Chapter One

Fullsilver

This close to the Veil, Ruslan’s Soul was little better than a blunt sword. Effective, but not exactly efficient. His magic was sluggish and stiff, as if his spiritual channels had constricted to the point of collapse. Mercifully, his senses were left largely intact, his mental and physical meridians unburdened. Had they not been, he would have never agreed to hunt an Arc, with or without aid.

From his vantage in the sky, he surveyed the world below with a sharp eye. Rallying his listless Soul, he reached out with his Awareness, casting an invisible net through the impenetrable canopy of the Endari Wilds. A thousand shimmering souls called out to him like diamonds in the sand, though none belonged to the Puresoul he sought. Even with her Soul Shackled, it would call to him like a burning sun regardless of the Veil's effects.

Nothing below them was beyond its Second Ascension.

At least, nothing within the scope of his waning reach.

He sighed and deftly adjusted his seat in the saddle. His wyvern shifted beneath him, catching a new current and following it along the side of the mountain. The valley below was quiet, the crags but silent sentries in the morning mists. It was almost picturesque, had the Veil not loomed like some dark, unfathomable god upon the horizon. He shuddered at the sight, almost longing for the days before he’d gained his Truesight.

Prior to his Fifth Ascension, the Veil had been nothing more than a foggy stretch of forest. Now, he saw a maelstrom; a great, stationary storm cloud that roiled his gut with each passing moment. Every now and again, he swore thunder rumbled somewhere within the brooding mass. Why his target had chosen to venture this far south was beyond him. Powerful as she was, she wouldn't be spared the storm’s ire.

Between the Veil's suppression field and the wards branding her Soul, the former Matriarch was crippled, no more a magical threat than a child approaching their First Ascension. Still, he and his men would have to tread carefully. Her body still bore the benefits of a Puresoul. No amount of Shackling would change that, and she’d slipped the silver cuffs hindering her strength when she’d made her escape a week prior. Even at his current Ascension, she could still collapse his entire rib cage with the tip of her finger.

Pursing his lips at the reminder, he sparred a glance toward his quiver. The engraved leather rested comfortably at the front of his saddle, unperturbed by the occasional beats of his wyvern’s massive wings. Five Fullsilver arrows -an Empire's ransom- waited within. From the beginning, he knew the risks this mission would entail. Any one of his men could die trying to subdue the Matriarch. He could as well, if things turned south, but one well placed arrow would make all the difference.

It wouldn't be long now, he thought. His quarry was running out of options as quickly as she was running out of viable ground. Any further south and she would cross into the Veil itself. He had to wonder, though, if that had been her plan all along. Why else would she flee here? What did she have to gain by crossing into the human lands beneath the eye of the Veil? Surely their blood was of no use to her, for they bore no measurable magic, nor ability to forge meridians. Their Souls were too weak, their bodies too fragile.

The Veil protected them from the world at large. He could only imagine what it was like living beneath its smothering embrace. Though, he supposed they were ignorant of its reign. If they could not sense its presence, did they know it was there at all?

He decided it was best not to speculate.

The humans were best left alone in their ignorance.

Beneath him, his wyvern growled a warning, her hackles raised. Ruslan leaned forward, gaze sweeping the swath of forest below as Tanuzet banked right. Toward the Veil. He leaned with her, balancing his weight in accordance with her wings as they peeled away from the mountain. The other three in his company followed suit, the leathery snap of wings breaking the silence of the slopes.

Once again, he reached out with his dulled Awareness, unsurprised that Tanuzet had sensed something amiss before he had. She herself was nearing her Forth Ascension, where most creatures gained their voice, but her sense of smell far surpassed his own midway through his Fifth. Still, he was able to make out the glimmer of power as he bridged his mental and spiritual meridians.

His gut twisted.

The Matriarch was closing in on the Veil’s border.

Ruslan laid a hand upon the glinting, sea-green scales of Tanuzet’s back.

“Shall we finally catch ourselves a vampire?” He asked.

The wyvern all but purred her approval, angling her wings to spear down toward the canopy.

A familiar sense of weightlessness swept through him and he adjusted himself in the saddle so that he was in a more crouched position. There was no need to guide Tanuzet, not when she could follow the Matriarch’s scent more keenly than he could with his Soul. Instead, he retrieved one of the priceless arrows from his quiver, notched it to the string of his bow, and waited.

The long, silver tip shown in the light, near as long as his hand with its razor edge. Nothing took down a Puresoul quite like Fullsilver, but he still shuddered at the sight of it. The metal had to come into contact with the skin to prove effective, yet he could still sense its disrupting qualities as a dull ache in his physical channels. He was mindful never to let the arrowhead anywhere near himself, let alone Tanuzet. While idle, he angled it off to the side, toward open air.

