Venshire's northern quarter, the proud avenue just outside the Academy gates, was buried under rubble and ash. Fire leapt across rooftops like it was running from something faster. Glass burst from high windows. A bell kept ringing, over and over, though the tower it hung from had long since caved in.
And above it all, cutting through smoke and snow and flame, something red blurred across the sky.
Lilya dove hard over the rooftops, her coat snapping behind her, hair streaking out like fire.
The missile Astra beneath her hummed with power, its rear vents glowing as if pulling magic from the clouds. She twisted into a tight spin over the collapsed northern guard wall, then leveled out above the main avenue.
Chaos below.
Monsters tore through the cobbled streets. Some with jaws too long for their heads, others crawling on twisted limbs that cracked at wrong angles. Blood on stone. People running. Students fighting. A shield Astra broke under pressure as she passed, its owner screamed.
"Fall back!" Lilya shouted down.
The girl looked up. Barely fourteen.
Lilya cursed and dropped lower, flying only meters above the street. She activated the mid-barrels.
Bursts of gunfire spat down from her Astra's undercarriage, striking the beasts closest to the retreating students. One toppled backward. Another scattered into the alley.
"North street compromised!" she shouted into the wind. "Cover the left wall!"
Somewhere ahead, on foot and cutting down anything in her path, Anastasia advanced.
Her coat was torn, her left shoulder bleeding, and she still held her stance like a statue of war. She gripped her rifle Astra, larger than Arvid's, sleeker, enhanced with faint lines of lightning magic. It pulsed with sparks as she raised it again.
Three shots, perfectly spaced.
Three beasts dropped, twitching.
"Get behind the barricade!" Anastasia barked to a group of older students. "Now!"
One hesitated.
Her boot slammed into the stone.
The student moved.
Lilya looped upward and rolled once, letting out a tight breath.
Anastasia didn't need help.
She just needed room to work.
"Luchnikova!" Lilya called as she dropped low again.
"I see it!" came the reply, already annoyed.
"West side's breaking! I'm looping around!"
"You better!"
Lilya pulled hard left. Her Astra responded like muscle memory, flipping sideways, then re-stabilizing in a burst of speed. The wind roared. Bullets burst again.
The street was holding, for now.
But this wasn't an ambush.
It was a warzone.
High above the streets, in the Academy's tallest tower, the Principal did not move.
His chamber was more observatory than office, half-lit by crystal lamps, lined with books that hadn't been copied in centuries, shelves filled with locked Astra cores, half-functioning relics of a war no one spoke of anymore. And in the center, a long, polished desk with a glowing circular receiver embedded in its surface.
He stood beside it now, fingers resting on the frame, watching the city burn through the arched glass.
Smoke curled up past his window in slow, deliberate waves. He could hear no screams. But he'd heard what mattered.
Too many bells.
Too many directions.
This wasn't just an incursion.
He turned to the receiver and tapped one of the runes.
The circle lit blue, then green. He rotated the dial to its highest frequency, capital relay channel, direct to Caer Nyx command.
Then he spoke.
"Signal seven. Code black. Requesting coordinated response."
The ring flickered. A beat. Static. A low hum.
Then nothing.
No reply.
He adjusted it. Again. Different pulse frequency. No answer. Even the fallback code for silent confirmation, ignored.
He stared at it for one long moment, then powered it down.
"Not just Venshire," he muttered.
He moved to the bookshelf behind him, an older one, less impressive. Reached behind the second row and pulled forward a worn, dust-heavy tome.
It didn't look like much.
Just a black book. No title. No clasp. Its cover was smooth, unmarred by time, save for a faint indentation on its spine, an old, quiet rune.
He didn't lift it.
Not yet.
Instead, he turned again to the burning city outside. His eyes were steady.
No panic.
Just something colder.
Calculating.
Then, behind his back, the receiver crackled once. A broken signal hissed through the static.
"The Red Dragon."
***
The east courtyard of Caer Nyx Palace exploded inward as a beast slammed through the gates.
Screams echoed through the golden halls. Not the screams of civilians, there were none here, but of the royal guard. Men and women trained since childhood, armored in plate Astra, wielding weapons that sang with light.
It didn't matter.
The monsters that made it this far didn't move like wolves or bears. They flowed. Bent around blade strikes. Climbed up columns. Split under bullets and reformed like wet cloth stitched by hunger.
Felix Morozov ducked beneath a collapsing statue and rolled across the polished marble.
His Astra, a small dagger, flickered to life in his palm.
His skin shimmered, light bending around him. Not perfect invisibility, not yet, but enough to blur him into the carnage. Enough to keep the beasts' eyes uncertain, if only for a second.
Which was usually all he needed.
He spun into the shadows near the inner column and caught his breath. One of the palace's winged guards had just been torn apart in mid-air. Blood painted the ceiling in patterns too symmetrical to be an accident.
"I was just here to deliver a report," Felix muttered under his breath. "Why is it always a report."
Another beast skittered past, low and fast. It didn't see him. Not fully. But it slowed near his corner, sniffed.
Felix held still.
The thing turned.
Then its gaze flicked back, and it knew.
It lunged.
He threw the dagger, more as a distraction than a kill. The blade curved through the air, sliced across the creature's shoulder. Not deep, but bright enough to sting.
Felix bolted.
Through a broken arch. Over a shattered fountain. Down a corridor lined with half-crushed paintings of emperors long dead.
He turned a corner, and stopped.
There were two more beasts waiting.
One shrieked and lowered its head.
He couldn't run again.
And his Astra couldn't help now.
Felix took one step back.
Then—
The floor ruptured.
The marble beneath the beasts snapped open.
A red chain erupted from the ground, thick as a man's torso, tipped in a fang-shaped spearhead. It didn't just stab the first beast, it lifted it into the air, twisted once, and tore it in two. The second one lunged. Another chain slammed sideways into it mid-leap, breaking every bone at once.
Felix stumbled back, blinking against the debris.
He didn't need to see who it was.
He already knew.
The air shifted.
Bootsteps followed, calm, controlled, sharp against the echoing ruin.
A figure stepped through the smoke, silhouetted against the flames licking at the far walls.
She was wrapped in black, trimmed in imperial silver. Her coat was pristine, her hair unburned by the heat, and her eyes, pale, unnervingly still, glowed faintly beneath the red crest embroidered across her shoulder.
Villa von Rovanov.
Chains coiled behind her like living things, folding and unfolding in the air without sound.
"Still alive," she said, not quite impressed.
Felix lowered his blade. "Just barely."
She studied him. Not like someone recognizing a peer. Like someone appraising a relic in a display case.
Then:
"You were in Crystalis, weren't you?"
"Briefly," Felix said, voice dry.
She stepped closer.
"I read the reports. Some say it was the Wings of Nivalis who ended the invasion. But others—" her eyes narrowed just slightly, "—leave out important names."
Felix didn't answer.
"I saved your life just now," she added. "You owe me."
He forced a grin. "Guess I do."
"Then repay it." Her tone didn't shift. "With the truth."
Felix tilted his head. "What truth?"
She stared at him for a long moment. Then her chains twisted slightly, as if tasting the air.
"I'll find it," she said simply. "Whether you help or not."
She turned without waiting for permission and walked back through the firelit ruin. Her Astra slithered behind her, curling into the shadows like a second spine.
Felix stood alone for a moment longer.
He let out a slow breath.
"I hate owing nobles," he muttered.