Warning

Jere climbed fast, wings shredding the air as Jaka burst out of thin air behind him, blue wisps trailing from his feathers like smoke. They had already assessed each other - speed, mass, agility, processor load. Both understood instantly that this would be the cleanest, sharpest aerial duel the world had ever seen.

But Jere was concerned.

Jaka was slightly smaller than him - just enough to make him a few kilometers per hour faster in a straight line and half a degree per second tighter in a turn. Minuscule margins. Margins that changed everything.

Jere, however, had knowledge - and emotions. Though up until now, emotions had been more liability than asset in a fight.

He rolled, angling downwards. The ground swung into view, his airspeed climbing as his altitude plummeted. Jaka stayed glued behind him, maintaining distance but losing none of his pressure.

A thousand possible attack patterns had already been calculated. Jere picked one.

He rolled slowly and then opened the micro-gaps between his feathers.

A shrill, metallic wail ripped through the sky, loud enough to wake every soul in the capital who hadn’t already been jolted awake by the engines screaming overhead. His airspeed ticked upward - six hundred, six-twenty, six-fifty - until finally, as the ground blurred dangerously close, his wings flexed, flared, and howled with the force of catching him mid-fall.

He levelled out just meters above the roofs - and then plunged even lower, carving through the streets like a falling star.

Jaka followed with mechanical precision, copying him move for move, threading through the narrow roads, wings missing walls and spires by centimeters. They had to. Even the slightest contact - even a single clipped tile - would steal kinetic energy, and in aerial combat energy was survival.

Two giant birds, one ink-black and one silver, tore through the sleeping city, their wails rattling windows, both with the same twin goals:

Stay alive.
And kill the other.

Jere didn’t need to look back to feel Jaka gaining - meter by meter, the advantage of slightly smaller mass showing. He pulled hard, G-meter flashing past forty as he swung onto the main avenue, the city gate dead ahead.

But he didn’t level out. He kept turning.

His internal map of the city was perfect - he’d spent weeks exploring it with Ylfa. He knife-edged into a tight alley, tilting ninety degrees until he flew sideways between the walls. At the same moment he closed the gaps in his feathers, cutting the shriek of wind instantly.

Silence sharpened everything. His ears tracked Jaka’s pursuit - and Jere knew immediately the other Angel had lost him.

An opening.

Jere twisted violently, the air slamming into him as he burst upward through the gap between rooftops. He looped backwards, flipping onto his back-

And there was Jaka, pulling hard to intercept, but a fraction too slow.

The air boomed as Jaka flapped desperately, barely throwing himself clear. Jere’s wing, a jet-black blade honed like a sword, passed so close it skimmed Jaka’s hair.

Jaka’s heart slammed against his ribs. It was new. His processors were too overloaded to identify the sensation - they were busy trying to snap his body around to face the next threat. His organic mind had to interpret it itself.

Fear.

Real, paralysing fear.

Jere was silhouetted against the faint dawn, wings angled like the scythes of death. And for the first time, Jaka understood - truly understood - that he was about to die.

In the frozen clarity of panic, every mistake he’d made replayed in a single instant: using fear tactics at the start, focusing too much on pursuit, losing track in the alley, overestimating himself.

His skin could brush off bullets. But an Angel’s blade-wings would cleave him in half like paper.

He didn’t want to die.

Why?

What instinct tethered him to existence?

His processors, sparing a sliver of power, gave him the answer:

He was curious.

He had questions. So many questions, all of them orbiting the very Angel now hurtling toward him at nearly eight hundred kilometers per hour. Why was Jere disobeying direct orders? Why was he attached to a demon? Why did he protect a child like she mattered?

He would never know.

He exhaled once, accepting the inevitable-

And then Jere’s wing flexed.

A microscopic shift. Imperceptible to most. Enough to change the cut from lethal to harmless. The blade missed Jaka’s skull by centimeters, only trimming a whisper of hair.

Shock crashed through him.

He met Jere’s eyes for the briefest instant as they crossed paths.

There was a message in them:

I don’t want to kill you.
Don’t make me.

Then Jere shot past, climbing into the sky and vanishing into the dark.

Jaka slowed, trembling, breath shuddering out of him.

But his processors didn’t tremble - they were already racing ahead, calculating how he might survive the King’s inevitable questions.

Questions he had no good answers for.

