Matabar

Ardan reacted first. He visualized the Ice Barrage seal and slammed his staff against the fake grass. Ildar followed only a moment later, a complex, cumbersome seal lighting up along his short wand as Ildar ran its tip along the trunk of a tree.

A moment passed, then another… and nothing happened. All three — Ildar, Ardan, and Senior Magister Paarlax — stood in silence, watching one another, their gazes shifting to their respective weapons, then back to their opponent.

The air did not crackle with concentrated Ley energy. No glittering, multicolored seals blazed to life before staff or wand. Absolutely nothing occurred.

Only for the briefest instant did Ardan feel his Red Star flare within him, energy coursing through his staff, but then it simply dispersed into the space around them without altering their surroundings.

Ardan snapped his grimoire shut and let it hang on its steel chains as he reached for his knife, stepping aside, but he was too slow. His movements were hindered by his long staff and his grimoire, while Ildar, who was armed with a short wand, was far quicker.

He simply swiped his improvised weapon across Ardi's forehead. The young man instinctively jerked away but forgot to account for the difference in their heights — and that the ground beneath his feet, however real it might've seemed, still had its own artificial quirks.

The hunter, who was used to entirely different terrain, slipped on the unwieldy shoes he was wearing. Ildar's clumsy, haphazard blow landed squarely on Ardan's temple.

Everything blurred before his eyes. In his ears, a tolling bell rang, muffled as if coming through thick cotton. A stinging darkness tried to drag the youth's consciousness into its cold embrace, but Ardan fought back. He fought as hard as he could.

He was like a drowning man struggling against a fast current, surfacing every now and then only to gasp for breath and seize random shards of the world around him instead of life-giving air.

"Where are the installation schematics, Erzans?"

"Ildar! How could you…?"

And again came that cold, clammy darkness. Ardan sank deeper and deeper, clinging to the unseen ledges of his own mind by sheer force of will.

With great difficulty, he cracked his eyes open to see Ildar holding a revolver to the knee of the Senior Magister, who lay prone on the ground. The man's lip was split, his right arm broken, and his left eye was a bloody mess.

"You've lost your mind, Ildar… You'll destroy the entire city, if not half the continent."

"No, Erzans, quite the opposite. We'll save everyone. Now tell me where the schematics are!"

"I'll never reveal their location… Nngh — ah!"

The Senior Magister's mouth opened so wide that the corners of his lips tore. He howled, shredding his own vocal cords in the process. He tried to say something, but his words were drowned out by the echo of a gunshot — oddly distant — just before Ardi slipped once more into that swirling gloom.

The next thing Ardi saw was the Senior Magister's body in a pool of his own blood. His leg, below the knee, hung on by just a strip of flesh — and a piece of his pants of about the same width.

Ildar stood above him with a look… that Ardan had seen before. Yonatan, Milar, Arkar, Arseniy, his own father and grandfather, even the old dormitory supervisor… They'd all had that look in their eye.

It was the gaze of someone who had witnessed a thing that had left an indelible mark upon them — like a scar on their soul that life itself had inflicted, one that could never be healed. Only hidden. From others, even from yourself. But never truly healed…

"You… have gone insane… Ildar…"

"You're right, Erzans. I lost my mind on the day they all died."

"An… unfortunate… accident…"

"I've heard that already."

Ardan kept blinking, trying to bring the world into focus, but it just kept dissolving into vague, shapeless images.

"An unfortunate accident, you say? Maybe it was… If I'm being honest, I don't care. We'll bring them back, Erzans. All of them. We'll bring them back!"

"That's impossible."

"You claimed the opposite."

"A foolish… joke, Ildar. A theory… a puzzle. Nothing more… Ah — Aaaaah!"

Ildar seemed to press the toe of his shoe into the Senior Magister's shattered knee, and the man screamed again.

"I'm your friend, Ildar!"

"You are. And believe me, my friend, this hurts me as much as it hurts you — maybe more."

"How… could you…"

"But none of that matters, Erzans. None of this will remain. You won't remember any of it, because it won't have happened. We'll go back. Back in time. We'll save them all. And everything we've done… all our sins… they'll simply vanish. Along with this flawed version of reality."

"Reality… has no flaws… only… inevitability."

"Then we'll create a new inevitability. A better one. And you and I, my dear friend, we'll talk again about your astonishing ideas, and you won't know a thing about any of this… Now, where are the schematics?"

