Night fell before Dane was ready.

  He returned to the makeshift hospital. Amelia still hadn’t woken. Jason was awake, but he looked more like a machine idling in standby with blank eyes; he was unmoving and awaiting orders.

  Dane took a quick shower and changed into a black tunic and silver-trimmed trousers. When he leaned over Amelia’s bedside to check her vitals, he was startled by the cold grip of Jason’s metallic hand coiling around the back of his neck.

  Dane shot him a glare. The cyborg didn’t flinch.

  With a grunt, Dane grabbed the prosthetic arm and squeezed hard, but Jason lifted him effortlessly, like he weighed nothing. Pain flared as Dane’s shoulder began to pop under the strain. He didn’t hesitate; he increased the gravity pressing down on his own body, bones groaning as he anchored himself. He realized that the metal man wasn't going to let him down. So, he shifted the spell to Jason's arm. If the bastard wouldn’t let go, he’d make him.

  The servos whined. Metal joints began to bend with a harsh, mechanical snap, just as the heavy door to the ward creaked open behind them. “Dane,” Tomas called, his voice clipped, “an ambassador is here to see you.”

  He paused, eyes taking in the scene. “Do I even want to know what’s going on?”

  Jason released Dane and silently returned to his seat in the corner, his posture once again that of a quiet sentinel. On the cot, Amelia stirred. Her brow furrowed. She muttered something unintelligible.

  Dane knew that he would have to do something about this new Jason. He wasn't sure if he could get him back, but if he were going to attack anyone who approached Amelia, he would need to put him down like a dog.

  Tomas led Dane to the outer perimeter of the tower.

  "She hasn't moved since our first patrol." He pointed to Draka the Dragonkin mounted on her enormous bird.

  "I'll handle this. Can you tell the rest of the Guards that we have a truce for about 3 months and that I should only be alerted for Monsters or people requesting a meeting."

  "Sure thing, boss."

  Dragonkin were a common sight in the colonies around Texas. But Draka was different. She was more tribal in appearance. She didn't have fine clothes and wasn't garbed in knightly armor; instead, she was adorned with Ivory and stone. It stood out against her dark red scales.

  Draka dismounted without a single sound.

  Her beast crouched low behind her, thick-plumed and massive, the kind of thing bred in nightmare nests and hurricane winds. It looked at him the way monsters did, a hunger layed underneath the curious looks that the beast gave him.

  She stepped forward, and the ground was quieter beneath her bare feet than it should have been, clawed feet not even making a noise. From his time in the dungeon, he had expected some form of clacking, but she had nothing.

  Her movements were efficient and Dane didn't sense any wasted movement. She moved like water; his temporal flow style had some of this, but she took it to the next level.

  She had no visible weapons, and she wore no sigils. Her armor, if it could be called that, was nothing but hide and horn. Thick bands of fossil ivory wound around her biceps, and a mantle of blackened leather clung to one shoulder. She also wore a necklace of tusks, teeth, and ancient stone that clinked together when she moved.

  She stopped a few paces away and looked at him.

  Her eyes were something else entirely. A pale yellow that hand hints of green cut by the deep black of a predator. The Dragonkin usually had normal eyes. But hers suggested something more monstrous. They watched him as if he were prey.

  “You smell like sweat,” she said at last, voice deep and even.

  Dane let out a chuckle. "I can go take another shower if you like."

  Her gaze flicked up and down, not in judgment but in assessment. “You’ve been killing monsters, but I sense residual Mana in your muscles,” she said.

  Dane’s jaw tightened, but he gave her nothing. His hands rested at his sides. He couldn't trust the woman again, and yet again, he had learned that others would only push their own selfish goals; if he weren't valuable, then he would be an enemy. Nobody was inherently against him, but everyone was out for themself.

  “Why are you here?” he asked finally, voice low.

  “I came to offer you training,” she said. “You must undergo The Rite.”

  Skeptically, he asked. “Why me?”

  “The Crucible is not something that is meant to be passed, it is more entertainment for the collesium and a disguised death sentence.”

  She crossed her arms, claws tapping lightly against one scaled bicep. “And I think that you are too strong to make an enemy of.”

  There it was, what he had been expecting. She was selfish and was only thinking of herself. But, he still needed to understand why an A rank was telling him that he was too powerful; by all rights, he was barely at C class. He exhaled through his nose. “And what exactly does this Rite entail?”

  "You come into the wild with me. You cannot use any skills, weapons, or spells. You need to learn how to move like a monster.”

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  She said it as if it were simple, like she wasn’t asking him to tear out everything that either System had taught him about monsters, about strength, about survival.

  He looked back toward the tower, toward the light still glowing in the upper windows, where Amelia lay unconscious in the ward, toward Jason, who sat quietly.

  “I’ll need time to think,” he said.

  Draka didn’t blink. “Then you’ve already failed.”

  He turned back to her, eyes narrowing. But she didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t beg him to reconsider.

  “I won’t be returning,” she said. “My people move with the moon. If you want to take the Rite, you start it tonight. If not, you stay here and prepare on your own.”

