The work was a mercy. It was mechanical, logical, a sequence of tasks that demanded focus and left no room for the screaming void in my chest. We moved through the opulent suite with the grim efficiency of soldiers dismantling a forward operating base.

  My first stop was the meditation room. The bookshelf slid away, revealing the glowing white portal to my true sanctum. I stepped through one last time, the clean, sterile air of the workshop a stark contrast to the storm of grief raging within me. My eyes immediately fell upon the Mark V, standing sentinel in its display case. And there it was, a small, faded cartoon duck on a cheap bandage, stuck firmly to its chest plate.

  The memory hit me with the force of a physical blow. It was from after the spar with my father. Lyra had seen the scratch on the armor and, with the solemn gravity only a child can possess, had toddled over with the bandage. She believed I was hurt, that the armor was an extension of me, and that her small act of care would heal the damage. Her childish mind thought it would make me better.

  A fresh, stabbing pang of grief, so sharp it was physical, lanced through me. I almost stumbled. No. Not now. I forced my eyes away, focusing on the mission. I walked to the drone station, retrieved the shielded case containing my fifty reconnaissance units, and walked back out through the portal.

  "Tes, initiate portal shutdown and frame retraction," I commanded, my voice flat.

  From the alcove, the glowing white gateway shimmered and collapsed into nothingness. The four interlocking bars of the metal frame then began to fold, telescoping and collapsing in on themselves with a series of quiet, precise clicks until all that remained was a compact, heavy bundle of dark metal. The dimension itself was stable, a universe in a bottle, waiting for its door to be reopened.

  Bob, a silent mountain of strength, took the folded frame and strapped it to his back without a word.

  We were ready. The last light of the sun had vanished, leaving the floating continent bathed in the cold glow of its twin moons.

  “It’s time,” I said.

  Patricia nodded, her face pale and drawn in the moonlight. She held out her hands, and the shadows in the room deepened, flowing toward her like liquid night. They coalesced around the three of us, weaving into a shimmering, light-swallowing cloak that rendered us little more than distortions in the air.

  We slipped out of the Azure Spire like ghosts, our footsteps silenced by her magic. The academy was quiet, the senior students either studying or carousing. No one saw us reach the precipice, the very edge of the floating world. Below us, a sea of roiling clouds churned in the moonlight.

  I opened the case and released the drones. They rose into the air with a barely audible hum, fanning out in a complex search pattern, their crystalline eyes already streaming tactical data back to Tes. After a moment, I got the all-clear.

  Kaelus hopped from my shoulder. The cat-sized dragon expanded with breathtaking speed, his form swelling, his wings unfurling until the thirty-meter beast stood before us, a creature of midnight and starlight. I leaped onto his back, settling between the powerful muscles of his shoulders. His scales were cool and smooth beneath my hands.

  I never imagined my first dragon ride would be like this, I thought, a bitter wave of irony washing over me. This was meant to be a joyous flight home with Lyra cheering from the ground.

  With surprising gentleness, Kaelus’s massive hind claws enclosed Bob and Patricia, lifting them as if they weighed nothing. With a single, powerful downbeat of his wings, we launched from the edge of the world and plunged into the sea of clouds.

  Dragon Valley, the place of my exile, vanished above us. We were free. And we were fugitives.

  The continent was constantly, slowly, drifting. Our planned overland route to the Dwarven lands was now a direct flight over the turbulent Maelstrom Sea. For thirty minutes, we flew in silence, the only sound the rhythmic rush of wind over Kaelus’s wings and the distant crash of waves below.

  Then, a sterile red alert flashed across my internal vision.

  [WARNING: SPATIAL FLUCTUATION DETECTED. SECTOR 4-BETA. PROBABILITY OF HOSTILE TELEPORTATION EVENT: 98.7%]

  The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  One of the forward drones caught it first: a shimmering, emerald tear in reality, weaving itself into existence directly in our path. Elven spatial magic.

  A surge of pure, cold panic shot through me. “Tes! How? How did they find us?!”

  [ANALYZING AMBIENT ENERGY SIGNATURES… ANGELIC ARTIFACT DETECTED. SOURCE: WITHIN HOSTILE FORMATION. SAME ENERGY PROFILE AS THE PREVIOUS ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT.]

  Those damn winged idiots. The Lumina Imperium. Were they in on this? Or were they just fools, tricked into providing the tracking device? Knowing their arrogance, they probably thought they were bestowing a divine gift. I’d figure it out later. Right now, we were trapped.

