“More? Now you’re just being ridiculous. One flying fortress is enough to conquer Creation.”


    — Dread Empress Sinistra IV, the Erroneous


    <hr>


    Scythe-like claws twice the height of Yvette’s mother tore through Arcadian earth as the bone-dragons flanked the Tyrant’s dais. The left beast''s eyes blazed with blue light — frost swirling around its skeletal frame — while flames ignited around its fiery twin.


    “-going to kill those dragons,” Taylor said before taking a step forward and throwing herself into the sky.


    The chaotic roar of a distorted battlefield flooded Yvette’s ears. She wove a web of silence, but Taylor’s halo shattered it instantly.


    “Taylor,” Kairos’s eyes widened as he dragged the name out, “how compassionate of you to indulge me.”


    Yvette glared at her mother and reinforced the spell as she repeated it. This time she excluded noises selectively. Only the sounds she cared for would remain audible. She cast the spell on Roland as blessed silence engulfed her.


    “Better to keep you talking than committing some other atrocity,” the radiant priestess retorted.


    Half a dozen arcs of Light sheared through the air, shattered by the cold snap of the leftmost dragon’s glacial breath. The miracle splintered like glass. Yvette’s breath caught as she observed the phenomenon closer. Should she inform her ma?


    “Bone-dragons? That’s what you’re going with? Delos beat six of those without breaking a sweat,” Taylor mocked from somewhere overhead. “What happened to learning from history?”


    Yvette dismissed it. Taylor would know that constructs fuelled by Summer and Winter couldn’t be easily destroyed.


    “Nothing less than expected for a mortal villain,” the fae duke sneered, “I will lead the fight against Kairos Theodosian.”


    The fae energies reconstituted their bodies if they broke.


    It made dismantling the beasts complicated.


    “That would benefit us both.” Roland said as he turned away from the fae before addressing Yvette. “Did you hear Taylor’s requests?”


    The brown haired charlatan lurched along the wall before stumbling down the stairs. Yvette wiped her mouth on her red sleeves after emptying her stomach. She staggered behind him again soon after.


    “I did,” Yvette confirmed. “Let’s get to the horses and mount up. It doesn’t matter which gate we exit from, so we’ll take the closest one. Everywhere outside is more or less connected at the moment. Anywhere can be reached except Aine. I need to be near both the Tyrant and the slaves to free them. I think that-”


    The fae duke reared backwards and scowled as Yvette dry heaved again. Her jaws slammed shut as they continued their descent. Each step felt endless after witnessing the surreal chaos her mother had wrought with the Queen.


    “Why does it twist so much?” Yvette complained. “It feels like my thoughts are scattering like dust in the wind.”


    “I’d thought you’d be enthusiastic to witness this narrative.” Roland said, raising an eyebrow.


    “There’s weird, and then there’s this,” she gestured back as she retorted.


    “What’s madness to you may be poetry to someone else,” Roland countered.


    “It’s like trying to solve a puzzle missing half the pieces,” she muttered to herself.


    Scattered radiance illuminated the battlefield as roars shook the ground beneath them. Roland clambered onto his dappled horse moments after they reached the stables.


    “Taylor’s horse? She’ll kill you if it bolts,” Roland called.


    The pure-bred Liessan flicked its ears back in annoyance and stamped a hoof, but it stood still, its nostrils flaring as Yvette approached.


    Such a majestic horse.


    “She’s quicker, okay?” Yvette blurted, avoiding Roland’s sceptical gaze.


    Yvette stroked Taylor’s horse and avoided her own mount’s sullen glare.


    “What about the reagents you require for interfering with the ritual?” he inquired.


    Hooves pounded against the stone road towards Aine’s gates.


    “All with me,” she affirmed.


    A company of gold bannered fae under the command of the duke trailed behind them. A terse few words were exchanged between him and Roland as the sally port opened.


    “What light can you shed on our foes?” Roland’s hair danced as he leaned forward.


    Winter’s forces stood motionless at the horizon.


    Paved roads stretched through fields of green, clashing with the encroaching frost. Icy craters marred the Summer landscape as their addled mounts galloped, before halting in confusion. Futile. The word crawled through her thoughts, unwanted and insistent.


    “Ma is stalling,” Yvette explained. “It''s challenging even for her to destroy those constructs. They’re fuelled by the animating force of two fae Princes. She might try to set up a story to defeat them on her own, but I doubt it. There is an easier possibility. They’ll both fall apart if the Tyrant dies or the spell unravels.”