"I…" Through the haze and dancing shadows, Ardan saw Paarlax reach for a whistle on the ground. The same whistle the Senior Magister had used to call the Wolf of Blazing Darkness. Only the beast had never come when summoned.

And now the man was blowing into the whistle with all his might. The piercing note, high and drawn out, more like the peep of a frightened fledgling left alone in the nest, soared across the moss and grass.

Its shrill, stuttering sound proved too much for Ardi, who slipped back into the darkness.

The gloom pressed in from all directions, creeping up to his throat and choking, choking, choking… It was as if the young man was trapped beneath the heavy press of an avalanche, snow binding him in an icy sarcophagus, all his strength funneled into breathing fast and shallow through clenched teeth.

When Ardi opened his eyes again, he saw Paarlax's lifeless body. The man lay with his arms outstretched on grass stained crimson. His glassy eyes gazed blankly into the pale haze enveloping them.

A whistle was still clutched in his stiffening hand, his mouth was parted in its final, rattling gasp, and a single tear was trailing down his cheek.

A tear just like the one rolling across the writhing black flames nearby. At first, Ardan thought it was a trick of the light. That perhaps the same darkness that had held him in its relentless grip had surged forth from the depths of his consciousness into reality itself.

But in fact, it was something else entirely.

At the boundary scrawled along the "forest's edge" stood a figure — a figure shaped like a wolf, yet taller at the shoulder than even the strongest draft horses that were used on farms to pull unthinkable loads.

Mighty muscles, like taut strings beneath a musician's fingers, twitched under what might have been fur — or perhaps blazing darkness in truth. Darker than midnight velvet devoid of the Spirit of the Night's gentle touch, it rolled upwards in waves, just like flames. Yet it gave off no smoke or the odor of burning, looking more like river weeds stretching toward the sun's surface.

But there was no sun or joy here — only gloom, and tears that boiled as they ran down that long, triangular muzzle. They dripped onto enormous fangs the length of a human hand, bared by quivering lips twisted in fury. They slithered onto claws that looked more like knife blades, which raked and shredded the earth beneath its paws.

Long and lithe as a reed, the creature's body pressed low to the ground. The wolf whimpered and howled, snarled and thrashed. It strove to nudge the corpse, to cross that invisible boundary and at least touch its muzzle to the Senior Magister's body. But time and again, it failed to get past that stark, drawn line.

For too long, this beast and its ancestors had been trained to obey that boundary. And now this enormous wolf — its pelt aflame with darkness — obeyed a simple strip of white paint with the same relentless submission a slave might show to a merciless whip.

Ildar was nowhere to be seen, though Ardi's nose still caught hints of his scent. The man had not gone far. Had he discovered what he'd wanted to know? Had he learned the location of those schematics? Only the Sleeping Spirits and the Eternal Angels truly knew…

Ardan tried to stand but collapsed back onto the ground, gasping.

He couldn't understand why a wand blow from a simple human — even to the temple — had affected him so much. The explanation lay in an unexpected place. When he'd slipped and fallen, he had landed… not on a rock, but on some kind of technical valve hidden beneath dense moss, which he'd torn with his staff.

A ridiculous stroke of bad luck.

But as the late Senior Magister would say: "Reality has no flaws."

Which meant that it hadn't been a mistake when Ardan, while falling, had crossed that fateful threshold. And so now, choking, struggling for the strength to stand or even crawl, he stared into a pair of yellow eyes brimming with searing fury and boundless grief. Ardan had seen that grief reflected in his own eyes whenever he remembered his father's death.

"Life…" The creature snarled, using the beast tongue clumsily, and in an instant, it stood looming over Ardan. "You are life. Father is death. My father is death! He took care me! He love me! You kill father my! I kill you and all smell like you!"

The wolf opened its maw, and darkness churned within that flame. Ardi could hear a roar inside of it, a roar and a howl of raw grief accompanied by tears of loss. He had no doubt that this flame — even if Ardan hadn't lost his connection to the Ley — would be impossible to stop. Perhaps only a four-Star mage could hope to defend against the Wolf of Blazing Darkness' wrath.

And yet…

"You and I," the youth managed to rasp in response, his mouth still feeling numb. "We both walk the hunter's path. I am a hunter. You are a hunter. I am a guest on your path. There is no prey among us."

The flames kept raging in the wolf's throat, but it did not spew its fire at the object of its hatred.

