Magnus had been walking through the Garden for several minutes when the space reverberated around him. The air flexed like the surface of a drum as something immense smashed its way inside. Archibald flapped his wings from where he sat on Magnus’s shoulder.

  “You are sure that the people over there are here to help me?” Magnus asked the bird with a small frown. His head turned slightly so that he could look at the bird out of the corner of his eye. The raven’s beak tapped him on the temple, which hurt a little.

  “I suppose you’re right.” Magnus reached up and stroked the on the top of its head, which seemed to surprise it. “But whatever that is over there is wrecking the Mistress’s Garden. She put a lot of hard work into making it beautiful, you know?”

  Magnus glanced at the menacing hedgerows which rose on either side of him. They towered into the air much higher than he remembered. Each branch and twig was covered in thorns. The leaves were coated in a faint sheen which smelled vaguely dangerous.

  The raven cawed at Magnus sarcastically.

  “Well, it did look beautiful,” the boy said testily. “I don’t know what happened to it… Can you smell fire?”

  Magnus lifted his eyes to the sky overhead. He’d never seen a sun in the Garden’s sky, but as he squinted upwards he was fairly certain that it saw flickering flames slowly creeping in on the beautiful blue plane.

  The sound of leaves rustling drew Magnus’s attention back to the ground. A hooded figure dragged itself out of the bushes nearby. He couldn’t make out all of its features on account of its deep green colored cloak, but they seemed to be injured. A thousand small cuts bled through their heavy clothing.

  Magnus didn’t quite know what to make of the person. Their physique was vaguely androgynous. With little indication of whether they were a man or a woman, the term ‘they’ seemed to suit them best in Magnus’s mind. Something subtle in the way they held themselves, a casual grace to their movements in spite of their wounds, seemed almost inhuman.

  “Are you hurt?” Magnus asked as he stepped towards the cloaked person. Archibald squawked in agitation on his shoulder, but Magnus ignored the bird for the moment. As he approached, the hooded figure looked in his direction. A plain ceramic mask covered their face, but Magnus could detect hints of pointed ears beneath their hood.

  The figure stood straight before giving a hesitant nod.

  “Well that won’t do,” Magnus said quietly. “I’m sure that I read about a spell for healing people recently.” The young boy raised a hand to rub his chin in thought while the other kept a hold on his staff. “Hmm… Yes that ought to do. If you don’t mind?”

  A featureless mask stared back at him in response. Eventually, it gave a nod.

  “I’m not supposed to use magic for little things, but this seems important enough,” Magnus mused out loud. “... I don’t remember exactly who said that though. Everything has been really confusing lately. I’ll take a moment to make sure I have the pronunciation right.”

  Whether the figure was concerned by the Apprentice needing to practise first or not remained undetermined. Their impassive mask remained focused on him as he raised his staff horizontally in front of him. The white raven on his shoulder kept making noises and pecking him, so Magnus shooed it away with his hand.

  “Let me concentrate, Archibald. I don’t want to mess the spell up.” Magnus took a deep breath in through his nose and let it out through his lips. He closed his eyes and held the staff with both hands. At least when he was using magic, the constant pain building in the back of his mind faded a little.

  “Aesh-fij-raehka.”

  As soon as he’d cast the spell, Magnus could tell something was wrong. He’d wanted to heal the hooded figure’s wounds. A thousand small cuts, while serious, should have only taken a few moments to close. But these cuts were sucking up his magic without pause.

  Magnus had done a lot of reading lately. Since time didn’t seem to move at a normal pace, once he’d finished his original tasks, there hadn’t been much else to do. He had read that most humans only had a little bit of magic. Those that had more than others were called ‘Sorcerers’.

  Thinking about Sorcerers made his head hurt more than most things, so he quickly moved beyond that. He did, however, understand that he had more magic in him than most of the people the books referenced. Spells which normally took multiple experienced casters to manifest came to him with only a little bit of practice.

  Magnus had also read what happened when someone used up all of their magic. If the intent of a spell was malformed, or if the verbiage used was imprecise, the spell could break loose from the caster’s control. The Consequences of that occurring grew increasingly dangerous as the spell in question grew more powerful.

  The spell that he’d used could be roughly translated as ‘Heal Wounds’. There were multiple ways of expressing that action. The one Magnus had chosen was to heal the wounds of the person in front of him generally, rather than specifically the cuts they were suffering.

  So what would happen, if the person Magnus was trying to heal was a lot more wounded than they initially appeared?

  I looked up as I felt a surge of magic flow through the realm around me. It was my own power, but from a different source. I’d been following the scent of my blood towards Magnus to navigate through the endless Garden, but now it was being thrown back in my face.