Finding a break in the canopy, the wyvern slowed her descent and aimed for the hollow. The trees that called the Endari Wilds home were larger than most, even in Ruslan’s homeland. A fully grown wyvern could pass through them with relative ease, though their close proximity to one another along the more mountainous terrain proved more difficult to negotiate. The tight turns and narrow spaces forced Ruslan close against the saddle. He knew the others were close on their tail, but some of the other wyverns were not quite as agile as Tanuzet. One clipped a wing on a wayward branch, growling their frustration until they reached an opening in the forest.

With a rush of her wings, Tanuzet landed upon a thick branch midway up an ancient tree. A heartbeat later, a copper beast bearing a dark elf woman landed beside them. The woman, Ayduin, tossed her black braid back over her shoulder. She was similarly crouched in her saddle, bow in hand. Frost crept along the length of her arrow, reinforcing the tip and adding a few additional inchest to its length. Though she hadn’t fully mastered her Black Ice Technique, it might be enough to pierce the vampire’s flesh. Of course, it wouldn’t have the same effect of Fullsilver, but it would still prove a viable distraction while he struck. If she could maintain it long enough to prove useful. The Veil siphoned away magic almost as quickly as it was drawn into a Technique and draining one’s spiritual core was only a matter of time. They’d used their magic sparingly these last few days, but their reservoirs weren’t endless. The wyvern’s fared far better, in that regard.

She spared him a glance, one dark brow arched in question.

He nodded, then spared a glance toward the other two in his charge. They waited nearby, perched upon a similar branch higher up along a neighboring tree. He dipped his chin, then reached his hand and patted Tanuzet’s hide twice. Silently, she activated her Suppression Technique, disrupting the airflow and creating a miniature vacuum around the ears of wyvern and rider alike. With the Veil so close she wouldn't be able to hold the Technique long.

They would have to be quick.

The world grew silent in an instant and Ruslan shuddered as the distortion snapped into place. Ayduin’s copper wyvern shook his head in discomfort and the woman herself looked mildly annoyed, but it was better than the alternative. The Matriarch’s indomitable Voice would have them tearing each other apart the moment she parted her lips. Thankfully, the Veil limited her range, but couldn’t nullify it entirely. Ruslan wasn’t sure what her range was, exactly, and he didn’t intend to find out.

With a deep breath, he coaxed Tanuzet onward. The closer they drew, the more his Soul quivered. The Matriarch’s trail led them to the very cusp of the Veil, where a wall of thick, roiling fog rose, thick and unyielding. For a moment, Ruslan thought he would be sick. It felt as though his skull would split open at any moment and his stomach, well, he may as well have swallowed a handful of maggots.

He doubted the others fared much better. They were all fairly close in their Ascensions, yielding a comparable effect on their Souls. However, they pressed forward all the same. The world couldn’t afford a rogue Matriarch, especially one so powerful as Ezra. They would fight or they would die trying. The Oaths they’d sworn would see to it, even if their wills did not.

Ruslan focused his attention on the Puresoul and his Awareness fixated on a single point beneath the arching roots of a tree a few hundred yards ahead. The Matriarch’s Soul burned like a beacon in the night. Slowly, the spines along Tanuzet’s neck and shoulders rose, stiff as the ridge down a hound’s back. She slowed, allowing the others to fly past and cover he and his wyvern’s approach. If he were to land the killing blow, he couldn’t be the main focus.

He barely registered when Tanuzet used another Technique to muffle herself. Curse the Veil. Here, he was spiritually blind, no better than a child. He couldn’t monitor those under his charge, even if he wanted to. He couldn’t hear, couldn’t sense. He’d simply have to trust in their ability and hope for the best.

A boulder the size of a small house rocketed by, decimating the tree to his left, but he was fairly certain the strike wasn’t meant for him. Still, he reined in his nerves and held fast to the saddle. Tanuzet navigated the uppermost branches of the canopy, situating herself along a high, sheltered branch.

From their vantage, Ruslan had a clear view of the battle below. Amid the fog-laced ferns and twisting roots of the forest floor, the lone Matriarch faced down three fully armored Talhavar and their wyverns, dodging blow after blow with the effortless grace of a leaf on the wind. Her black hair flowed around her as if she were under water. At times, she almost seemed to melt into the mists themselves.

Since her first attack with the boulder, she’d been kept on the defensive.

Distracted.

Had she been anywhere else in the world, she would have likely killed them all already. But then again, Ruslan and his squadron wouldn’t have been sent to deal with her, then. The only reason the other Arcs hadn’t followed her here was the Veil itself. It had a nasty habit of completely debilitating anyone above their Seventh Ascension. Save for Ezra, it seemed, though he suspected it had something to do with her Shackles.

Steeling himself, he adjusted his position along Tanuzet’s back. Her body remained poised and still, her gaze fixed ahead. Gently arching her back, she lowered her horned head, granting Ruslan a clear line of sight. With her Technique split between so many, her focus was limited. He knew she was only just able to muffle herself without breaking concentration, so the rest was up to him.

He focused upon his target, pushing all else from his mind and priming his mental channels. Raising his bow, he drew back the string and drew a deep breath. His Awareness honed, supplemented by his bridged channels, and when he released his breath, his arrow flew with it.