  She stepped back toward her mount, the beast shifting its weight in anticipation.

  “I’ll wait in the trees you have until the moon reaches that point,” she pointed to the middle of the sky. “If you want to learn how to control the beast I sense inside of you, how to stop getting those around you killed. Then follow me. Otherwise... I look forward to your run in the Crucibal.”

  Then she turned without waiting for a reply, and vanished into the shadows beyond the torchlight, further than he could see with his mana-sight; the night swallowed her, as if she had never been there at all.

  He turned without ceremony and made his way back through the camp. The world felt quieter than it had any right to be. A few guards stood at their posts, but they said nothing as he passed. Perhaps they saw something in his eyes, or maybe they had already guessed that the world was shifting again, that the Baron who walked among them was no longer just a figurehead, no longer just a war-scarred face behind a rising name.

  The tower doors opened for him, familiar and strange all at once. He couldn't remember the last time he had walked anywhere; instead, he usually opened a portal to travel. But this felt like a goodbye, so he strolled and embraced the settlement that he had taken for granted.

  He moved through the cobblestone pathways and the steady staircases. He needed to pay more attention to this place. He could get lost in the mission and push everything else out, but this small settlement was becoming something more. He remembered when it was just tents, now it looks like a city. The brick buildings wouldn't have been out of place in the old world. When he reached Amelia’s room, he hesitated.

  She lay in the bed, pale but breathing, her brow furrowed even in sleep. The bandages along her arms were fresh, indicating that her wounds had been tended to. Tomas had done his part, and Jason was no longer in the room. Dane sat beside her for a long while, saying nothing. He watched the rise and fall of her chest, the faint twitch in her fingers, the way her lips parted like she was caught in some half-dream.

  “I don’t know what you’ll think when you wake up,” he murmured, more to the room than to her. “But I hope you’ll understand.”

  He reached for the old paper ledger on the desk, thick with notes about the treatments she would undergo. He turned to a free page and tore it out. The quill in his hand felt foreign now, like he was writing with someone else’s fingers. But the words came anyway.

  Amelia,

  If you’re reading this, then I’ve gone. Not far, but I don't know where I am going. There’s a Dragonkin that has offered to teach me, and my gut is telling me that I need to go. I'm leaving the tower in Tomas's capable hands. If you wake up, please guide him.

  The emperor flung us out into space, and we have landed on a planet named the Shattered Reach. Please don’t rush to chase me. This is something that I must do on my own. I am to endure a crucible in the town to the East. I am not sure if we can trade with them, but I don't feel any outright hostility from them. You will always be in my heart.

  D.

  He folded the paper once and slid it beneath her fingers, letting them curl over it gently, like she was already holding on.

  He found Tomas where he expected him, on the outer wall, the cloak of the commander of the guard wrapped around his shoulders, his eyes scanning the city as if to ensure that nothing bad happened.

  Dane didn’t announce himself. He stood beside him and handed him the heavy iron ring that opened the vault beneath his tiny home that he built with Amelia.

  Tomas was puzzled. “What’s this?”

  “You’re the Chancellor now. Until I return.”

  “Wait... what?” Tomas stared at him, eyes wide. “You can’t just...Dane, I’m not...”

  “You’re good,” Dane interrupted quietly. “And good’s enough right now.”

  “I’m fourteen. You can't keep thrusting leadership onto me. I barely managed to get the respect of the Militia.”

  “You can do it for the rest of the town too,” Dane said. “You’ll read the logs, check the food stores, listen to people who think you’re too young and not smart enough. And you’ll care. That’s what matters. Being a great leader isn't about how you are perceived. But about making sure that you remove the hurdles in the way of your people.”

  Tomas looked down at the ring again, brow furrowed. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” he said.

  Dane clapped him on the shoulder, firm but not unkind. “None of us do. Just follow your heart. If the needs of others come first, the rest’ll follow.”

  They stood in silence a moment longer. Then Dane turned and walked toward the gate.

  He didn’t look back. Not when the doors opened for him. Not when he heard some of his citizens come out to see what was going on. He just walked past the crumbling stones, past the makeshift palisade, past the edge of safety, and into the world beyond.

  Draka was waiting in the tree line, crouched beside the massive creature whose feathers shimmered like obsidian and smoke and glowed like the embers of a fire. She didn’t speak when he arrived. Just nodded once and mounted the beast.

  Dane looked at her once more.

  "You must leave your belongings behind, where we are going, if it is not of the earth, yourself, or a beast you have slain, then you must leave it."

  Dane was grateful that he still had the pants of the Megalodon King and the shark tooth dagger. But he felt rather strange stripping down before a trip. Usually, when he set off, he would have a full pack and new gear. But now he looked more like he was returning from the dungeon rather than setting out on a new campaign.

  He dropped all of his belongings, except for the knife and the pants, into a portal to his room and quietly hopped onto the back of the cinderhawk.

  "You better hold tight. I will not go back for you should you fall."