I write cinematic, punchy action-fantasy and sci-fi with a dark edge—mythic characters, tense relationships, and high-stakes set pieces. Expect visceral imagery, fast pacing, and ‘legend-in-the-making’ moments… with consequences.
Originals
King’s Mantle — (Ongoing) [Masterlist: Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4 / Chapter 5 / Chapter 6 / Chapter 7 / Chapter 8 / Chapter 9 / Chapter 10 / Chapter 11 /]
Elevator pitch: King’s Mantle is a dark epic fantasy about a young king inheriting a divine power—and the brutal political war that begins the moment the crown touches his head.
Tags: #kings mantle #kings mantle masterlist
StarCutter — (Ongoing) [Masterlist: Prologue / Chapter 1 / Interlude / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4 / Chapter 5 / ]
Elevator pitch: StarCutter is a cinematic sci-fantasy about raiders, runaways, and would-be legends navigating a violent sky-empire where every score has consequences.
Tags: #starcutter #starcutter masterlist
The industrial quarter of the lower-middle ring never really slept. It only changed shifts.
Smog hung in the air thick enough to turn the district lights into blurred halos of amber and red. Warehouses stretched block after block beneath the haze, their corrugated walls stained dark with soot and old rain. High above them, cargo haulers drifted through the murk at a crawl—massive, ugly things that looked too heavy to stay airborne, their grav-engines humming low as they ferried shipping containers from yard to yard. Chains clanked. Warning horns groaned. Somewhere in the distance, metal slammed against metal hard enough to rattle the windows.
An apartment building was wedged into the side of one of those warehouse rows, halfway up a rusted stack of live-work units built for people who needed a roof more than comfort.
Something moved across the roofline above the warehouses.
At first, it was only a shape cutting through the smog—low, fast, almost swallowed by the haze between cargo lights. It crossed the corrugated roof without a sound, reached the rusted fire escape, and descended one level at a time until it stopped outside a dark apartment window.
A gloved hand caught the frame.
The window slid open.
Only then did the shape pull itself inside.
Vire landed without a sound.
Inside, metal thrummed through the speakers, all grinding bass and machine-gun drums, making the empty bottles along the counter hum faintly. Clothes lay in uneven piles across the floor—jackets, socks, torn undershirts, armored lining stripped from older suits and left where it fell. A half-eaten tray of noodles had gone cold beside a cleaning kit full of gun oil and loose screws.
The bounty board took up most of the far wall.
Faces glowed in hard blue light. Names. Rewards. Last known locations. Some had been marked out with red slashes. Others were still waiting.
One face near the center had a knife buried through it, pinning the holo-print deep enough to crack the board beneath.
Vire passed it without looking.
Her helmet was tucked beneath one arm, visor black and scuffed from the chase. One of the rabbit ears twitched once, sparking at the joint before going still. Her right leg dragged half a beat behind the left. Not enough for anyone on the street to notice.
In here, with no one watching, it was impossible to miss.
She crossed the room and reached the closet.
At a glance, it was just more clutter. Coats hanging crooked. Laundry slumped in baskets. Boots piled in the corner. She shoved the mess aside and pressed two fingers against a dead-looking panel near the back wall.
The closet clicked.
Then opened.
The wall folded inward without a sound.
Beyond it was a room that did not belong to the apartment.
Clean. Cold. Precise.
Weapons lined the walls in measured rows—rifles mounted by length and caliber, handguns nested in foam slots, blades suspended on magnetic strips. Grenades sat in locked glass drawers beneath strips of warning light. Along the far wall, three pairs of leg augments hung from vertical harnesses like sleeping beasts: one slim and built for speed, one heavier with impact plating, one unfinished, its inner mechanisms exposed in a nest of silver wiring.
At the center stood the suit rig.
A steel harness waited with its arms open.
Beside it sat a wheelchair.
Vire stepped inside and the music dulled behind her, reduced to a muffled pounding through the wall.
She locked the helmet into place first.
The rig took it from her with a soft mechanical chirp, clamps closing around the scuffed casing. The black visor reflected her face for half a second—pale eyes, sweat at her temple, jaw clenched tight enough to ache.
She looked away.
The gauntlets came next. One release at each wrist. Pressure hissed from the seams as the metal peeled back from her forearms. She slid her hands free and flexed her fingers slowly, letting the tremor pass before she set them into their charging brackets.
The chest piece followed.
The spine lock fought her.
Vire gripped the rail beside the harness and breathed through her teeth as the first latch disengaged. A small light went red at the base of her back. Then another. Then another.
Pain climbed her spine in hot, needling bursts.
Her ears flattened.
“Come on,” she muttered through gritted teeth.
The final lock snapped free.