    The Helike camp folded into abstract shapes — much like everything else in this nightmare tunnel — but it simplified the headache to narrow in on a single point.


    “She won’t risk striking either until the slaves are freed,” Roland surmised.


    Yvette had to ignore her own burning curiosity and not think about the madness that surrounded her. Up, down, left, right. It didn’t matter where she looked. All pointed the same way. Down.


    “That’s right,” Yvette agreed. “Which leaves this next part for us. There’s also nothing preventing us from doing both ourselves if we get the chance.”


    The battlefield had been transformed into a storied trap with no end. Straight lines twisted like tangled threads, walls of ice where the top and the bottom touched.


    Meaning frayed, the world consumed itself in defiance of logic.


    But did meaning have any purpose to begin with?


    Just one more glance. What harm could it do? Yvette squashed the thought immediately.


    Oh, all the things she could learn.


    “Must be refreshing for Taylor, fighting without that conscience weighing her down,” the curly haired rogue quipped.


    “Enjoying this?” Yvette screeched. “I’d bet she’s cursing fate for making her clean up this mess.”


    A tense silence crept over them like errant thoughts.


    Wind tore at Yvette’s hair, sending golden strands whipping across her face. Her mount’s hooves thundered against the ground, each stride jolting through her bones.


    She shaded her eyes and examined the battlefield.


    Her heart stuttered like her frantic handwriting as she noticed a pale skinned Winter fae contesting a fiery woman clad in vines further along the tunnel. The first gripped an ominous box under one arm as he ducked and wove, wielding sculptures of frost in opposition to fiery armaments. The Prince of Nightfall and the Princess of High Noon, it had to be! She squinted as she spotted a lone cloaked figure darkening the furthest recesses of the warped passage.


    What else could she observe?


    What else could she learn?


    Perhaps if she looked…


    A shimmering dome of Light flared above, blinding Yvette as it clashed with the icy breath of the dragon. Frost hissed and cracked against the radiant barrier, cascading down like daggers of cold. Three blows and the aegis cracked, under the weight of draconic claws.


    Yvette gasped and squeezed her reins hard as she almost toppled from her horse. Her head spun. Why hadn’t she glanced away? Her thoughts turned blue, yelped, then scattered like startled birds. It was like looking into her dimensional pocket and discovering the walls had come alive.


    “How close to the Tyrant do you need to be to dispel the enchantment?” Roland exclaimed.


    Yvette stared towards Helike’s encampment.


    Infantry guarded the road, with a ditch and raised dirt banks behind them, topped by crossbowmen and a palisade. A crackling bolt leached colour from the stormy sky as it rose from behind the barrier. Yvette shuddered. The canitude of the desolation heralded nothing pleasant. She brushed the thought aside. Soon they would pass into range of enemy projectiles.


    “Within a hundred paces!” the blonde teenager replied.


    Bitterness stole over her as the dizziness faded away.


    “You’re more likely to elect a monarch in Bellerophon than achieve anything worthwhile this way!” the dark haired priestess challenged.


    “Now there’s an idea,” the Tyrant said, cackling.


    “Yes, do that,” a barrier of Light intercepted a skeletal draconian claw as Taylor cajoled. “Just think of how funny it’ll be.”


    “The joke of all times,” a malevolent red eye blinked from everywhere as Kairos agreed.


    You know what would be even better?” Taylor’s voice veered as she evaded a wall of flames and sent the fiery monstrosity toppling from the sky with a lance.


    “What?” The brown haired boy leaned forward as he replied.


    “Doing it peacefully,” Taylor suggested. “Imagine how hard it would be.”


    “Ah… peace,” the Tyrant stroked an imaginary beard as he mused, “isn’t that the thing you get when all your enemies are dead or broken?”


    Flash!


    Ripple.


    Sigh.


    Bang!


    Yvette didn’t need to glance above to feel the oscillating helix of Light before it struck the dragon’s wing. White of Salt, black of caramel, red of pepper, a drop of blue water on the tongue. The story had coiled itself so tight around them that she could taste the colours of the groove that had carved itself into creation.


    Three hundred paces.


    Yvette’s fingers traced silver patterns into the air, while the other hand clutched tight at Pandora’s reins. If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    “Gods Above see us safely through this battlefield,” Roland muttered from her left.


    The thrum of wings signaled another Summer fae cohort. Yvette''s gaze shifted from the distant palisade, but how? All points were as one. She glimpsed whatever she cared for without moving her eyes. And yet Arcadia Resplendent operated this way as if following nonsense rules. How did it work this way? They moved and yet they did not.


