Miroslav

Jaka flew high above demon territory, far beyond his usual cruise altitude. Up here, the night air thinned into a near-frozen quiet that would have iced a normal creature’s wings, but he felt none of it. The darkness was peaceful. Empty. Absolute. Each time his scanners swept the ground below for heat signatures, he had long stretches of silence in which to think, to process, to interrogate the things no one was saying aloud.

Something enormous was underway - he could feel it, even if he wasn’t permitted to ask unless it endangered the mission. So he pieced the fragments together himself.

His first guess: the alliance between the King and Kaleo was a temporary contrivance at best - obvious, flimsy. What he couldn’t understand was how they’d managed to agree at all, or how a Formy - especially one as powerful as that demon - had stopped himself from killing the man responsible for so many of his people’s deaths when they’d been standing close enough to touch.

His second guess: the King wasn’t the real actor. The advisor was. But even that didn’t feel like the end of the string. Someone else tugged from behind the curtain, unseen, ensuring all the pieces kept moving.

Who, he had no idea.

He banked wide, completing another sweep of the continent. His map updated beneath him, glowing lines marking what he’d already covered and where he still needed to go. As he turned, something caught his eye - something massive.

Winged. Yellow. Scaled. As large as a warehouse. And flying at speeds comparable to an attack helicopter.

His processors raced, cross-referencing everything in his libraries until a name returned.

A dragon.

It hadn’t seen him. Even if it did, the altitude difference gave him minutes to react - it was flying low. Attack height. Purposeful.

He followed its trajectory and quickly spotted the target: a village. Demon-run. Fair-sized, defensible, or at least it would have been against anything but a dragon.

He remained silent, tens of thousands of feet above, watching.

The dragon circled. Roared - so loudly he could hear it even at his elevation. Villagers fled the walls, only to be swallowed whole the moment they stepped beyond them. Realizing the futility, they turned inward instead.

Worse choice.

Flames erupted from the dragon’s throat, igniting the night and throwing an orange sheen across Jaka’s wings. Entire streets vanished in seconds as concussive bursts blew apart the village. Smoke rose in thick mushrooms, lit from beneath by hellish glow.

It would be over within minutes.

He almost felt… amused.

Until something slammed onto his back.

A sudden weight. Cold metal pressed to his windpipe. A voice hissed into his ear, somehow audible even through the rushing wind.

“If you don’t help them, you prick, I’ll kill you.”

He looked back. Enhanced eyes locked onto a pretty feminine face framed by a short bob of black hair. Gleaming amber eyes glared at him with lethal intensity. Her clothes looked like something between tactical gear and cosplay - straps everywhere, clinging to a cropped tube top and short shorts. Cat ears flicked in the wind, and a long tail whipped hard enough to sting.

He dismissed her immediately. How she’d managed to get onto his back was a mystery - but two things he knew with certainty:

A knife couldn’t hurt him.
And she was a demon.

He stared, expression blank.

“No.”

Confusion overtook her face.
“What the hell do you mean, no?”

He shrugged.
“I mean you can’t kill me. So instead, I’m going to kill-”

His processors died.

Instantly. Completely. Everything except his critical flight systems went black. Only his organic mind remained - and that lasted mere seconds before the processors rebooted in a violent surge.

His system logs lit up with alarms. Something in the knife had remotely shut him down.

Meaning she could kill him whenever she pleased - simply by shutting off his reactor.

The cat-eared demon smiled, slow and wicked.
“Actually, I can kill you. Now do as you’re told.”

Fear clawed up Jaka’s throat.
“H-hold on.”

She went fully prone along his back, arms wrapped around his neck the same way Ylfa used to cling to J-1, he realized distantly - knife still hovering at his throat solely for convenience.

“Do it,” she growled. “Before it’s too late. Or I’ll kill you.”

The possibility that she’d kill him after the dragon died flickered through his mind - but he had no choice.

Jaka folded his wings and dove.

Straight toward the dragon’s neck.

The villagers watched in stunned silence as the dragon’s head - severed cleanly at the neck - hit the ground with a thunderous, earth-shaking thump. A geyser of blood followed as the massive body collapsed, scales and muscle folding in on themselves in a grotesque heap. Smoke stung their eyes, the flames of their burning homes crackled around them, but none dared move.

Above the carnage, a winged figure circled - silver wings catching and reflecting the firelight in bright flashes. When it descended, dust and ash swirled around the impact of its wings before its feet touched the ground near the dragon’s snout.

Only then did the villagers realize the winged demon wasn’t a demon at all. At first glance he looked human - tousled black hair, piercing blue eyes, lean frame - but the metallic wings extending from his back shattered that illusion.

And then she hopped off him.

A slim figure, light on her feet. Black bob haircut. Amber eyes that gleamed like molten metal. Strapped clothing, bare midriff, long tail, pointed cat ears that twitched as she landed.

Recognition rippled through the crowd. Fear followed instantly.

The spell broke. A few villagers stepped forward, hesitant, one of them clearing his throat.

“Miro… how can we ever thank you?”

Miro turned, her eyes sharp and poisonous. Her voice dripped contempt.

“Don’t.”

They flinched as one. Everyone had heard the stories. The demon who’d spoken - a goat-horned man with a tufted tail - bowed low.

“As you wish. We will leave you and your quarry alone.”

She shrugged and nudged the dragon’s snout with her toe.
“You can take the corpse. I have no use for it.”

Her amber eyes slid to Jaka, predatory and gleaming.
“I’ve already found something else.”

Jaka’s processors detected a tremor in his legs. To his surprise, it was not a mechanical fault.

The villager cautiously lifted his head.
“But are you sure-”

He froze as a blade appeared against his throat. Miro - much shorter but infinitely more dangerous - glared up at him.

“Don’t make me repeat myself.”

He gulped and nodded, hands raising instinctively. Jaka swallowed hard. He hadn’t even seen her move. Until that moment he’d been considering the possibility of escaping. But if she could teleport-

She reappeared at his side mid-thought, twirling the knife casually.

He flinched.

She smirked, looking up at him.
“You’re going to do everything I ask of you. Got it?”

He nodded, sweat trickling down his temple. He wasn’t even aware he could sweat.

Miro grabbed his neck with one hand and planted a bare foot against his back, bracing herself like a rider on a breaking beast.

“Let’s try this. Take off.”

He obeyed automatically. His wings beat once, hard, and the world dropped away beneath them. Wind screamed past as his altitude climbed at a dizzying pace. Yet despite the roaring air, her voice reached him clearly.

“Okay, level out.”

He leveled his wings. A peal of delighted laughter rang behind him.

He risked a glance back - difficult, given the hand around his throat - and saw her beaming, hair whipping wildly in the wind, looking far too pleased as she rode him like a stolen scooter.

“Now this,” she shouted over the rushing air, “is what I call transportation.”

She caught him staring and flashed him a toothy grin.
“Sorry, but I’m going to be holding onto you for a while. You’re way too good an opportunity to pass up.”

Jaka nodded, because there was nothing else he could do.

Terror thrummed through him. Not only fear of Miro - the teleporting cat-demon who could shut his reactor down with a touch - but of the King and of Yejide. What would they do when he didn’t return? Would they think he’d deserted? Would they come after him?

But those concerns were distant.

Right now, he was entirely at the mercy of a girl feared by her own people, capable of killing him instantly, and apparently knowledgeable enough to understand exactly how his hybrid body functioned.

It was, as his processors clinically summarized, a rather serious dilemma.