Ylfa sprinted through the palace, a fireball crackling between her palms. She hurled it down the narrow corridor at a squad of knights who hadn’t lowered their swords. The blazing sphere screamed through the air and detonated with a concussive blast that rattled her bones. You weren’t supposed to use fireballs indoors. Ylfa had never been particularly good at following rules.

The knights were gone - reduced to drifting ash as the core of the explosion reached temperatures close to the surface of the sun. Smoke flooded the passage as Ylfa dashed through it. Her nose led the way, tail flicking to counterbalance her sharp turn as she veered right.

Above her, she could hear the shrieking clash of Jere and Jaka’s fight - terrifying wails that comforted her nonetheless. Jere was still alive.

She plunged deeper. The castle’s subterranean warren was far larger than she’d expected. She tore past a prison, ignoring the frantic cries for help. Smoke made her eyes sting - it was her own fault. She’d lit far too many fireballs already, and the whole place shook from the impacts.

Still, she blamed the idiots in armour. What kind of fool tried to stop a Formy? Natural selection at this point.

Filtering Eny’s scent through the choking haze, she dove down another flight of stairs - didn’t bother taking them - simply leapt and slammed onto the stone floor below. Armour clattered in the darkness. Ylfa flicked her wrist; another group of knights melted where they stood, metal gooping into pools.

The kills didn’t weigh on her. They had taken her daughter. She was entitled to tear the entire kingdom apart if she had to.

She rounded another corner, stone walls blurring as her feet hammered the ground. A fireball streaked ahead and blew the next door into splinters. She plunged through the smoke, skidding to a stop.

A wide stone chamber opened before her.

It was almost empty - except for the enormous contraption humming at its center. Bronze piping glowed a dull red with heat, steam hissing between the joints. It looked like something torn from a futuristic science book she’d devoured as a child - the kind that theorised generating light through pressurised steam.

But her eyes snapped to the middle of it all.

A circular ring. A nest of metal rods. A glass dome sealed shut.

And inside, suspended by metal clasps - Eny.

The rods jabbed at her tiny frame. She wore only simple undergarments, her adorable face twisted in pain and fierce concentration, eyes squeezed shut.

Standing beside the dome was a woman in flowing white silks, her expression sharp and cold as she turned to face Ylfa. Amusement curled on her lips. She dipped into a graceful curtsy.

“So you’re the one causing all the noise. And you must be this girl’s mother.”

Her smile widened.

“I am Yejide. It is a pleasure to meet you.”

Rage surged through Ylfa. This woman had strapped Eny into whatever hell-machine stood behind her - and she dared to smile?

Ylfa raised her hands to conjure another fireball-

And froze.

Her eyes widened. She couldn’t move. Not a muscle.

Yejide glided toward her, each step smooth and effortless.

“Don’t try to fight it,” she murmured.

A blade slipped into her hand - small, wicked, gleaming.

“You’re going to die here. But don’t worry, your child won’t see your death.” She tilted her head. “That would be cruel.”

Cruel? Locking a child in a pain device wasn’t?

Fear mixed with fury. Ylfa was helpless. Pinned. And she wasn’t afraid to die - but she was terrified of what Jere would do when he found her body.

A silent prayer flickered through her mind.
If I’m going to die… please let Jere either follow me, or find a way to live on.

Yejide twirled the dagger in her hand, still speaking like the outcome was already written.

“But don’t worry. Our Angel is far more powerful than your husband, you see…”

The screams of aerial combat above had stopped.

Tears sprang to Ylfa’s eyes - but then, strangely, a wave of peace washed over her. Jere had died. She would see him soon.

A small smile crept onto her face. It made Yejide pause.

“You seem oddly happy about that. Well, not my problem.”

The dagger lifted.

“Enjoy the afterlife, I suppose.”

And then Yejide’s chest burst open.

Ylfa barely registered what happened. One moment the blade was poised to pierce her heart - and the next the woman was collapsing to the floor, a precise slit torn straight through her torso. Blood pooled beneath her silks.

The invisible bind around Ylfa fell away.

She stood for a heartbeat, stunned-

Then heard a high, piercing wail echo through the chamber.

Her heart leapt.

A single feather - one of Jere’s drones - hovered in the center of the room, its tiny ion engine whining against the stone walls. It circled Yejide’s corpse, as if confirming the kill, then shot away down the corridor in a streak of metal and blue light.

Tears welled in Ylfa’s eyes, but she swept them away with the back of her hand.

He had saved her. Again.