Her shoulders dropped an inch as the suit released its hold on her torso. Sweat cooled instantly along her skin.
Then came the legs.
She waited a moment before touching the first release.
Not fear.
Calculation.
The right unit had taken damage during the chase. The outer plate was cracked where Myth’s ice blade had caught the impact, and the actuator behind the knee clicked in an ugly rhythm it wasn’t supposed to have.
Vire keyed the release behind her thigh.
The leg answered with a low warning tone.
She keyed it again.
This time, the locks opened.
Calf. Knee. Thigh. Hip.
Each one released with a hiss, and with each one, something of the hunter vanished from the room. The thunder. The speed. The impossible weight of her landings.
The right augment separated from her body and settled into the rig.
Her own leg remained beneath it, thin beneath the bodysuit, motionless except for the faint drag of gravity.
She did not look down.
The left unit came off cleaner. Faster. It unlocked from the hip brace and slid into its cradle with a smooth mechanical sigh.
The room went quiet except for the muffled music outside and Vire’s breathing.
She gripped the overhead rail with both hands.
Her arms tightened.
One practiced shift lifted her from the harness. Another brought the wheelchair close with her knee barely brushing the frame. Her face twisted once—sharp, involuntary—before she crushed the expression flat.
She lowered herself into the chair.
Her legs followed a second later, slack and useless beneath her.
For a moment, she sat there with both hands on the wheels, head bowed, sweat dripping from her chin.
Getting out of the suit always hurt. Worse each time.
She shook it off with a deep breath, then shoved herself backward and rolled out of the arsenal room.
The closet wall sealed behind her, turning the room back into a mess of laundry and lies.
The music returned, low and grinding, filling the apartment without quite drowning it.
Vire crossed the apartment, weaving through clothes and cables, and stopped beside the bounty board. Her hand shook as she pulled open the drawer beneath it.
Inside were three things: loose ammunition, a cracked photo turned facedown, and a bottle of cheap painkillers.
She took the bottle.
The cap came off with a snap.
A handful of pills spilled into her palm. Too many. She stared at them for half a second, then threw them back dry, swallowing hard until they went down.
Her eyes shut.
She breathed in.
Held it.
Let it out slowly.
The console on her desk chimed.
Vire opened her eyes.
A new message pulsed in the corner of the screen.
PRIVATE CONTRACT UPDATE.
She rolled over and tapped the terminal.
Light bent above the desk, shaping itself into the polished figure of Rylan Voss.
Not in person. Not live. Too clean for that. A recorded projection dressed in white and gold, his face composed with the kind of anger that had never had to raise its voice to be obeyed.
“Miss Vire,” he said.
Vire leaned back in her chair, eyes half-lidded.
“The highway explosion was impressive,” Rylan continued. “Public, violent, memorable.”
His mouth tightened.
“But insufficient.”
The console flickered, displaying a frozen image beside him: a grainy capture of Mythren’s face from some border scanner or rooftop feed. Bloodied. Half-turned. Still alive.
“I did not pay you to frighten him. I paid you to end the problem.”
Vire’s gaze stayed on Myth’s face.
Rylan turned slightly, the projection shifting with him.
“I want the thief’s head. I want my StarCutter located, recovered, and returned to me without further embarrassment. If he has accomplices, remove them. If he has buyers, identify them. If anyone shelters him…”
A pause.
His smile was small and empty.
“Educate them.”
The console chimed again.
A deposit notification appeared beneath the projection.
The number was obscene.
Vire’s eyes flicked to it despite herself.
Rylan noticed, or had recorded the message knowing she would.
“An additional payment has been transferred to your account,” he said. “Consider it a gesture of continued confidence.”
His gaze sharpened.
Then his voice softened in a way that was somehow worse.
“Though I would advise you not to waste it all on temporary relief.”
Vire went still.
Rylan’s projected eyes lowered briefly, as if glancing at the chair, though he couldn’t possibly see her.
“Numbing the pain will only get you by for so long, Miss Vire. All that money spent on meds... only to not be rid of the problem. I'm sure you know that the operation is the only solution.”
Her fingers tightened around the wheel.
“The procedure you need is available,” he continued. “The real one. Not the back-alley maintenance keeping you functional. Finish this contract, and you may finally be able to afford a body that does not betray you.”
The music thudded against the walls.
"Fuck off," she grunted, hurling the pill bottle at the projection.
It passed through Rylan’s chest in a flicker of broken light and cracked against the console behind him, spilling cheap white pills across the desk.
The worst part was that he was right—and he knew exactly how much she hated hearing it from him.
Rylan’s expression returned to its polished calm.
“Bring me my ship. Bring me the thief. Do this for me, and that dusty old chair becomes a thing of the past.”
The hologram vanished.
