Changeling

(53)

They ran. The last dregs of the stimulant cocktail sloshing around Nestra’s veins kept her going at a good pace, for now. She focused on keeping one foot in front of the other.

“We have to catch up with the others,” she said. “I told them to go for the wreck.”

“It would be better if we do not try. You are slowing down, and they’ll be safer if pursuers follow our trail instead..”

Nestra could believe her. She was so tired now, and her mind couldn’t stop wandering. Did Ilar really not know about the coup preparations? Did the patriarch? Should she have done anything more? Wait, she’d already asked herself that, and found no answer. Maybe there was no answer.

But what did she want to do now?

“I want no one else I care about to die,” she informed Camille.

Fox Mask stopped and stared. They were past the incline now, and if they wanted to go to the crash site, they should have turned right a moment before.

“I think you’re exhausted. I’ll carry you.”

“Ah?” Nestra asked, and then she was being princess-handled and moving at high speed.

“If you transform, can you fight?” they whispered.

Nestra shrugged, realized Camille couldn’t see it, and opted for a verbal answer instead.

“Yeah, it’s two separate things.”

“We are being followed. I know you care about your secret, but…”

“Oh, I should change now.”

“No, wait! Wait. We can’t have you fight. I will protect you. If the enclave finds out your secret, they will accuse you of being a spy. They will kill you, and any hope of reconciliation… any hope of it…”

Nestra had a solution and that solution was ‘leave no witness’, but she didn’t think Camille would be very receptive. She had a look back towards the column of smoke rising over the nearest crest, visible behind the red glow of ongoing fires. It wasn’t looking like reconciliation was going to be on the menu. She didn’t voice that opinion either. By then, Camille was still princess-carrying Nestra over the trail like some prince and horse combo all at once, breathing hard from the continued effort since Nestra was in full armor. It made her feel all special and treasured, to be honest, though her happily ever after certainly involved a barbecue and a naval gun right now. Sadly, Camille wasn’t broad enough for Nestra to be able to rest her head. Every harsh landing also sent a jolt through her arm which was progressively waking up. Even potions couldn’t fully heal a skewered arm in a couple of minutes.

There was a pulse of mana coming from behind. Camille stopped. They’d been found.

For a moment, Nestra wondered if Camille could defeat the pursuers. They were surely strong enough to defeat a group of C-class raiders. Why stop then? The answer came soon enough. Barring their way, wearing a tattered red robe over mail was Manh. He looked surprisingly calm for someone covered in the blood of his own people. The light of distant fires reflected strangely in the gleam of his own red iris. It gave him a devilish countenance that Nestra didn’t like.

“Truong. You found her. Good,” he said, Nestra’s visor translating him.

“I do not answer to that name anymore.”

“This is no time for personal drama,” Manh said, rolling his eyes. “Now come. We need to prepare. They will be here soon.”

He frowned.

“Why are you turned away from the enclave? The prisoners must be gathered in a bunker.”

“You are a fool, Manh. A fool, and a murderer.”

His nostrils flared, yet to Nestra’s surprise, he managed to keep his cool.

“I have blood on my hands, yes, and if you had opened your eyes like so many others, I wouldn’t have had to shed so much of it. I warned all of you that Threshold would come to enslave us with pretty words and contracts and other ‘commitments’ and see what happened? Not one week here and we have signed away our metal in exchange for the promise of ‘technology’, the yoke that will enslave us all until we can’t imagine living without it. Tonight, the patriarch was ready to give away half of our new repeating portal world as well, and this time for forgiveness. Forgiveness? As if Threshold didn’t steal left and right.”

We didn’t though, Nestra thought.

“I warned everyone that we would be the prey to those megacorps, slaving away for crumbs that they can withdraw anytime we displease them. Fortunately, there were enough people left with a spine to mount this operation. Those who value strength, freedom, the ability to carry one’s dream with their own hands..”

“I saw your vault, Manh. All this medical equipment I stole, is it what you promised your followers? Is that the ‘strength and freedom’ they crave?”

“Trades and mana stones are needed to buy the proper tools for every uprising. There are enclaves on this continent that need it more than we do.”

“Our children die of preventable diseases!”

“The weak perish so the strong may thrive. In Threshold, the cunning and treacherous borgs and dregs have taken power. They enslave the strong to guarantee their survival without them realizing it. I will not allow the same degeneracy to take root here. It is the natural order, Truong, whether you like it or not. However,”

He lifted a hand, calming himself down. Camille was shaking.