  As I looked up overhead, I saw golden energy flowing across the sky. It was rolling over the flames which were burning through the structure of this realm and dousing them. A deep flare of irritation rose up inside of me. While it gave us more time to find Magnus, I could immediately tell that his magic was responsible for pushing back my flames.

  I’d not forgotten how the little brat had punted me through a building and injured my elf. Whatever was going on, that made him repeatedly lash out at me like this, I was going to get my revenge for it. I’d have Edith punish him with so many chores that he’d still be cleaning dirty pots when he had a long white beard like a Wizard.

  “The Vampyr is likely drawing on Magnus’s magic,” Veda said when they noticed what was irritating me. “It was likely planning to entrap us in this pocket realm so that it could collect him and escape. After the damage we’ve caused… We should hurry before it sucks him dry.”

  That mollified my irritation somewhat. If Magnus was being controlled rather than intentionally spitting in my face, I’d be more lenient with him than I’d originally intended. With Veda’s words in mind, I decided to increase the pace.

  “Make sure my people keep up,” I growled at Veda as my scales flickered. They bowed their head in my direction before turning their attention to my companions. The group was doing their best, but constant fighting had worn everyone down to the nub.

  A deep rumble rose in my chest as I looked out at the endless Garden. I had held back on using my dragonfire due to the danger to Magnus. If this ‘Vampyr’ was just going to use him to douse my flames anyways, then what was the point? That said, I couldn’t just burn everything down and hope for the best…

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  I stretched my awareness out to the rampant twisted strings of Vitae laced through this artificial hellscape. Every plant in this Garden was a mockery of nature. They weren’t just weeds. Their purpose in existing had been contorted and forced out of alignment with the rest of the world. Like the trees of the Dark Forest, they existed only as a defense mechanism for their abomination of a master.

  Memories of the Rotting Bear rose up in my mind. It had been trapped in a hellish existence of eternal hunger, made to hunt but never be satiated. These plants were not altogether different. Their existence was suffering, forced to show either beauty or danger out of all proportion to their natural shapes.

  So long as the Mistress existed, this Garden would remain locked into its dark purpose. The only way to remove the taint was to destroy it. I couldn’t just burn it down to the soil. Underneath, the roots would remain and regrow. The power that my sibling Third had wielded twitched and rose inside of me. He had used the concept of Death as a blunt instrument, but it could serve as a gardening tool instead.

  “Wither and Rot.”

  Magic surged out from my maw in a wave, blanketing the Garden in front of me. It presented itself as a wave of black miasma that rolled across the earth. Wherever it touched, the plantlife shriveled up and died. Leaves turned brown in moments, falling from the branches where they had hung in a tide of sludge. Flower stems went limp as the petals they had born curled up into husks. Everything that lived perished.

  I felt a twinge as the magic brushed up against something outside this ‘pocket realm’ and far away. Another one of my siblings had authority over this concept, or something close to it. They had noticed my attempt to wield it. At least this time I was aware of what was happening to quickly block it off.

  “... Boss I need you to swear on your life that you’ll never use that in front of other elves,” Visk spoke up from behind me. Their voice sounded more strained than usual. When I looked back at them, their ears were oscillating between pricked upwards in awe and folded back in terror. Veda likewise was watching me in visible dismay.

  “I promise I’ll explain when we have time,” Visk continued. “But beyond any of the other stuff we get up to, they will go absolutely feral, if they think you’re capable of using whatever that just was.”

  “I must agree with this assessment,” Veda chipped in. “While expedient… that was absolutely mortifying to witness.”

  I glanced over at Cassia and Sir Kenneth. The two of them seemed concerned at the elves’ words, but didn’t share the same visceral reaction.

  “I’ll keep it in mind,” I responded with a huff. “Just one more thing to add to the pile of explanations I’m owed.” My eyes narrowed as I looked into the distance, across the decayed and dying Garden in front of me. “I think I can see Magnus… with someone standing beside him. Be ready.”

  I glanced between Magnus and the hooded figure standing next to him as I approached. While it certainly looked like Mamaet, I was absolutely certain that it was not. For one, Mamaet’s injuries had been healed before we ever entered the rift. The person standing in front of me still had a myriad of cuts all over their body. Second, while it was well hidden, this person had a scent, placing them apart from the other elves I had met.

  What put the final nail in the coffin was that the person wearing Mamaet’s guise was standing with a knife held to Magnus’s throat. The boy seemed to be in some sort of trance, both hands locked onto a staff made of a pure white material. I could see visible strands of magic being sucked out of Magnus’s body into the staff. From there, it flowed out through a series of crystals embedded into the staff’s end and out to the hooded figure.

  Cold eyes stared back at me from behind the ceramic mask the figure was wearing. They were utterly cold and alien. Even though the disguised person made no threatening gestures towards me, I had seldom felt such concentrated predatory intent. To the person, or creature, behind the mask, I was not a dragon. I was simply another possible meal to be assessed.