"You speak pure… like my great father," the wolf said. "This tongue. The old tongue. How you knowledge?"

"I did not steal your father's spirit. Another two-leg did that — the prey, not the hunter. As for me-"

"How you knowledge our tongue?!" The wolf roared, fangs snapping mere inches from Ardan's face, scorching him with the heat of that burning pelt.

It was so hot, in fact, that Ardan's eyelashes threatened to singe. He knew words alone would never fix this. The wolf would not heed anything he tried to say.

All the wolf understood was that the one who'd cared for it — who had been there for its first breath, first wound, first leap, first hunt — was gone. Taken from it.

Ardan knew that feeling well. He remembered it. Had lived it every day and every night.

Because that kind of scar cannot be healed.

Only hidden.

Even from yourself…

"Take my blood," Ardan said, running a hand across his own face and offering it up to the wolf. "I willingly share with you my memory and will, brother hunter. See the truth for yourself. Hear the whispers of the trail. You and I walk the same path. We have nothing to fight over."

The wolf froze. Everything hinged on its choice. If it remembered the ways of its ancestors, if the words passed down by ancient hunters still lived within it, then it would accept the gift. And Ardan would live. If not…

The rough, burning tongue licked across his palm. For an instant, it felt as if his hand had been plunged into boiling oil.

But less than a heartbeat later, the surge of pain vanished, replaced by a memory.

Not Ardan's memory — someone else's.

When hunters shared blood, they offered up their most sacred thoughts: memories of the past, of trails and hunting grounds, of lessons learned from mentors, of sorrow and joy, of what they had seen, what they had yearned for, and what they still sought.

That was how they became one pack.

It was in this manner that Hector Egobar had once exchanged blood with an orc from the Shanti'Ra gang, making them brothers by blood.

Ardan, of course, was not forging a brotherhood with the wolf. They were merely sharing their pasts.

And in the wolf's memories, Ardan saw Paarlax's face: he watched as the man gingerly fed a tiny wolf pup with a pipette, how he carried it in his arms wrapped in flameproof cloth. And how each time its fur touched his skin, it burned him. And yet, not once did Paarlax curse or grow angry. He only smiled, despite the pain and the blisters, and caressed the lone pup whose parents had died after a chamber malfunction.

Paarlax came to his four-legged friend every single day and sat there, behind the boundary line, watching how the pup played, telling him things the beast could hardly understand. He told him about fields — not the sort you could see or run across, but invisible fields. About another world somewhere "above," though the pup had no notion what "above" meant. And Paarlax had hoped that one day, they would go there together.

The pup grew. Paarlax kept visiting him daily, bringing food and fresh stories. Whenever the wolf got sick, the man cured him, sometimes bringing a strange shelter he called a "tent" with him.

They played together. They would race even after the wolf had grown large enough to cover the entire enclosure in a single leap. Strange though the world seemed, even unreal at times, none of that mattered because it was home to him — his strange father.

Ardan's eyes fluttered open.

The massive wolf had crossed the boundary and now stood with his head bowed over Paarlax's body.

"Hunter of snow-capped peaks," the wolf said in the beast tongue, now clear as day. "You and I walk the hunter's path. I am a hunter. You are a hunter and my guest. There is no prey among us."

"Greetings, hunter," Ardan replied.

The wolf opened his maw and exhaled flame. This time, no roar or rage accompanied it. Instead, the fire carried an air of gentleness and solace, of caring and a longing to bid farewell.

"You and I," the wolf lowered himself to the ground, ears flattened. His gaze never left the burning body of the Senior Magister. "We shall meet again on the trails of the Sleeping Spirits, where you and I will be kin."

The corpse flared one last time, disintegrating into black ash that settled on the leaves of the tall canopy overhead — false leaves for everyone save these two, the scholar and the little pup who'd once found a home in this place.

After he got back up, the wolf tilted his head back and let out a deep, resonant howl. The kind only those who remembered the dry evening wind that heralds the Spirit of the Night — when the first spark lights upon the Spirit's wings and the hunt begins — could truly know.

Ardan's blood, when he'd shared his memories with the Wolf of Blazing Darkness, had awakened the beast's ancestral knowledge. It was akin to how Ergar had once awakened the memory of the Matabar in his student, compelling him to cast aside his human heart.

The wolf moved closer to Ardan and sat beside him.