“However, once we are free again, I will make sure our people receive proper medical care for their wounds. Right now, we need resources, but after that, all that you liberated will be used internally. I am not cruel. I, too, want everyone to have a chance to prove themselves.”

“Will they be proving themselves when the Threshold strike force arrives?” Camille spat. “Will they also lay down their lives for the motherland while you hide?”

“I am no fool,” Manh replied. “There will be no battle, only delaying actions. You have studied the history of our ancestors. It does not matter if the invaders are mongols, or French, or American, or Chinese, or monsters, or even Thresholders. We will disappear into the jungle and outlast them all. We will strike from hidden shelters at their harvesting teams and their transports. We will blow up their infirmaries, and cut the lives of the borgs and dregs who dare trespass on our lands to remind the degenerates that they can never be safe. Once uncle comes out of his portal, which shouldn’t take long now, he will have no choice but to side with his family, because it will be too late to bargain with Threshold. If he cannot see the truth, I will remove every other path of his journey until he has no choice but to embrace it, no matter the cost.”

“That cost is always borne by others,” Camille retorted. “It is no slavery to have medicine, or access to information that could save lives. It is no slavery to allow others to find another way to live and be happy.”

“You are a blade master. You know there is only one superior path in this new world we live in.”

“That is untrue. There are many paths making our lives better without having to shed blood, even for the awakened. I have seen it.”

Manh flinched. Slowly, he took a step back. Nestra recognized it as a swordsman getting ready to draw. Camille was in danger.

“Then you have allowed the lesser ones to poison your mind. Don’t do this, Truong. We’re not sixteen anymore. I am in the third realm now. You cannot hope to defeat me. Stand aside.”

Camille’s shaking stopped.

“No.”

Nestra looked up, not believing her eyes. Camille was going to kill themself for her.

“You should run, Nestra. I will hold him off.”

“I’ve heard that before,” Nestra said, standing up and brushing herself.

“Tell the freak to stop talking. Her value as a hostage will not diminish with a broken jaw.”

“Stop. You have gone too far. I do not recognize your authority anymore. When Ong returns, he will put a stop to this madness.”

Manh scoffed.

“Your precious grandfather is a canny old man. You think he didn’t see me plotting? I know he accessed my vault and turned some of my followers. The only reason he didn’t act was because I was useful in channeling opposition while still being loyal to the enclave. He knew everything I was doing, he just didn’t expect me to act so soon.”

“What… but… I warned him.”

Manh laughed, and it wasn’t a nice sound.

“Truong, for all of your skill and control, when it comes to people, you are so hopelessly stupid. Well, I am going to kill you. All that skill of yours will account to nothing because this new world is powered by mana, and I have much more of it than you do. The world has picked me to carry on the will of the Sword Kings, to conquer the portal worlds. Me, who represents what mankind needs to thrive. And I am going to kill you. Before that, though, I will indulge a little pleasure since you were always so eager to bring me down.”

He smirked, his hand casually drawing his sword with a swift move.

“You see, Ong cares very much about the enclave and its reputation, more so than anything. That is why he sent you out of sight to be our thief so your presence wouldn’t sully our hall. After all, you were the last trace of his mistake: allowing his niece to bed a foreigner who would then dump her and leave. It was the sort of disgrace that could only end with death. I wonder if he killed her in the portal world himself or he just had her team pull back so the monsters would do it instead.”

“What?” Camille whispered.

“You thought a raider as strong as your mother could just die in such an easy world? No no no, your precious Ong was just erasing a mistake. I only wish he had the guts to finish the job, but I guess your talent stayed his hand. Hah, that expression…”

A clang. Camille fell on their ass in the middle of the trail while Manh recoiled, surprised that he’d been blocked. He glanced down at the sword that had parried his killing blow.

“Nice speech mate, but now I think we’re gonna kill you with the power of friendship and that big fucking sword I got,” True Nestra hissed.

“You!”

“You are lying! You are lying!” Camille cried.

They looked up, angular features twisted in grief, and rage.

“No. I am lying to myself.”

“C-rank,” Manh sighed. “I do not know what you are but it will not help. I guess I can maim you for interrogation.”

“I have sacrificed so much for so long…” Camille continued to herself. “So much for so long just to be used like this. How dare you? How fucking dare you?”

