Vess fell into the dark, blind, until a field of bones spread out below her. She twisted, pulling on her Agility and Dexterity to at least get her feet beneath her—yet it didn’t matter. She hit the field of bones and smashed right into them, the spread collapsing beneath her boots as easily as shifting sands.

She grasped a huge femur as she sank, desperate for something to slow her mad descent. Yet the moment her hand came in contact with the bone, it was held fast.

“Let go!”

The bones refused, and instead piled atop of her in a mad, rumbling cascade. Ribs, spines, and small bones she had no name for clung to Vess’ skin and armor, wrapping around her flesh as if they would squeeze the very life from her Body. Her fear resurfaced, even as she fought to do the same—and instead sank ever further.

Just as the bones enveloped her face, she perceived a vast, alien face clatter together. It was made of those bones that had not yet overwhelmed the heiress, and its expression could not be read, but its lips moved.

YOU DO NOT HAVE LONG.

The bones blocked out sight and sound, leaving only the grinding sensation of her continual fall. Until even that faded.

Until there was only the thread.

Vess blinked. The thread existed beyond her mortal senses, much in the same way her Link to Felix persisted; immaterial yet inexplicably tangible. It hummed with a threnody of despair, the same emotions she had felt before falling into her temple’s maw. The song of it clung, vibrating against her with all the alarming insistence of a buzzing hornet in her ear. While nothingness reigned, it dominated her being, growing until it consumed every bit that was once Vessilia Dayne.

Until, all at once, the darkness cleared—and the world had changed. She had changed.

As if the howling maelstrom from her core space had manifested into reality, a wild tempest filled the sky, whipping clouds and debris in all directions. Far below, a distant series of bumpy smudges sped past in a blur.

Where is this? The word thundered through her Mind, too loud, and Vess winced… only to find that her head moved in the strangest of manners. The wind tried to catch it, turning her head sideways before she flexed her long and powerful neck muscles in order to keep from being folded in half. Her hands flexed, most of them grasping at the thin air and pulling at it to stabilize herself, all while she twisted her lithe Body through the raging currents of the storm.

I am flying. What—what am I? It came to her all at once, a fully formed realization that hit her like a bucket of ice water. I am—I am a Dragon!

Horror and fascination surged through Vess in equal measure as she flowed through the skies, a double-time beat that accompanied that foreign song of despair. A warmth flowed from her breast, a gemlike weight that soothed even as her nerves frayed. She could feel the connection there, a vibration that shot off into the depths of her soul, holding it close to this strange new reality.

This is a Memory, Vess realized. A Dragon’s Memory. How did I—the Primordial. It was that Primordial that did this to me.

“Yini. Yini… Where are we?” a voice asked from behind her. It was a guttural grunt, but weaker by far than the crash of lightning around them. Still, Vess heard them as clear as a bell, as if the voice was speaking through her very Spirit.

She tilted her head back, careful to tense against the winds, and beheld a small, muscle-bound form clinging to her white mane as it fluttered above golden scales. It was an Orc, green skin so dark it seemed shaded purple, and covered in plates of enameled armor that did nothing to hide the dark streaks of blood that covered it. The Orc woman spoke again, but she barely moved.

“Yini, where are you going? We have to go back… the children…”

“I carry them with me,” Vess said, but it was not her voice, nor her Mind that compelled the words. They sprang from her draconic throat of their own volition. “All that I could save is here, little Rana. Please rest. You need to conserve your Strength.”

For the first time, Vess became aware of a weight in one of her claws. A container formed of woven trees hung from her grip, dragging down their flight speed almost as much as the storm around them.

“We know… we know I do not have much left.” The words hit the Dragon hard, a blow that turned the thread of despair toward a sorrow so deep it defied words. Vess floundered, unable to cope with the depth of such feeling. “That last attack… the Grandmaster caught me by surprise.”

“A pitiful Grandmaster? Hurt you? Little Rana, a Paragon could not fall to such a creature.”

A mane. Fur rippled from atop her head and down the length of her back, surmounting her thick golden scales and powerful limbs, while heavy, branching horns swept back from her brow. She was not just any Dragon. She was a Dusk Dragon. The Fathom?

The Orc shuddered, and it took Vess a moment to realize that she was laughing. “You have seen the War brewing, Yini. Even the gods are not safe. Do you think… do you think I am above the gods?”

“Curse the gods! We are not part of the War! We—”

“Yini, you must flee.” Rana coughed, and more dark blood spread out onto Vess’—the Fathom’s—scales. “You cannot let them find you, or the children. Keep them safe. Hidden. No matter… no matter the cost.”

A warmth rose from that thread at Vess’ center, a heat so intense it rivaled the sun as Yini—the Fathom itself, nodded its head. “It shall be done, little Rana. But you shall live to see them hatch yourself. You must only hold on.”

Silence and the storm were all that met those words.

“Rana?”

The Orc, and the deep connection Vess had felt with her, had vanished.

“RANA!”

Unnamable fury consumed their connection. Emotion so raw and potent that the Memory twisted under its onslaught. The skies blurred and the landscape far below swelled and burst, becoming verdant plains dotted with deep, black-water lakes. Vess’ consciousness was sliced by a strangled cry that echoed backward and forward through Memory, splitting her perceptions. She saw the Dragon drop, hurling itself into the waters as something attacked it from behind. And she witnessed Rana’s bleeding body in the courtyard of a vast mansion, stabbed by a glimmering spear made of pure air Mana.

