of the floor like the room was growing bones.
Black liquid poured into Seraphine’s hands.
It hardened into a spear.
She flicked it once, annoyed.
“I hate using my queen’s power,” Seraphine muttered, like it tasted wrong.
Then she looked at Vaeloria.
And smiled without warmth.
“Tell me,” Seraphine said softly, spear leveled, “what makes that Derpy character so special?”
A fire wolf dashed forward—Vaeloria’s defense.
Seraphine beheaded it in one motion.
The head hit the floor and dissolved into ash.
Seraphine didn’t blink.
“We queens were given a power much more deadly than calamity books,” Seraphine said. “And you know quite well what I’m talking about.”
Vaeloria’s ice magic erupted—petals, wolves, spears of cold.
Seraphine deflected them and dashed in, shredding Vaeloria’s ice wolf in the process.
She stopped with the spear at Vaeloria’s throat.
“Give it to me,” Seraphine said.
Her voice stayed calm.
“Or I take your life.”
Vaeloria smiled—tight, bitter.
“You know I can’t do that,” Vaeloria said. “The other queens will know.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“And it will be worse than war over these stupid calamity bearers.”
She swallowed.
“We all agreed to never give up our sacred treasure.”
A beat.
Vaeloria’s smile thinned to nothing.
“Plus,” she said quietly, “I was never given one.”
Seraphine’s eyes sharpened.
Vaeloria’s voice dropped.
“The War Council uses me as a pawn,” she admitted. “So I have no idea where the treasure is.”
Seraphine exhaled.
A tired sound.
“Well,” she said, lowering the spear a fraction, “I guess I have to ask them.”
She turned to leave.
Vaeloria’s voice cut after her.
“They’re dead.”
Seraphine stopped.
Looked back.
Vaeloria’s smile returned—cruel this time.
“Your kingdom is in shambles,” Vaeloria said. “Your guards are dead. So what is left to your kingdom besides your—”
She didn’t finish.
Because a dreadful howl shook the empire.
The castle trembled.
The World Tree’s leaves shivered like they’d heard a god clear its throat.
Seraphine’s eyes narrowed.
Vaeloria’s breath caught.
And somewhere outside—
something ancient had arrived.
Night over the Elven Empire didn’t feel like night anymore.
It felt like something had been placed over the sky.
And the people.
A warning.
The dreadful howl rolled across the canopy and through the capital like a command the world couldn’t refuse. Leaves shook. Towers trembled. Guards froze mid-step as if their bodies remembered an older law than crowns.
Outside the World Tree—beyond the palace walls, beyond the lantern lines, beyond the last polite boundary of “civilization”—
She appeared.
The Great Mother.
A royal wolf presence so heavy the air bent around her. Fur like storm-shadow. Eyes like judgment. Her breath came out slow, controlled, and every exhale made the ground remember it was prey.
Around her stood her royal warrior pups.
Not children.
Weapons.
They paced in a half-circle, ears pinned, teeth bared, waiting for a name to be spoken so they could turn it into a corpse.
The Great Mother lifted her head and howled again.
This one wasn’t rage.
It was a roll call.
“Find those two pups,” she ordered, voice carrying like a curse. “Vemi. Vambasta.”
Her gaze swept the empire like she could smell them through stone.
“Leave no one alive,” she added.
A pause—sharp, personal.
“And find the mate that Vambasta brought into the pack.”
Her lips curled.
“Bring him to me.”
The warrior pups shifted, eager.
Then—
another howl answered.
Farther.
Deeper.
Bigger.
It didn’t just shake the ground.
It made the Great Mother’s pups cower.
Their tails tucked. Their bodies lowered. Their instincts screamed submit before their minds could argue.
A red moon bled into the sky.
Not rising.
Appearing.
And under it—
a giant two-headed red wolf stepped out of the dark like a myth deciding to become real.
The Great Mother’s eyes narrowed.
Interesting, she thought without saying it.
A wolf I don’t know… and he made my pups submit.
She circled the two-headed wolf slowly, testing the air around him with her presence.
“Tell me,” she demanded, voice low. “What is your name.”
Both heads turned toward her.
The voice that answered was old.