  The portal stabilized, and they poured through. A squadron of thirty knights, their golden armor gleaming, each mounted on a magnificent phoenix whose feathers burned with crimson fire. They formed a perfect semi-circle, cutting off our escape.

  We were fucked. Utterly, completely fucked. Even if I could kill them, they would just resurrect. Thirty of them. And Bob was without Aquarius. We couldn’t win a battle of attrition.

  "Tes," I projected, my mind racing, scrambling for a non-existent solution. "Find a way out. Do something!"

  [CALCULATING… ONLY ONE VIABLE SOLUTION REMAINS. PROBABILITY OF SUCCESS: 73.4%. UTILIZE ALL ACCUMULATED BLESSING ENERGY TO CREATE A HIGH-FIDELITY, SELF-SUSTAINING DECOY.]

  [CHECKING DIRECTIVE ALIGNMENT… PRESERVATION OF A KEY WORLD ASSET (USER/KAELUS) ALIGNS WITH STABILITY PROTOCOLS. BLESSING IS AUTHORIZED.]

  "Use it? Yes! Now!"

  [ACKNOWLEDGED. WARNING: THIS EXPENDITURE WILL CREATE A SIGNIFICANT VISUAL PHENOMENON.]

  "Just do it, damn it!"

  [RECOMMENDATION: DIVE. UTILIZE KAELUS TO CREATE A SUBMERGED AIR POCKET FOR RESPIRATION.]

  The rapid-fire exchange in my mind was suddenly interrupted by a calm, curious, and utterly new voice. Brother, I know this is a bad time, but why is there a lady in your head?

  Shock jolted me, a secondary explosion in the midst of the primary crisis. Kaelus. Our soul bond was so deep he could hear my direct interface with Tes.

  "Kaelus, I will explain everything later!" I shouted aloud, my voice nearly lost in the wind. "Just listen to me! When I say now, dive! Straight into the sea!"

  A small, intensely bright ball of pure white light flowed out of my chest, hovering in the air for a fraction of a second.

  "NOW!"

  Kaelus folded his wings and we dropped like a stone, hitting the churning waves with a colossal splash. The world became a dark, violent chaos of saltwater. A shimmering bubble of air instantly formed around us, a testament to his mastery of the elements, but the pressure was immense.

  From my drone’s-eye view, high above, I watched the gambit play out.

  The ball of light exploded, not with a bang, but with a silent, blinding flash. It re-formed into a perfect, shimmering replica of me, mounted on an identical, furious Kaelus.

  “For House Wight!” the phantom me roared, charging the phoenix legion.

  What followed was a beautiful, doomed battle. The phantom Kaelus breathed torrents of azure fire, while the phoenixes answered with cyclones of crimson flame. The illusory me, wielding a Plasma Katana made of pure light, zipped between them, his blade cleaving through armor and flesh. But for every knight he struck down, the phoenix would flare, and the man would be reborn, his armor seamlessly repaired.

  Eventually, overwhelmed, the phantom Kaelus was impaled by a dozen lances of concentrated fire. He let out a final, silent roar as his light-form shattered. My own illusionary body was consumed in a final, glorious fireball.

  The bodies of me, Bob, and Patricia all flawless light constructs tumbled from the sky and were swallowed by the raging sea.

  One of the knights laughed. "A dragon's body is extremely expensive. Can you imagine how much a dragon prince's corpse will be worth?"

  "Are you an idiot?" another knight snapped, his voice sharp with command. "Killing the heir was already pushing our mandate to its absolute limit! If you even think of desecrating that body, Aurum and Obsidius themselves will hunt us to the ends of the world! All of dragonkind will declare war! Leave it. Our mission is complete."

  With a final, disdainful look at the churning waves, the squadron turned and flew back through their portal, which winked out of existence.

  …

  Hours later, we crawled onto a desolate, black-sand beach under the grim gaze of the Dwarven mountains. My drones found a shallow cave, sheltered from the biting wind. Bob, shivering, managed to start a small, smokeless fire. Patricia, her movements slow and exhausted, cooked what little rations we had.

  We ate in silence. They were alive, but they had no idea of the miracle that had just occurred, of the cosmic blessing that had been spent not only to save our lives, but to erase us from the world. Tes had woven the blessing's residual energy around us, a quantum cloak that masked our very existence. For seven years, our mana signatures would be nothing more than background noise. No angelic artifact, no scrying spell, no divine intuition could find us now. The blessing hadn't just bought us a single escape; it had purchased us time—seven years of it. A window to build, to plan, to forge our vengeance in absolute secrecy. They only knew that we had survived. They didn't know we had become ghosts.

  And for now, in the cold, dark cave on a hostile shore, that was enough.