    Her hands tightened around the reins as the edges of her mind bubbled.


    Much like when she left a potion unattended for half an hour too long.


    She dry heaved again.


    Too much.


    It was too much.


    Two hundred and fifty steps.


    The entire formula warped as the rightmost targeting glyph reddened, and the vacuum spell which she had intended to use on the Helikean infantry lined between them and the ditch instead detonated in the sky.


    A skeletal wing that had been struck loose by another beam of Light exploded into a rain of splinters and fell upon their ranks. Shields rose, but the gap left by her spell was transitioned into by Roland. He brandished an ash-grey wand and sent a concussive wave of air that scattered the soldiers.


    An ominous red glow suffused the golden lion’s head of the ivory sceptre as Kairos flourished it towards Taylor. Yvette’s heart rattled like her laboratory equipment during a failed experiment as the second dragon’s jaws closed around her mother.


    Taylor shifted into an amorphous cloud of Light that hissed as it ate at sorcery. The dragon recoiled, twisting mid-air before crashing into a line of Summer fae. A gaggle of gargoyles pounced on the opened groove. Mournful shrieks echoed from marble mouths as stone claws gouged holes in their golden banners.


    A third of the distance had vanished.


    Yvette pulled the oval badge from her pouch, grimacing. She felt unworthy of wearing it. The steel ornament marked with the outline of a yew tree also wouldn’t help with her spell. She deposited it as she reached in again and withdrew a broken mirror.


    Another dozen paces, gone.


    Yvette began muttering an incantation for an illusion anchored on her foes. Three discs of Light carved towards the Winter dragon.


    They detonated as the monster deflected them with a cone of ice and blinded the second wave of infantry barring the path ahead. The air rippled with invisible seams as her spell twisted before it finished. Roland twirled his wand and another blast of air struck. Thirty men let out choked screams. Their insides became outsides as they were grated like cheese in moments.


    Ma won’t be happy about this.


    Yvette averted her eyes.


    Only a hundred and fifty paces to go.


    Yvette’s stomach lashed around like Ratling tails as she observed the narrative phenomenon. It stung like the kiss of another failed spell. She brushed the traitorous suggestions in her thoughts aside and prepared her next spell in step with the story that unfolded. Her ma had asked this of her. She’d trusted her with this task.


    A hand reached into her dimensional pocket and withdrew a chunk of amber as a barrage of bolts screamed towards them from Helike’s ranks. She spared a glance upwards as she raised the crystal and began to incant.


    A harsh corona of Light blazed in the sky above as Taylor ran along golden platforms upwards towards her foe. Could Yvette replicate the feat herself? It’d be faster than riding on horses like this.


    Pandora snorted as the two of them passed the first line of foes.


    “History will remember you as nothing more than yet another villain who monologued their way down a cliff,” Taylor derided. “Why not do something that matters for once?”


    The mounds of packed dirt towered over them as another dozen steps vanished.


    “Memories are for tombstones,” the Tyrant snickered as he replied. “I prefer to live in the now.”


    Soldiers wailed as they died to fiery fruits or scorching lances cast by furious Summer fae behind them.


    “You say that,” Taylor replied, “and yet you’re the only villain like this.”


    A shimmering arc of Light intercepted a skeletal draconian claw.


    Three circles cut by two triangles. Another sigil shimmered as Yvette completed it. Taylor blasted away a fan of ice from the singled winged beast on the left and enclosed it in brilliant chains.


    “I know!” Kairos lamented from his dais. “Really, villains these days have no sense of commitment.”


    “A tragedy, I’m sure,” Taylor deadpanned.


    The monster writhed. Smoke curled from its body as it fought against chains of searing light. How did it even remain airborne with only one wing? Winter, it had to be. Time flowed in reverse as shadows wrapped themselves around the shards of broken bones on the battlefield and tugged the scattered splinters towards it.


    Yvette examined the process for a few heartbeats.


    Furious tears trailed at the edge of her eyes as she allowed the words to twist in her mouth. The stasis field she’d intended to catch the arrows slowed the bones instead. A column of golden flames whooshed past her and swallowed the rising remains. Roland flourished his wand again and bolts dispersed around them.


    Bitterness ate at her.


    Her shoulders slumped.


    Another failure ordained by fate.


    Less than a hundred paces remained.


    The chains vanished as the second creature bore down upon Taylor from the right. Yvette pocketed the amber and withdrew a silken cocoon as an incandescent pillar smashed the beast away from her ma.