"Hunter of snow-capped peaks," he said quietly, the bass rumble beneath his words punctuated by fierce, impatient growls. His claws were still tearing into the earth — he was ready to leap forward at any moment, but he waited. Waited and endured, because… "I smell the prey that took my father from me. But I do not know this 'upper' world. Will you tread my hunting path with me and trade blood for blood? I need your help, hunter of snow-capped peaks."

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Ardan looked into those eyes filled with so much hatred and rage. But now all that fury was aimed not at the wounded young man, but at the killer ascending on the slowly rising platform, moving ever closer to the surface.

"I will go," Ardan said and reached for the wolf's fur, only to yank his hand back at the last moment. Otherwise, he would likely have lost his entire hand — the flame of darkness burned far too hot.

"I would scorch you, hunter of snow-capped peaks, whether I wish it or not," the wolf growled, his muzzle nearly brushing Ardan's ear. "So listen. Listen, Speaker, to the Names of my pack — and to my own Name."

Then the wolf spoke. But these were not words any human tongue could recite. You could not pen them in any script. As the wolf spoke them, Ardan saw distant hunting trails winding along the shores of the Azure Sea. He saw forests and fields unknown to him until now. He heard the song of wolves calling upon their silver patron — the Eye of the Spirit of the Night. He felt scorching flame gather in his own throat. He knew the sensation of powerful paws carrying him across the earth faster than an eagle in the sky.

He felt the bite of strong fangs sinking into the pulsing artery of prey, fur bristling at his nape, anticipating the clash with foreign hunters over coveted trails and hunting grounds. He heard the wind, knew the water, remembered the earth — and felt the throb of a stranger's heart beating in sync with his own.

And within it all, he heard a Name.

"Ragrazrar," Ardan breathed.

"Come, hunter of snow-capped peaks," Ragrazrar said, "the path of blood awaits." With a swift shove of his nose, he hoisted Ard onto his back in one easy motion.

Barely holding onto his staff, Ardan clung to the wolf's blazing fur. This time, it did not burn him. Rearing toward the exit, Ragrazrar let out a howl and sprang forward.

Ardan recalled riding on Ergar's back in his childhood. But it was one thing to gallop across the mountain peaks of home on a snow leopard, perched on its sturdy back while still just a child, and quite another to ride astride a colossal wolf wreathed in fiery darkness as a grown man, cutting right through the center of the Menagerie.

The massive steel gate was already closing; red lights had begun flashing, and a shrill siren wailed through the corridor. Ildar had likely managed to alert someone, somewhere.

Ragrazrar, spewing a wave of flame, fused the sliding panels as they neared each other and then, with a single leap, raised his forepaws and tore through the molten steel.

Bursting into the corridor, the wolf unleashed torrents of fire at workers in bizarre suits — something like old-fashioned diving gear — who were armed with equally-strange forked rods.

Though they emerged unscathed, the employees were dazed and momentarily blinded by the blazing heat. By the time they grasped what was happening, the Wolf of Blazing Darkness had already bounded past them, leaving behind a streak of black flame.

How did Ardan, clinging for dear life to the anomaly's back, know all of this? It was because for him, too, the world had stretched into a single blurred line where everything had merged into a dark rush of speed.

Within mere moments, the wolf burst into the elevator shaft. Behind it lay a scorched corridor where embers of black fire danced upon the steel plating, with molten metal and rock dripping from the relentless heat. Ragrazrar howled:

"Prey!" He shouted, voice echoing like a banshee's wail, accompanied by swirling darkness flung against sloping walls. "Blood for blood!"

Up above, the platform had nearly reached the surface.

"How are we supposed to-"

Ardan's question was answered before he even asked it. The wolf took off again, this time not in a straight line, but along the inner walls of the elevator shaft. Ragrazrar picked up speed, faster and faster, leaving a swirling wake of darkness behind him as he climbed. Then he leaped and… kept running. He pushed forward in a spiral, winding higher and higher, his momentum and the force of his own swirling flames defying gravity.

Ard gripped the wolf's fur with all his might, hands nearly numb, legs clamped around the beast's flanks. He'd ridden horses before. But right now, he felt as though he were atop a living hurricane — one that was drunk on its own lust for blood and vengeance.

With each leap, the wolf snarled and cried out, clawing his way up the elevator shaft. At last, when only a few yards remained between them and the platform — now flush with the lip of the first floor — Ragrazrar opened his maw.