A Spear? Vess recognized the Skill instantly, though it was leagues beyond her own ability. She was killed by—

A figure stepped into view, wearing enameled armor nearly identical to Rana’s. A second Spear of air floated beside him, and a sad smile was all she could see of his face. “You chose the wrong side, Paragon Rana. They can’t be trusted.” The Spear shot out, too fast to trace, and Rana threw up an arm.

“All Dragons must die.”

The Spear sent the Memory sprawling sideways, jolted by a burst of incandescent pain. Flashes of a pale gold dragon poking through a thick, metallic shell. Of a dark green hand, clutched at the belly of a wyrmling as it purrs to sleep. Of battles won, and lost. Of blood that filled the skies and muddied the ground, as lightning and fire razed the mountains of her home.

Vess screamed, unable to process the chaotic jumble as her time and reality became unmoored. She couldn’t parse any of it, not until the roil was subsumed by an endless eternity beneath the waves of countless rivers and lakes. The black depths became everything, sinking deeply into the Fathom’s scales and bones that little else mattered but eating, protecting, and continuing to move forward.

Away.

Until, finally, the Fathom stopped. It had found a hole to hide within, one so deep that nothing could ever find it again. Not monster or mortal, enemy or ally. A silence of darkness and pressure, where barren sludge smoothed the passing of Ages, and the Fathom slept. It slept without dream or hope of waking, save for the clutch of eggs held instinctively to its breast.

From that darkness, a face. Not of bone, but of collapsing darkness, a tunnel of flesh and bone that stared at them as if from a vast, incomprehensible distance.

It struck.

All at once, Vess returned.

She gasped and fell to the shattered earth, partisan abandoned as she clenched the split silt with her hands. It ran from between her fingers, puffs of smoke that quickly collapsed. Crashes shook the water all around her, and voices shouted a dozen different things. She heard none of it—she was too consumed by the now-fading connection between her and the Dragon named Yini.

The ground shook and the faintest impression of a face appeared, etched into the sand. What I saw—

THE TRUTH.

Then, the Creature is—

YES. CHOOSE YOUR PATH, VESSILIA DAYNE.

Mother. Father. Vess pulled in a breath as deep as she could, drawing it around herself like armor. And, for a moment, her core space stilled. Please forgive me.

Vess threw out her Intent and Affinity, a spear cast into the abyss, and grappled with the thread of connection. Its fading line thrummed to new life, burning, screeching—and deep inside Vess’ core space, her temple did the same.

Felix dodged backward, avoiding another clash as the Fathom lashed out with two enormous claws.

Impudent Whelp! Cease Your Fleeing!

The Fathom was so big, but it was equally fast; a combination that bothered Felix a lot, and not only because he’d taken several awful wounds from the beast. Seems kinda unfair, doesn’t it?

It cheats, Pit suggested. Its shadow is cheating.

Felix grunted in agreement. He’d noticed. They might have been facing a Dragon—a goddamn Dusk Dragon, according to his Eye—but it was being controlled. The Creature, he sent at Pit. We have to break its connection.

Pit shot another handful of radiant crescents at the beast, slashing through its oozing hide but leaving the scales beneath unharmed. How?

Felix met a lashing tendril of purple-blue ooze with his rending claws, Sovereign of Flesh expanding his hand and forearm to unreasonable size for just a moment. The ooze split and exploded, liquid shadow and crackling ice Mana surging randomly around them all. He dove again, flaring his movement Skill to its utmost. The damn Dragon took up so much space, it was hard to avoid all of its gelatinous appendages. I need to get past the ooze on its scales. The stuff is insulating the Dragon inside from my attacks. I felt something when I hit its bare snout, but it's totally covered now.

Pit whipped past, more tendrils following him as well. Feathers hung loose from his wings and blood trailed the tenku, but his Spirit was grimly determined. Both of them were hurting, but Pit couldn’t bounce back as fast as Felix. What if we—?

Without warning, the Fathom went rigid, its serpentine Body and the ooze upon it convulsing as if hit with an electric current. Felix had tried that though, so he knew that wasn’t happening. The Fathom’s maw gaped open, ooze and air bubbles pouring upward in a vile gush. Felix swam backward, avoiding the cascading mess, but not before noticing that the Fathom’s eyes had turned a brilliant, shining gold.

NO! The shadow behind the Fathom writhed and bubbled, but it was flailing ineffectually for the first time that Felix had seen. NO! HE IS MINE!

Vess. Felix saw her, far below them, now shining with a radiance that matched the Fathom’s eyes. Harmony swelled, as beside her Isla reached out and added something to the effect. The Creature bellowed, the sound distinct from the roar of the Dragon, and it surged down and away from Felix.

>

Pit shot off, fish-tail speeding him in a curving descent, while Felix blasted after it, boiling the water in his wake.

Adamant Discord!

A ten-foot thick lightning bolt blasted into the Fathom’s curving bulk, arresting its momentum for the barest of moments. This was far different than simply punching the monster in the face. This was about leverage. Felix kicked, summoning a stack of Cloudsteps beneath his feet as he hauled back harder than he ever had before.

Cloudstep is level 67!

…

Cloudstep is level 71!

It wasn’t enough. The platforms of solidified Mana splintered and burst as the mountainous Fathom hauled Felix downward. All at once, the tether of lightning surged and snapped in two.

> Felix shouted, before kicking off once again.

Below him, the Fathom roared as its shadow expanded to consume everything.