Only Mythren’s captured face remained on the console.
Vire sat in the glow, breathing slowly through her nose.
Then she reached forward, dragged Myth’s image from the console, and threw it onto the bounty board.
His face appeared in the center.
Unmarked.
Unstabbed.
Waiting.
Vire rolled closer, pulled the knife from the cracked poster beside it, and held the blade loosely in her hand.
For a moment, she studied Mythren’s face.
"I don't get it," she muttered. "All this for one measly ship booster."
She wanted to question it further, but questions didn't pay for surgery.
Jobs did.
And hers was clear.
Capture the thief. Retrieve the ship. Simple.
“Round two it is,” she whispered, eyes glaring in the light of the board.
Then she drove the knife into the board beside his head.
[MEANWHILE]
Mirelock Freightworks sat along the Driftline, just outside the colony’s main pressure arc, where cargo haulers crawled through smog and the official shipping routes started to blur.
Inside, the air smelled like sterilizer, coolant, and old metal.
Two figures in yellow hazard suits moved beneath buzzing white lights, their boots clicking over grated flooring. The man in front carried a clipboard under one arm and walked with the bored confidence of someone who hated this place but knew every inch of it. The one behind him—slightly smaller in stature—said nothing. The suit helped with that: heavy gloves, sealed helmet, black visor, breathing filter rasping softly with each inhale.
“First rule,” the clipboard man said without looking back, “don’t touch anything glowing unless somebody with a better pay grade tells you to.”
The new hire nodded.
“Second rule—if it leaks, hisses, hums, whispers, sweats, bleeds, or makes your teeth hurt, you hit the nearest alarm and back your ass up.”
Another nod.
The man glanced over his shoulder. “You gettin’ all this?”
The new hire gave him a thumbs-up.
“Great,” he muttered. “Quiet one. Those either last forever or die on the first shift.”
They reached a checkpoint door. The clipboard man tapped his badge against the reader. A blue line scanned him, then the new hire. The door stayed shut.
The man sighed and leaned toward the wall mic. “Derys Cohl. Containment logistics. Got a new runner for bay handling. Taking him to station twelve.”
A speaker crackled overhead. “New runner’s not on my sheet.”
“Yeah, because it’s not updated,” Derys said. “They never send the fucking updates on time, you know that. Take it up with Halden if you wanna spend the next three hours pretending this place has paperwork that works.”
A camera shifted above the door, focusing on the new hire’s visor. For one long second, nothing moved. Then the lock clicked, and the door opened.
Derys walked through like he’d never been worried. “See? Confidence. Sound annoyed enough, people assume you’re right.”
The corridor beyond widened into a glass overlook. Below them stretched the freight rotation floor. Rows of compact freighters sat suspended in cradle locks beneath slow-moving crane arms. Some were small courier vessels. Others were fat-bellied cargo haulers with hazard stripes painted along their spines. Dock crews moved between them in sealed suits, guiding loaders, checking tags, waving containers through clouds of vented steam. Overhead rails carried sealed freight pods through the chamber like coffins on a factory line.
The new hire slowed.
Derys noticed. “Fucking anxiety inducing, in’it? Everybody feels it their first day.” He tapped the glass with his pen. “Everything dangerous, expensive, illegal-adjacent, or too rich to wait in normal inspection comes through here. We sort it, flag it, load it, and pray the scanners catch the bad shit before our lungs do.”
They reached the next checkpoint: a booth built into the wall. Inside sat a broad-shouldered woman with tired eyes, a shaved head, and a steaming mug beside her console. She slid open the window.
“Derys.”
“Maira.”
“You’re late.”
“Gotta stay consistent.”
Her eyes shifted to the new hire. “Who’s this?”
“Fresh meat. Runner replacement for station twelve. I’m showing him the ropes before he realizes he made a mistake.”
Maira held out her hand. Derys passed her the clipboard. She scanned it with a bored frown, then looked back at the new hire.
“Name?”
The new hire lifted his wrist tag. Maira scanned it. The console blinked red, then green. Her eyes narrowed.
Derys leaned in. “Problem?”
“No,” she said slowly. “System stutter.”
“System stutters every time somebody breathes near it.”
She held his stare for another moment, then shoved the clipboard back. “Station twelve. Don’t let him wander. If he steps past the red line, I’m flagging both of you.”
Derys gave her a lazy salute. “Your faith in me keeps me young.”
“You look like shit.”
“Then it’s working.”
The gate unlocked, and Derys led the new hire down onto the freight floor.
The noise hit harder below—crane arms whining, dock clamps slamming, engines cycling low in their housings. The whole chamber moved in layers, every machine missing disaster by inches.
“Your job is simple,” Derys said, raising his voice. “Not easy. Simple.”