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Nestra was happy to see Camille finally replacing all that sadness with something else. She was also pretty satisfied with her boast. She was equally certain that Manh was going to wipe the floor with her, which was unfortunate. Her arms were still shaking from that one single blow.

“That’s it. I am done. I am done being your pariah sacrificing my future and my principles for scraps of affection. I am not your dog. I am… I was your family. Fuck.”

They looked towards Nestra who was more than happy to let everyone talk since it meant she didn’t have to get stabbed just yet.

Also, Camille was obviously having a moment.

“If I can’t get the love I hoped for then I guess I’ll take loyalty from a stranger instead. We are finished, Manh, so I’m going to say it now. You were always better at wagging your tongue than your blade. Fuck you.”

Camille charged with the energy and fury of despair, Nestra close behind. Manh parried the first strikes with depressing ease while Nestra’s brain went through all of her options with sort of panic that came with free falling from a plane with no parachute. This was a B-class raider, albeit a very weak one. They were experienced C-class. As a general rule, Three top-level D-class could hold off a beginner C-class, ten high C-class to a neophyte B-class, and fifty B-class to an A. Her chances were really, really fucking slim.

So Nestra stabbed the fucker in the back. Well, tried to. Manh twisted on himself to smack her blade aside after she teleported. Camille struck at the same time. Manh was forced to dodge away with a tsk of annoyance. He was armored, yet still concerned? Wait. His skin wasn’t altered yet. His skin wasn’t altered yet! In order to reach B-class, one had to pick a part of their bodies to remake, then they remade more until their bodies were entirely reforged. It meant that his defenses must still be weak. Maybe they —

Bonk.

Nestra was slammed into the ground by a powerful thrust. By some miracle, she’d still managed to block the blow but her hand shook with pain.

“Oof!”

Ok, yeah, he’d remade muscles.

Fuck, this was going to be hard.

“Water Dragon Dance!”

Camille’s quick succession of strikes drove Manh away from the dirt road and into the deep cover of the forest. Nestra followed. Manh’s face was serious, though he blocked every blow. Nestra used momentum to position herself on the other side of a tree, then struck with precision. Her blade smashed through in a shower of splinters, missing Manh entirely as she misjudged where he would be. It was still enough to force a reaction.

“Piss off.”

A wall of magma balls expanded outward in a cloud right in front of her. She used immovable to protect her head. They hit her, painful yet not debilitating. They were fairly hot. Another rain came. She managed to use momentum before the third wave. Nestra recovered at a distance. She was mostly unharmed, her resistances having pulled their weight. Killing all those Obsidian Tails had finally paid off!

Camille was hurt. It must have happened while she was distracted, so Nestra rushed back in. The two Sword Kings fought a battle that carved a path of destruction through the forest, each one dancing through the harsh terrain with ease. Manh was talented and precise but Camille was a virtuoso, capable of keeping up with their faster opponent by the careful use of mana walls to slow and use as platforms. Nestra played distraction by attacking Manh in the back and sides every time he tried something fancy. The jungle burned from his attempts at fending her off. Another precision strike from the side stopped one of his fancy named combos.

“You annoying TOAD! Rising Crane!”

It was just a down to up strike.

“What is it with you fuckers and your silly names?”

“You DARE! Lava Blast!”

“You call this hot?”

He was getting fairly worked up. The problem was, Nestra didn’t see an out. He wasn’t toying with them, exactly, but she could tell from the way he focused on Camille that he was trying to beat her through fencing alone. B-class raiders had monstrous mana reserves compared to her. He should be turning the entire valley into an ash bowl, yet he was holding back. He still had something to prove. Nestra wanted to use it, but how? Despite her best efforts, Camille was already bleeding from a few shallow wounds.

“Nestra! Take the lead!” Camille screamed.

Huh?

With only the barest hesitation, Nestra switched with Camille, going on the offensive instead. Manh turned his full attention to her. The pressure mounted. Manh used his overwhelming strength to try and smash her away.

Compared to Sereth, he really wasn’t much.

“How’s that superior race working out for you?” Nestra mocked.

She countered, her style much more vicious and unpredictable than Camille’s. Manh cursed every time they engaged in a contest of strength and he failed to crush her. Strong bastard though. Nestra was forced to attack viciously just so he wouldn’t start one of those strange techniques. She used momentum to close in, and precision to push him away. Her intuition made up for the lack of familiarity with his style… and then, Camille returned to help. They had swallowed a potion and were looking much better.