A vortex of black fire roared forth and blasted the steel floor, just as he had done with the gates. Then his claws raked it and his paws hammered it, tearing the fused metal apart.

The wolf leaped onto the platform, fixing his gaze on Ildar's back. The man glanced over his shoulder for barely a heartbeat before ducking through a doorway, leaving three mages to block the landing: two in green cloaks and one in a blue cloak.

Ardan couldn't see their epaulettes, but even if they only had a few rays, taking on three mages —one of them a Blue Star Mage at that — was beyond his current strength.

"It's… easier here," Ragrazrar said, panting heavily, nostrils flaring like bellows. "The air of the upper world is good."

Ardan didn't grasp his meaning at first. Only when the mages struck their staves against the ground, unleashing their spells — two Stone Fists sheathed in ice from the green mages, and a violet beam spiraling from the tip of the blue mage's staff — did he recall a small but vital detail…

Ley Shielding.

Here, it did not work at all.

Ragrazrar drew in a noisy breath, exhaling great clouds of bitter gray smoke. When the spells struck it, they collided with that impenetrable barrier and scattered in showers of colored sparks. The wolf inhaled those sparks through his maw, then licked his chops.

"Delicious," he growled, already stepping forward, stalking toward the stunned mages.

"Our prey is getting away," Ardan reminded him.

Wolves tended to lose themselves in their own bloodlust, forgetting why they'd first set paw on the hunting trail. Older pack members usually weaned them off that habit early on, and those who refused were cast out.

No one had taught Ragrazrar otherwise. But Ardan's blood was still fresh upon his fangs.

The wolf shook his head, then with a quick nod, leaped across part of the platform and the stairwell in a single bound.

With Ardan clinging to his scruff, the wolf burst into the building. Ildar's scent led outside — beyond the fence, where the cars were.

"Which way?" Ragrazrar snarled, whipping his head from side to side.

His body was trembling, ears and tail twitching anxiously. The wolf must have been feeling the same dizziness Ardan had experienced on his very first day at Evergale's school, overwhelmed by a hundred new scents and sounds.

Ardan cast a forlorn glance at his coat, then sighed quietly and pointed at the opposite wall.

"Straight ahead."

Ragrazrar snarled and exhaled more black flame. Ardan noted absently that before devouring the Ley from the mages' spells, the wolf's fiery breath had begun to wane, but now it rolled out stronger, like it had tripled in power — and it was hot enough to melt the brick wall into a puddle of lava.

The wolf sprang onto the street and immediately jerked to the side. A storm was raging overhead. White lightning was rending the cold, black swell of thunderclouds, and the sharp rain started cutting at their faces and skin. Flashes of light alternated with rolling peals of thunder.

Ragrazrar found himself in yet another alien environment. He swung and shook his head frantically, trying to steady his panicked heartbeat. Ardan set a hand upon the wolf's mighty neck.

"Listen to my voice, Ragrazrar," Ardan said, pouring his will into every syllable. "Listen."

"I am listening, Speaker," the wolf rumbled. The trembling gradually eased, and his heartbeat settled into a steadier rhythm. "Be my eyes and ears, Speaker, and I will be your paws and fangs. You and I."

"You and I," Ardan agreed.

And in that moment, he could no longer tell where the Wolf of Blazing Darkness ended and Ardan Egobar began. They were a single being, inseparable.

It was like that time in Evergale, when Ergar had shared his eyes and ears with him.

And, just like back then, an enemy lay ahead — a killer on the run. He had climbed inside a steel box that held an iron heart and burning blood inside its metal frame.

Only this time, that killer would not escape. This time, he wasn't being chased by a child.

Ardan-Ragrazrar howled, and their powerful legs launched them forward. They leaped easily over a low, insignificant barrier. Somewhere behind them came a shrill wail — unknown to the wolf, but Ardan recognized it.

Sirens from fire crews and the city guard were rushing toward the Menagerie. And with them came mages.

Ardan-Ragrazrar paid it no heed. They raced in pursuit. Their paws tore and mashed the pliant asphalt beneath. Their breath trailed black flames and darkness behind them. Their roar shook windows, leaving spiderweb cracks in the glass.

Their prey sped away in an automobile, the leather top thrown back. Steering with one hand, Ildar kicked the driver's side door. It slammed into a streetlamp and was flung backwards.