    Roland put away the wand and fished out a jade figurine of a sitting man holding a cup. The soil beneath the soldier’s feet turned to thick mud as the figurine flashed. Green glyphs blazed in the air and mud rushed like water to fill the ditch ahead of them as Yvette raked her fingers before her. Another spoken word and mud sighed as it hardened once again.


    Taylor summoned chains around the crippled monster again and heaved it away from the sky above Helike’s camp.


    “They’re all about victory at all costs,” Kairos whined.


    “Woe is me, Evil isn’t Evil enough,” Taylor said sarcastically.


    “Quite right,” the Tyrant mourned. “No sense of dedication. They’re as boring as that city of scribes,” the boy’s voice dipped as he collapsed into his throne, “and I’d rather make a spectacle than a scroll.”


    “All this complaining about days gone by,” Taylor drawled. “You’re the first Evil geriatric teenager I’ve met.”


    The Tyrant laughed from the back of his retreating platform as he flourished his ivory sceptre. Taylor scattered into a nimbus as the second beast assaulted her from the right. The fiery beast struck against the golden chain, only to send its undead brother plummeting towards the ground.


    Crash!


    A tide of loose dirt washed over soldiers as the single winged dragon slammed into the fortifications ahead of them. Yvette winced in sympathy even as she incanted once again. Who knew how many had perished? A whirlpool of ice and shadows swirled around its shattered body, obscuring the monster from view entirely.


    Pandora’s hooves rang against the road as they bore down upon Helike’s broken fortifications. A chill stole over them all as the ice-bound dragon reconstituted itself. Billowing clouds of darkness dispersed, revealing a serpentine creature as much ice as it was bone.


    Symbols shimmered and pulsed in the air around Yvette. They hummed with energy as her voice wove the binding spell. Each word she spoke tugged the air tighter, limiting the world around her.


    “You know these dragons are more footnotes than threats?” Taylor taunted.


    Roland muttered a prayer under his breath as he withdrew a now familiar dragon oak wand and pointed it at the monster. A volley of fiery projectiles smashed into it. The beast reared back, only to be hoisted into the sky by a golden lasso.


    “Footnotes?” Kairos placed a palm over his heart and gasped. “Why, Taylor, I’d argue they’re masterpieces.”


    Yvette scowled as another word slipped. Binding became blinding, and Helike’s last line of soldiers cried out as their eyes transmuted to wood.


    “This ploy failed every time it was tried,” Taylor said as she dispersed a vortex of flames with a radiant beam.


    A dozen cackling gargoyles plummeted towards them, then shattered under a concentrated barrage of golden flames from the banner wielding Immortals. Stygian sorcerers raised both their hands and their voices in incantation, only to lose both to perish in a hail of fiery fruits. Ephydriads marched deeper into the Tyrant’s camp after following them through the breach. Yvette winced. The slaves Taylor was trying to free weren’t likely to survive their onslaught.


    It’s about trying to do the right thing.


    “Details, details,” the Tyrant laughed.


    Kairos flourished his ivory sceptre as his platform retreated, slaves hauling it toward the battle between Sulia and Larat. Ranks of soldiers formed around him as a woman standing beside him bellowed orders. Projectiles of ice and fire alike struck against a golden sphere as both airborne lizards circled Taylor like airborne sharks. Bone flaked from Summer’s dragon, only to be reborn in flames.


    Yvette’s hackles rose as the two of them slowed and dismounted as they approached the site of the Tyrant’s ritual.


    “It bears all the hallmarks of a classic Praesi villain’s handiwork,” Roland muttered as he examined it, “grandiose and impractical.”


    The once two-dimensional construct now floated in the air. Glyphs traced hypnotic patterns while pulsing between dark red and black. Roland flinched as another malignant bolt of darkness crackled skywards from the outer boundary.


    “He’s animated two bone-dragons with the power of upper fae nobility,” Yvette replied. “I don’t think practical or efficient matters any more.”


    Yvette’s heart thundered. Could she? She shouldn’t, but here was a chance to make her mother proud. Taylor always said she was proud of Yvette anyhow. Perhaps it was even true. It didn’t matter.


    “There is truth in that,” Roland agreed.


    Yvette’s hands trembled as a volatile storm of shadow and flame bore down upon the ritual site.


    “See, a masterpiece!” the mad ruler exclaimed.


    A sheet of Light rippled across the sky and intercepted the tempestuous conflagration.


    “There are better ways to waste money,” Taylor replied.