A mana panel blocked Manh’s elbow and Nestra’s precision strike hit him in the ribs. Nestra heard the clang of armor. Had to be good armor because it failed to penetrate. Much.

Manh struck the ground. Lava erupted from under Nestra’s feet, forcing her to jump back. When she looked up, Manh was staring at his blood smeared over his fingers. He was struck with disbelief. Nestra attacked, but it only made him more angry.

And now, he was taking her seriously.

“Unicorn Rush!”

Pain. Immovable had not sufficed. Something bit into her flank, deflected at the last moment by Camille’s blade. Riel dammit, that hurt. Nestra charged immediately while Manh frowned, perhaps surprised. She was a tough girl. She wasn’t going to fall from something named after a damn unicorn.

This time, Camille was prepared. While Nestra took the lead as a storm of powerful attacks and teleportations, Camille hit with precise techniques and a flurry of panels to hinder Manh. They landed several blows but unlike Nestra, they failed to penetrate Manh’s armor. He let the blows glance off, apparently no longer worried.

“Be ready,” Camille whispered, in Japanese this time.

Manh frowned. Nestra could see his confusion. Maybe he didn’t speak the language at all? It was such a common sentence in Threshold vids that everyone home knew it.

“Anathema.”

Camille’s next technique incorporated Nestra’s movement. It was a seamless mix of enclave and Threshold and Palladian-exclusive moves. Nestra resisted the urge to say ‘hey that’s mine!’

“What? You DARE!” Manh roared.

Camille’s final strike caught him in the cheek. He moved back, bleeding. It was an opening. Nestra filled herself with electricity and rushed at blinding speed. Her next strike was barely parried but Manh was off balance. She unleashed the electric charge at point blank rage. He screamed in pain. It was a nice sound. Nestra aimed for his head but he was currently protecting it, so she aimed for the chest instead. The dot of potential found his heart. The bolt landed true.

His armor exploded. It was good, but not that good. Blood fell from the hole in thick rivulets. He screamed in pain. The scream turned into a roar of rage. Heat slammed Nestra like a wall. Camille screamed. Nestra grabbed her shorter friend to protect them. It didn’t stop, neither the scream nor the heat. Mana droplets rained down on Nestra who started running away. Around them, the jungle burned. A mountain of fire emerged from the ground, under the floating form of a furious Manh bathed in fire.

“He’s going to use a secret ability,” Camille warned.

“Can we stop him?”

“Can you fly?”

A fire dragon was dancing in the air above their heads. Yeah, nah, that wasn’t good at all. Nestra needed a solution.

“Wait, do you feel that?” she asked.

“Feel what?”

“Here… a portal!”

It was a small, temporary one and probably high D-class only, but it was there. Nestra raced while Manh screamed insults in Vietnamese. She threw Camille at the portal and slipped in just as the spell reached a crescendo. Immediately, the temperature dropped to a more comfortable level.

She wasn’t sure, but her space sense shivered from what must have been the impact. So close yet so far. Nestra looked around as she caught her breath. This was also a jungle world, but here the trees were blue and made out of some crystalline structure. A primate covered in blue gems screamed in the distance.

Camille was kneeling, breathing hard and applying some sort of healing paste to open burns. Her infiltration set was half melted. Nestra checked her own Skin. The symbiote was sipping on her blood, but otherwise unharmed.

“Is… is there a plan?”

Nestra smeared some of her blood on a nearby rock. Her wound was already closed.

“Maybe? Let’s just try and stab him anyway.”

The truth was that she had used both aces up her sleeve to get that wound in, hoping it would be enough but… damn B-class and their resilience! Now they would have to improvise.

A shape moved through the world’s entrance portal. Nestra aimed her bolt and released it immediately, catching Manh in the left hand. He screamed in pain as soon as he was through.

“You fight like a coward!” he screamed in English.

Nestra shrugged.

“And you fight like an idiot.”

Manh rushed her, this time. Scattered pieces of crystal trees peppered Nestra but she grinned. He was trying to beat her with technique, but also his superior physique. It wasn’t working because she was an Aszhii and it was making him so mad. She dodged to the side, then used momentum to get out of the way of a powerful thrust. A well-positioned barrier slowed the next blow, then Camille caught him in another weird technique that seemed to infuriate him to no end. Nestra noticed he was still bleeding.