Ardan-Ragrazrar deftly dodged the flying debris and pressed on. The prey's steel box was fleeing downhill — it was a cutting-edge machine, able to reach eighty kilometers an hour on flat ground. Now, on this slope, who knew how fast Ildar's car could go?

Perhaps the wolf would have struggled to keep up on his own. But the beast was being fueled by the power of the Speaker astride him, just as the wolf's own strength now belonged to his rider.

And so, when Ildar swiped his wand across the ground, Ardan-Ragrazrar was ready. A dark crimson seal flared beneath Ildar's car, releasing a swarm of skulls.

Ardan-Ragrazrar had seen such magic before, when fighting Selena Lorlov — it was an offensive spell from Lady Talia's Chaos School. It seemed Ildar Nalimov also possessed artificial Stars, and also had one ray for each. That was why he'd used this spell and why he then shoved his free hand into a glove compartment, donning a strange glove bristling with odd-looking accumulators.

Still, Ardan-Ragrazrar felt no fear. They raised their staff… yet did not slam it down. They felt the paws beneath them pounding the earth, felt their breath merge with the echoes of the Ley Lines. They knew the magic would come regardless.

The Water Shroud seal shone before Ardan-Ragrazrar — four times brighter than usual and six times wider. It enveloped nearly all of their combined form, banishing the night in an eruption of sudden day.

The skulls floundered, trapped in the Shroud, thrashing like helpless flies in sticky spider silk. With a quick flick of their staff, Ardan-Ragrazrar let the Shroud drink Ildar's spell dry. Then, turning into an icy swell — like a savage avalanche born in the depths of the Alcade — it thundered down the street.

It tore the asphalt apart like soggy paper, snapped lampposts as if they were little more than dry twigs, and barreled toward the prey's car. At the last second, Ildar once again swiped his wand over the ground.

His entire glove lit up with a flash of Ley energy. The man went pale but did not lose consciousness. From the tip of his wand, along with an utterly impossible seal, a living haze surged out.

It was a living thing because, within that bloody fog, clawed limbs swung wildly — limbs lacking the rest of their bodies. They were twisted, not belonging to a human, or a beast, or any Firstborn, and they slashed at the icy surge. They tore it apart, scattering chunks of water and frost in every direction.

Ildar yanked the steering wheel and vanished around the bend. Ardan-Ragrazrar darted after him. Feeling themselves tipping, about to lose their footing, they pushed off the ground with their powerful paws and landed on the nearest wall. Leaving behind blazing paw prints, they kicked off again and vaulted onto the rooftops, sprinting across several of them before blurring into a smear of fiery shadow, camouflaged against the dark sky.

Glancing in the rearview mirror, Ildar saw nothing.

Ardan-Ragrazrar landed squarely before the car's hood and, with a guttural roar, slammed both their front paws down on the automobile racing downhill. The impact was so forceful that Ardan, who had managed to hold onto Ragrazrar's fur until then, simply could not maintain his grip.

He flew off like he weighed a gram, spinning head over heels in midair, once again flashing back to his wild leaps from windows. He crashed spine-first into the wall of a building, between the second and third floors.

The last thing Ardan saw and heard before passing out again was an explosion and Ragrazrar's triumphant, feral howl.

***

Ardan shook his head — groaning at his own poor choices for doing so — and, bracing one hand against the wall and the other upon his staff, pushed himself to his feet.

Fire engine and guard sirens blared closer and closer, but the young man's mind was on something else.

Flashes of firelight rippled over the black diesel slicks and motor oil spreading across the street. In their reflections, Ardi could make out the mangled remains of the car — and the wolf tearing apart the lower half of Ildar's body. The top half, which had been flung some distance away, was still twitching, its hazy eyes staring at what remained of its legs and shredded abdomen.

A trail of blood connected the two halves, a wet carpet strewn with coils of entrails and organs spilled everywhere like unspooled yarn.

And yet Ildar still breathed. Still lived. This was by Ragrazrar's design — he'd wanted the man to see himself devoured alive, to witness his final moments in the belly of his father's child.

He recognized it. Ardan had also felt that desire. He still remembered it: that burning thirst he'd felt on the prairie when the Shanti'Ra bandits had ambushed their caravan.