  “You are the ‘Mistress’, I’m guessing,” I growled cooly. My eyes trailed between the masked figure and Magnuis. “If you think that you are leaving this place with the boy, you are mistaken.”

  “And you are the Dragon Sanguine,” the Mistress replied. They made no attempt to deny my claim. We were both beyond trivial games at this point. The only reason I had yet to attack was due to the blade at Magnus’s neck. Something about the plain looking stone blade unsettled me. “You who have laid claim to the Throne of Blood, ought to consider me to be a cousin of yours… except…”

  Cold eyes flicked up and down, taking in my shape with a glance. “You are taking a different path. There are too many influences upon you for you to remain purely a predator. A shame. You would have made a magnificent King of Red.”

  “Any path that would have me be a cousin to you, deserves to be forgotten,” I rumbled deeply. My lips drew back to expose my fangs. Behind me, my companions were approaching at a slow pace. “Do not test my patience, Vampyr. Delaying the inevitable will not save you.”

  “Will it not?” The Mistress replied with a contemplative tone. The flat of the stone knife gently tapped onto Magnus’s neck. Where it touched, his youthful skin seemed to age years in a moment. “After you’ve come all this way, destroyed my play things, and tried to burn down my home, I think a little waiting is the price you’ll have to pay to get what you want.”

  I could tell that Magnus was approaching his limits. The naturally deep reserves of magic inside of the boy were about to run dry. If I delayed too much longer, the spell he was locked in to would start to draw on his life force. But I only needed to keep the Vampyr focused on me for another few seconds. Visk had vanished when I headed this direction. If they were able to pull the same stunt they had on the roof of the Tower…

  “If your hidden elf comes any closer, the boy dies,” the Mistress interjected. Internally, I cursed. It had been a long shot. Wherever this creature had been waiting during my assault on the Tower, it had clearly been watching our progress.

  “If the boy dies, you’ll die with him,” I hissed angrily. “Unlike with Mortimer, I will make sure that you suffer before you do.”

  “Hmm. Quaint.” The Mistress turned their mask to look between my visible companions. “Somehow, I doubt my death will ‘stick’.”

  “Be careful, Lord Draconis,” Veda advised as they came close. “This is an Elder Vampyr. It’s wearing Mamaet’s flesh. If you slay it, it will attempt to take over the body of someone else nearby.”

  I glanced between the creature wearing Mamaet’s body and Magnus. The reason why it wanted Magnus so badly finally ‘clicked’ in my mind.

  I had been incorrect in thinking that it was simply impersonating Mamaet. Mamaet’s body was still alive, just no longer under their control. The Vampyr had consumed the Witch Hunter’s soul and was using their body as its own. I could likely smell its scent because it had yet to fully acclimate to its new flesh.

  Magnus would make a powerful host body for the creature. My blood that ran through the boy’s body would provide a powerful font of magic that would renew itself over and over again. More than likely, possessing Magnus’s flesh would also tie the Vampyr to me in some fashion that would allow it to prey upon me.

  Everything the Vampyr had lost today would be small potatoes compared to what it would gain if it successfully replaced Magnus’s soul in his body.

  The creature narrowed its eyes at me when it saw the change in me. As soon as I realized the extreme danger, my body instinctively reacted. Letting this creature live would endanger not just me, but everyone I had ever met. Magnus would simply be the first victim in a new story of bloodshed that would make the Vampyr’s prior victims a footnote.

  Out of nowhere, a white raven dropped out of the sky of the Garden. Its beak smashed into the Mistress’s ceramic mask with a loud crack. The creature gave a muttered hiss and flinched for just a moment. The stone knife wavered from Magnus’s neck.

  That was enough for Visk to appear out of the air. They grabbed Magnus by the back of his neck and hauled him backwards, away from the hooded creature. In the same motion, the elf’s magic spread over Magnus’s body and rendered him invisible. Both Visk and the boy vanished from sight.

  Veda was just as fast off the mark. Even as Visk was dragging Magnus away, Veda twisted their staff towards the Mistress. A crackling bolt of lightning leaped from the elf’s staff towards the hooded creature. To my surprise, the magic redirected itself at the last moment and leaped into the stone blade.

  I remembered where I had seen that type of stone before. It was deep beneath Osteriath, where I had temporarily hid myself away with Visk. The material the deep ruins were constructed out of had absorbed my magic at a terrifying rate. This knife possessed the same ability. Attacking the Mistress with magic would prove difficult if that was the case.

  Even so, I had little reason to hold back. With Magnus out of harm’s way, I could unleash my full fury against the creature that was at the root cause of all this misery. As it swatted the white raven away, it noticed the impending peril that it was in.

  The Mistress spat a single word, which caused the space around us to collapse.

  “Kaeshf!”