Void mana was a bitch.

“Oof.”

A horizontal attack slammed her against a rock, killing a monkey thing as it was attacking her. She immediately jumped back to her feet for a vicious counter. At this point, she and Camille had reached a good level of cooperation. When Nestra had the lead, she pressed Manh with powerful, precise attacks that he was struggling to block. When Camille had the lead, their mixed technique upset and angered him. It wasn’t enough. The trio ravaged the world, leaving only minced monsters and crushed trees in their wake, but Camille was tiring and Manh was not. Compared to them, he had endless mana and stamina to draw on.

“This is how it ends,” he finally said. “The spy and the traitor, together, dying to their betters. All your skills and your tricks don’t matter. In the end, only power does. We will leave you behind on our ascension with all the other weaklings.”

Next to Nestra, Camille paled.

“Any last word?” he smirked.

“Behind you,” Nestra said with false alarm.

Manh’s face was an expression of condescending pity.

And then, Sashimi bit his leg. Blood sprayed on the ground. He screamed in agony, but Nestra was already on him. A last bolt finally hit his face, leaving it a red ruin. Camille’s blade caught him under the armpit. He kneeled. Nestra used momentum to slip behind.

Her strike decapitated him cleanly.

Power filled her. It was enormous and so incredibly tasty. She’d gotten help and not been taken seriously but it was a B-class raider. A sphere above. She kneeled over the bleeding corpse to peel the armor off like shell off the meat of a crustacean. That core. That sweet, sweet core.

“What are you doing?”

Nestra refrained from hissing. This was her… well.

No.

It was their prey.

“I want his core.”

Camille looked down at the body, her thoughts carefully hidden.

“As trophy?”

“Yes.”

“You… feel like the type. Promise you won’t ever sell it.”

“You have my solemn word,” Nestra replied, excitement bubbling beneath the surface.

She carefully picked the gore-drenched red core, pocketing it for later when she would be alone. She felt giddy at her victory, but the hunt wasn’t over just yet. There was the small matter of a revolution.

“We need to get out of here,” she said.

Camille cast a last glance at Sashimi hovering carefully out of range of their blade.

“Can you explain this? Some sort of summon? I thought you had transformation mana.”

‘It’s a package deal,” Nestra lied through her teeth. “Sashimi is her own creature though. I don’t truly control her.”

Camille shook their head. The lack of reaction made Nestra a little worried, but the fact the blade master’s entire universe had collapsed was probably their biggest concern right now.

***

Nestra recovered for all of one minute before deciding that Chandra Satya and her diplomats were still her charges, and maybe it would be nice to make sure they were saved. She pulled a shell-shocked Camille out of the portal world while conspicuously leaving Manh’s body in range of a very hungry squall.

The first thing Nestra did was try to contact Chandra. Unfortunately, the gunship’s com system was down and her visor didn’t connect with anything. She didn’t even know if her fellow enclavers were alright.

“Hmm, we could find the wreck,” Nestra mentioned.

“As strange as it sounds, I think we should get back to the enclave,” Camille replied with a shaky voice.

“Wasn’t it what we were trying to avoid?” Nestra asked.

“Threshold’s gunships should be here soon. I think this will mark the end of the conflict anyway, and also, I need to pack my belongings.”

“You’re coming back with us?” Nestra asked, interested.

“No. Well, yes, but by my own means. There is nothing left for me there.”

“Right. You should contact me. I can help set you up as a masked gleam! We’ll partner up. Hell, you could even crash on my sofa and have some slow-cooking stew if you have nowhere to go..”

“Maybe…” Camille grumbled, then after a while, “Thank you. Sorry I just need a moment. I think… I need a moment.”

Nestra nodded. Poor Camille didn’t even get a Kero Nut to cope with those drastic changes. Better give them some time. The pair soon left without words to return to the enclave where all would end, one way or another.

***

The Sword Kings’ mountain was calmer. Embers still smoldered behind the walls. From the outside, Nestra could see the high walls topped by the Sword Kings’ most important buildings. Camille and Nestra crossed the wall at a slow pace. A tense expectation made the air heavy under rumbling thick clouds. No one stopped them. No one was even looking in their direction. As they approached, they saw the deserted farmlands and facilities populated by small squads of colored robes brandishing blades, but the center of attention remained the smoking ruins of the training hall. Lit with lanterns and floodlights, a circle of rebel Elders stood there next to the bound form of Watanabe. So he was still alive. Chandra and the others weren’t here, a sign they might have successfully escaped.