"Ahgrat," Ardan cursed in the Fae tongue. Limping through patches of flame, he approached Ildar. Kneeling down beside the dying man, he gently touched his shoulder. "Mr. Nalimov, you-"

"Too late… Corporal…" Ildar rasped, pink foam bubbling at the corners of his mouth. "Too… late…"

He uncurled his left hand. A medallion, one suspiciously resembling Aversky's handiwork, clattered to the ground. It shimmered for a heartbeat or two before melting away into shapeless, molten solder.

Ildar had managed to send some kind of signal — whatever it was.

"Who else is in your group?" Ardan pressed. "What are your goals? Mr. Nalimov, you can still-"

"You… naive… boy…" Ildar cut him off. "We're… saving everyone… and I… shall live… again."

"What are you talking about?"

"Alice… said… that you and Tess…" Ildar began choking on his words. Only the Wolf of Blazing Darkness' will had kept him alive this long. "Temple… The Saints' Day… meant to… draw attention away… But we… didn't manage to… bomb…"

Ardan's eyes widened as the awful realization struck him.

"If you don't make it… don't worry… You'll forget… anyway… when we… save everyone… and bring them back…"

He spoke no more. Ragrazrar's jaws closed with a snap, biting off Ildar's head along with his left shoulder and part of his ribcage.

"Prey's blood," the wolf growled, swallowing the remains without chewing. "Peace for Father. A worthy hunt."

"Ragrazrar!"

"Yes, Speaker?"

"I need your help!"

"My help, Speaker?" For a moment, doubt flickered in Ragrazrar's gaze. "You helped me, so I owe you a debt. But I will repay it later. Now I will help you because I choose to."

"Take me to the temple!" Ardan shouted, pointing with his staff toward the city center. "Quickly!"

"I will be swifter than the wind, Speaker! Show me the way!"

And so the wolf whose pelt was living darkness set aflame plunged headlong into the thunder of the spring storm.

***

Ardan ran through the crowd. The rain lashed his face. Cars roared by and streetcars rattled on their rails while the Niewa battered at the slick, black granite underfoot.

City folk recoiled from the sight of a mage with no outer coat or regalia — his tattered coat had ended up in a trash bin, reduced to rags — his shoulders exposed, staff in hand. He was around two meters tall, bruised, dirty, his face streaked with cuts and welts.

Several guards tried to stop him, but Ardi only flashed his investigator badge and sprinted on. Riding the wolf right through the streets, with horns shrieking in protest, leaping over streetcars, vaulting canals and bridges, they flew into the Central District. But Ragrazrar could go no farther.

"There is too much dead Ley here, Speaker. I grow weak — my apologies," the wolf murmured as he began to dissolve into the darkness, melting away into the storm. "Call me when you have need of me, Speaker. I will repay my debt. You and I."

Ardan spared no thought for those words. He gave no heed to the chaos around the Old Park nor to the number of witnesses who had seen him riding atop the Wolf of Blazing Darkness.

All he could think was: I must hurry.

Tess had known everything. She'd known…

I need to get there as quickly as possible.

Had Madam Okladov truly intended to make her stay behind, Tess would have warned him far sooner.

Keep going, step by step…

But Tess had known everything. She'd known Ardi would never make it, that he couldn't find the strength to explain — because… because neither his father nor her brothers had ever known how to confess such things, either.

Leap by leap…

She would've arrived there first. Far earlier than he could manage. And she would've waited for him.

His heart hammered against his rib cage as if trying to propel him forward.

It thudded and shouted endlessly: Faster, faster!

Lightning flashed. Rain pounded without mercy, as though trying to delay him — keep him from seeing or hearing what lay ahead. But he refused to surrender, not like he had atop that cliff. Not again, not ever again.

At last, he saw a crowd of gawkers. The bright pop of camera flashes. The white bursts were competing with the lightning's glare. And there were flames — tall orange tongues licking inward at a crumbling pile of stone.

The reek of smoke invaded his nostrils. Heavy, twisting columns rose into the already black sky.

"Hey, you!" Someone tried to stop him. "Where do you think you're going? The fire crews haven't even-"

Another explosion drowned out the guard's words. Without a second thought, Ardan swung an elbow, striking the man's chin so hard it floored him. The second guard he hurled over his shoulder. A third he tossed aside like a rag doll, and the last he tripped with his staff before kicking him away.

Holsters creaked and weapon bolts clicked into place, but Ardi paid no heed to any of it — not the soldiers, not the firefighters or reporters or the gawking crowd.

He broke past the cordon.