Not ancient like dust.
Ancient like law.
“Vorath Nightfang,” he said. “Deity of the old gods.”
The Great Mother’s fur bristled.
Her eyes sharpened.
“Tell me why you are here,” she ordered.
Vorath’s heads moved slightly out of sync, like two minds sharing one purpose.
“My son is in there,” Vorath said, gaze fixed on the World Tree capital. “And he asked me to stop the attack on the empire.”
The Great Mother’s nostrils flared.
She tasted his power.
Measured it.
And decided she didn’t like what it implied.
“One condition,” she said.
Vorath didn’t move.
The Great Mother stepped closer until her shoulder brushed his fur—deliberate, possessive.
“You bear a child with me.”
Silence.
The warrior pups watched, tense.
Vorath’s heads blinked once.
“May I have time to think about this,” Vorath said carefully.
The Great Mother smiled without warmth.
“You have nine moons to decide,” she said.
Her voice dropped into something that wasn’t negotiation anymore.
“Or my pups will track you and your kid and kill you.”
The pups’ eyes lit up at the word kill.
The Great Mother’s gaze flicked toward the capital again.
“We will extract my two pups in there with minimal damage,” she added, tone casual like she was discussing weather.
Vorath’s eyes narrowed.
“That’s fine,” he said.
The Great Mother’s smile sharpened.
“Also,” she continued, voice turning colder, “the pup who was brought into my pack by my foolish daughter…”
She paused.
Let the threat hang.
“… will be dealt with.”
The red moon pulsed once overhead.
And the empire—already bleeding from queens and calamities—felt a new predator step onto the board.
Back inside the Elven Empire—
inside the pocket dimension stitched into the seam—
Silette held Pyro’s calamity book like it was a heart that might bite.
Her fingers trembled around the cover.
The book was hot.
Not warm.
Hot like anger trapped in paper.
The others stared at it with different kinds of fear.
Eco looked sick.
Blight looked satisfied.
Celica looked like she might cry again.
Phantasm stayed close to the shadows where Derpy had vanished, eyes scanning for him like she could feel his thread even when she couldn’t see him.
Lunara still held the ice decoy like it was a corpse she refused to accept wasn’t real.
Lenora’s hands shook.
Lewd’s breathing was too fast.
Tempest—quiet, male, watching—didn’t speak.
He just tracked the room like he was counting how many seconds they had before the next disaster.
Silette swallowed.
“Master,” she whispered again to the darkness. “What should I do with him?”
The shadows didn’t answer with a voice.
They answered with movement.
A pressure.
A presence.
Like Derpy was standing right behind everyone at once.
And then—
a whisper slid across the seam-space.
Not loud enough to prove it happened.
But clear enough that everyone heard it anyway.
“Hold him.”
Silette’s eyes widened.
She clutched the book tighter.
Eco stepped forward, voice strained.
“Derpy,” Eco said, trying to keep it calm, “where are you.”
No answer.
Only the book’s heat—spiking, furious.
Pyro’s rage pressed against the cover like it wanted out.
Lunara’s wings flexed.
Her voice came low.
“He tried to kill you,” she said to the shadows. “He tried to kill my spawn.”
Her smile showed teeth.
“What are you going to do about it.”
The seam-space trembled.
Not from Lunara.
From something deeper.
Something that didn’t like being called spawn.
Something that didn’t like being called anything.
In Vaeloria’s chamber, Seraphine’s spear was still wet with shadow.
Vaeloria’s ice still glittered in the air like suspended anger.
Both queens felt it at the same time.
That howl.
Not the first.
The second.
The one that made the world remember wolves existed before crowns.
Seraphine’s eyes narrowed.
Vaeloria’s smile faltered.
“What,” Seraphine said softly, “did you invite into my night.”
Vaeloria’s jaw tightened.
“I didn’t,” she said.
Seraphine’s crest flickered—joker with black tears—like it was amused by the lie.
Outside, the red moon hung too low.
And somewhere beyond the palace walls—
the Great Mother’s pups began to move.
Hunting.
Not for politics.
Not for leverage.
For blood.
And the next time the story cut back to the seam-space—
someone was going to open the wrong door