    Esme — the horrible girl — had earned Taylor’s trust. She’d been given authority to act in Taylor’s stead in the House of Light while they were in Arcadia. Her mother didn’t see Esme as cute, she saw her as capable. Yvette yearned for more than just unconditional approval. She wanted to be acknowledged for what she could achieve as well.


    Yvette set aside the surge of guilt she felt and considered the opportunity. The ritual had been designed by a villain, and thus it didn’t surprise her that it had no safety limitations on how much power could be funnelled through it.


    “This is more complicated than I expected,” Yvette admitted. “He’s bound the lives of the slaves into the ritual as well.”


    A thirteen-by-thirteen-by-thirteen cubic grid bounded by twenty-three flickering braziers occupied the centrepiece. Could she repurpose this into something more? Cut out the parts which were strictly Praesi and fill it with something of her own? Perhaps. It was fortunate that she hadn’t discerned this while examining the two-dimensional projection of the working. Her ma wouldn’t have missed the glint in her eyes or the lie that followed.


    “Is it beyond you?” Roland asked, concerned. “The escapement looks like standard Trismegistan sorcery, if a little bare.”


    Besides, Taylor had asked her to build a tower of hubris. A ritual where they would win regardless of the outcome. Yvette was tired of failing. Here she would succeed so spectacularly that nobody could doubt what she’d done. Yvette squashed the whispers of doubt. Was it really wrong to give this her best attempt by trying to usurp the working as part of a greater spell?


    “It isn’t,” she denied, “Disentangling them is possible. Fortunately, distance to the slaves no longer matters. It all falls apart if I fix this, but there’s also a trap. It’ll expend as much of the two prince’s power as it can and blow up if not stopped.”


    Why settle for an illusion of changing the past? She’d been studying the both Titan’s leavings and the Winter fae for over a year. She’d understood enough to glimpse the shape behind the curtains. The past could be changed. With no power limitations and two fae princes to fuel her working, who knew how much she could achieve?


    “Then I’ll leave this in your hands,” Roland declared. “See in the distance.”


    Yvette followed the trail of his fingers. The fae duke had departed their company and joined the fight between Princess Sulia and Prince Larat.


    A fight which was swiftly approaching Helike’s camp.


    “You’re going to claim the Sun?” Yvette inquired.


    Roland acknowledged her words with a silent nod. He negotiated a guard with half a dozen golden banner wielders for Yvette while she prepared to repurpose the ritual.


    Yvette reached into her pocket dimension and withdrew one reagent after another. More vindication. Other sorcerers could prepare many of their workings in advance. Not Yvette. Scatterbrained, stupid, incapable Yvette. Her magic lost intensity if it wasn’t prepared at the moment, or if it didn’t fail in a way that she didn’t find funny.


    Roland and Taylor had hardly struggled through their visions in the Spire of Darkest Dreams. Yvette had almost trapped them there permanently. Sure, Taylor’s talk with her copy had been uncomfortable to listen to, but… she changed her mind on things. It wouldn’t be that hard to convince her that she was wrong, right?


    Yvette muttered a brief prayer under her breath. All the others had their part to play. She had to prove her worth, or she’d be left behind. She was the weight pulling everyone else down. How long until they realized it and cast her aside?


    No, don’t think that way.


    She’d push past her own failures and earn the trust she’d been given.


    She’d succeed where it mattered for once.


    Her fingers tightened around the handle of the dagger Taylor gave her. One cut, then another, then another. Lines traced into an iron sheet.


    She winced as she sliced her palm by accident and blood pooled in the grooves.


    Clean. It needs to be clean.


    She’d need to hide that from Taylor, but what did it matter if she bled a little?


    It was fine so long as the spell worked, right?


    “You walk among the bones of the past, Taylor,” Kairos’s fading voice declared. “My dragons reign here.”


    Yvette stared skywards as a stillness swept over the battlefield.


    “You dragged out past dragons, Kairos,” Taylor’s voice gained confidence as she spoke. “But I’ll bury them with the dragons of the future.”


    A ghost of a younger Taylor shrouded her mother for an instant, before disappearing. Taylor erupted into brilliance, her body reshaping in a cascade of radiance. Two slits of molten gold pierced the battlefield. Luminescent claws curved from her fingers, and her metallic wings unfurled with a thunderous crack that silenced the chaos.


    A sinuous tail twirled and struck the Winter dragon above absently.


    Yvette gawked.


    Why couldn’t Taylor just delay the damn thing?


    How was Yvette supposed to account for this?