Nestra wasn’t sure what they were still doing out there. It had been more than fifteen minutes since the entire thing had started, possibly more, so holding position here was just asking for grid coordinate deletion by a fleet of gunships or worse. Perhaps they were counting on the presence of a hostage to stop that. Actually, they were probably right because there wasn’t a single sign of Threshold’s presence. Nothing. Nada. No gunships, no explosions, no squads of army gleams in high-tech armor. Hidden in the shadows, Nestra whispered to Camille.

“Hmm, see anyone?”

“No. But…”

And then Nestra felt it too. A presence. She looked up above, under the cloud layer to find a single figure drifting down as if floating. It was a woman with gray hair dressed in a black bodysuit. Metal floated around her in a constellation of spiked balls, chains, blades, and esoteric shape that seemed to change as she watched. Nestra’s mouth fell open.

“Riel. I thought she wasn’t fighting.”

Ragnhild Lindstrom’s aura blanketed the entire city. It was massive, oppressive, and felt like having a metal blade pushed against one’s tongue. Nestra couldn’t speak. A cold chill traveled up her spine, even in her Aszhii form. She remembered the feeling of facing the old woman in a duel all those months ago, like it was a chained beast using a toothpick to test the limits of a pup. Nestra didn’t feel that exhilarating joy of pushing herself to the limit, this time. No, this time, the beast was unchained.

There was only one reason for someone like her to come in person.

“You are here to fight Threshold,” she said. “We do not Fight. We are the City that Guards the Gate. We do not Fight.”

Nestra dragged Camille to cover, the fencer barely protesting. They could feel it coming as well. The squads of rebels were also scattering, answering the call of their animalistic brains. Only the Elders still stood, though Nestra couldn’t tell if it was pride or stupidity. Or both. Her instincts were telling her to run but she was too curious. This was, after all, a once-in-a-lifetime kind of experience. This power, radiating from the human shape… intoxicating. Nestra gripped a nearby stone, cracking the rock. She wanted to see. She needed to see. One of the Elders made to speak but his voice was drowned by Ragnhild’s sheer presence. Almost there. Almost there.

“We will recover our children,” she said.

Watanabe’s metal restraints were undone, and his unconscious form rose through the air. The Elders who tried to interfere were pushed away by debris.

“Your consent is not required. We do not Fight. Not with you. I will show why.”

Contact. The pressure rose to such an overwhelming level that Nestra had to kneel. A torrent of mana smashed through everything, the wind pushing tools and trees aside with the speed of a hurricane. Despite the flying debris, Nestra couldn’t look away from the flickering presence above her. Ragnhild extended her arms. Metal wires emerged from nothingness around her, encasing her entire body into the form of a werewolf and it grew, grew, until it looked like it would blot out the stars. Nestra forced herself to breathe. For an instant, the world quieted, and a voice emerged from the titanic steel beast.

“Jag är vargen som slukar solen.”

Nestra didn’t need her visor to understand. The meaning pierced her mind like the strike of a whip.

“I am the Wolf that devours the Sun.”

Ragnarok landed on her feet, cracking the earth beneath it. In a gesture so fast Nestra only saw as an afterimage, she struck with a clawed hand. Wires tore the ground open, peeled buildings off the ground, turned every bit of greenery on its path to splinters. House-sized boulders held to fragments of walls by crumbling masonry flew off at dazzling speed. The subsequent ‘crack’ was deafening.

It took twenty seconds for enough dust to settle so that Nestra could see again. The pressure returned to ‘tickled Shinran’ levels of suffocating. From the training hall, surrounding buildings, even the stairs that led them or the Elders that guarded it, there was nothing left. Only naked rock and the occasional piece of broken electric line. Nestra breathed deep.

Yes.

Yes, Threshold now had two A-rank monsters. Yes, this was power, power to look forward to. One day, she’d do the same, only even more powerful! Yes! Such an amazing show. Truly, humans had such delicious potential.

Nestra’s ecstatic joy melted when the wolf’s galvanized gaze turned to her. The shimmering mask of living metal didn’t look to please, and neither did the accusatory finger. A voice rang directly in Nestra’s head.

“You. My office.”

“Oh shit.”