Flames licked at his face. Their reflections glimmered in rain puddles, painting them in ruins and fire. All around him stood vehicles: black ones from the Second Chancery, red ones from the city guard, plus all the firetrucks, ambulances, and military transports.

And there stood Ardan, gazing at the burning temple and the rows of bodies laid out beside the road. They were draped in white sheets already stained with blood.

His heart stopped.

It felt as though all the air had been sucked from his lungs.

He could have… he could have told her everything. Explained it somehow. But he hadn't. And now… now it was too late.

All because of one small, foolish mistake.

"Reality has no flaws, only inevitability."

Inevitability? Were all the losses, partings, and tragedies of his life no more than an inevitable tide, something he could never change? Because everything simply is the way it is — was that what Paarlax had meant?

No.

Not like this.

Never like this.

The temple had exploded only a short while ago. Her spirit could not have set foot upon the ancestors' trails yet.

Ardan lifted his staff and struck the ground. The fire above the temple recoiled like a startled serpent. For an instant, the rain ceased trying to quench the flames, and in that hush of water and thunder, Ardi heard words.

Words leading down invisible paths to the City on the Hill. He would open those paths and speak the forbidden words he had glimpsed in the black tome of Atta'nha's library. The ones Cassara had once stopped him from using.

He would feed them his rage that was choking his throat, his grief that was stalling his heart, and his loneliness that was stealing the very air from his lungs. He would gather them, shape them, and call upon those things no mortal should ever call upon so they might snatch her back from the ancestors' trails and return her to him.

But the paths did not open. Only the Ley-cables hissed, shaking as if they'd been yanked by invisible giants.

"Open!" Ardan snarled, striking his staff against the ground again with every scrap of power he possessed and then some. "Open!"

The streetlights flickered out, streetcars ground to a halt, and the pavement groaned as the main lines of the central generators split and burst beneath it.

The lifeless Ley strangled him, refusing to let him pry open the way. Despite the resistance, the young man clutched his chest, where Ergar had left his mark.

If need be, he would borrow power from his homeland itself.

He raised his staff once more.

Soldiers and guards were shouting something. Beyond the cars, Mshisty and Aversky appeared.

Ardan couldn't have cared less.

He didn't care if the entire district's Ley burned out. If everything shattered from here to the Niewa, reduced to dust. If the whole world drowned in blood and agony. He would open the path. He would speak the words and-

"Ardi?"

He turned.

There she stood, wearing a simple sky-blue dress that was slightly torn and covered in soot, with no coat, just dark cherry-red shoes with high heels. Her hair was slightly disheveled, but she was safe. Unhurt.

Streetlamps blinked back to life. The darkness roiling around Ardan's staff ebbed away, vanishing into the smoky haze and the black sky.

He let his staff slip from his hand, dashed forward, and caught Tess as she ran to him from beyond the cordon. He pulled her close.

He inhaled the scent of her hair, resting his forehead against hers.

"You-"

"An older woman called me over," she whispered. "She had a coin just like the one you used to have. That's why I believed her and stepped out from the service. It happened only a few seconds before the explosion."

Ardan shuddered. Older woman with a coin... His Second Chancery Officer mark… Unseen one?

"You remember her face?"

"I… I don't kn-"

"It doesn't matter," Ardi said, shaking his head. "None of that matters."

"Yes," she murmured, closing her eyes and brushing the tip of her nose against his. "It doesn't matter."

All around them, people argued. The soldiers and guards refused to lower their weapons, while Cloaks, including Milar Pnev — now standing nearby with his gun trained on a soldier who was, in turn, aiming his rifle at Ardan's back — bellowed at them to stand down.

And yet Ardi and Tess seemed to be in a world of their own. It was as if none of this madness existed — it was just the two of them on one of their quiet strolls. No one else.

"Don't go disappearing on me, all right?" He whispered.

"I won't disappear," she replied softly, "if you promise not to disappear, either."

"I won't," Ardan promised.

Because now he understood. He understood Ildar Nalimov. And he knew that his own fate had only been one misstep away from being the same as his. Or rather — one person away.

One small, warm, red-haired singer.

But none of that mattered.

The Menagerie, the Spiders, Senior Magister Paarlax, Ildar Nalimov, the bombed temple, the crowd, the swirl of their voices — these were all thoughts for tomorrow.

Only one thing mattered now.

She was here, and that meant everything was all right.