He stopped at a narrow work platform beside the handling lanes. A console blinked beside a rack of scanner wands and loader controls.
“Assignments come through the board. You check the freight tag against the manifest, guide the loader to the right vessel, lock the pod into the cradle, scan the seal twice. Not once. Twice.”
The new hire nodded.
“Blue tags are standard. Orange tags are hazardous. Red tags mean call a supervisor.” Derys leaned closer. “Black tags mean you didn’t see shit, you didn’t hear shit, and you suddenly need to take a piss somewhere else.”
The new hire tilted his helmet toward him.
Derys pointed with the end of his pen. “Exactly. Don’t ask.”
A comm chirped on Derys’s wrist. He glanced down at it, already annoyed. Then the annoyance left his body. The new hire watched him go still.
Derys brought the wrist closer to his helmet. Whatever came through the comm was too faint to make out, buried under static and the freight floor’s machinery, but the cadence changed fast—short bursts, too many voices, someone shouting over someone else.
Derys’s grip tightened around the clipboard. “What?” he said.
Another burst of static. His head snapped toward the ceiling. “Say that again.”
The answer never came clean.
The first explosion hit somewhere above them.
The whole facility lurched. Light panels flickered. The freight floor groaned as every suspended vessel rocked in its cradle. Crane arms froze mid-swing. A container pod slammed hard against its guide rail, showering sparks across the lane below.
Then the alarms started—not the soft warning chimes of paperwork gone wrong, but real alarms. Red light washed over the chamber in violent pulses.
Workers shouted. Someone fell near bay nine. A loader unit squealed as its brakes locked too late and crushed a stack of empty canisters against the wall.
Derys caught the console to keep from falling, then turned on the new hire. “Stay here,” he snapped.
The new hire nodded once.
Derys jabbed a finger at him. “I mean it. Do not move from this station. Do not touch the board. Do not improvise. If anyone asks, you don’t know shit and I told you to stay put.”
Another boom rolled through the facility, closer this time. Dust shook loose from the overhead beams.
Derys swore under his breath and ran, shoving through a pair of workers as he headed for the far stairwell.
The new hire stayed where he was—still, silent—for about three seconds.
Then he turned to the console.
“Myth,” a voice came through his comm, low beneath the rasp of the respirator. “Talk to me.”
It was Kade. Myth looked over the console with hurried eyes. “What the fuck is going on outside? It feels like this place just got hit with a bomb.”
A pause. Then the voice answered, tighter now. “That’s cause it did… pirates.”
Myth went still. “You’re fucking joking.”
“Wish I were. Cinder Maw pirates, looks like. Small crew. Loud entrance. Bad timing.”
“Bad timing?” Myth hissed. “That is a heroic understatement.”
“Yeah, well, complain later. They’re hitting the outer docks and security’s peeling off to answer. You’ve got your opening.”
“My opening?”
“Get the package and space the fuck out of there. Like now.”
Myth stared across the freight floor. Chaos spread through the chamber in waves. Security teams poured toward the exits. Workers abandoned stations. Crane arms hung dead above half-loaded freighters while red light strobed across every visor, every hull, every warning stripe.
The heist was blown—or maybe it had just become possible.
“Fine,” Myth muttered.
“I’ll be waiting outside. Hurry.”
The comm clicked quiet.
The new hire turned back to the board. Blue tags. Orange tags. Departure windows. Docking numbers. Crew IDs. Containment ratings. Nothing.
He shifted menus. The console asked for authorization. A thin wire slid from beneath his wrist seal and kissed the access port beneath the screen. The display flickered once, then again.
A dockworker ran past behind him, dragging another worker by the arm. Neither looked his way.
The console accepted the hack. New files unfolded beneath the public manifest—private transfers, restricted handling, unlisted departures.
There.
A black-tag freighter sat near the far end of the floor, half-hidden behind larger cargo haulers. Matte gray hull. No crew listed. No cargo description. No destination. Only a serial code and a departure time.
Soon.
The new hire looked up. The ship waited behind the others like it was trying not to exist.
“Found our prize,” he murmured.
He left station twelve. Nobody stopped him. The freight floor had become too loud, too panicked, too busy eating itself alive. Myth moved through it in the yellow suit with his head down and his pace just shy of a run—fast enough to look useful, calm enough to look assigned.
A security officer barreled past him with a rifle in both hands. A loader screamed warning tones as its operator tried to reverse it out of a lane blocked by fallen freight. Somewhere above, another impact shuddered through the facility.
The black-tag freighter rocked gently in its cradle.
Up close, it looked uglier than the others—no polished branding, no bright company marks, just matte gray plating, heat scoring near the vents, and a heavy containment seal bolted over the cargo hatch.
Myth stopped in front of it. He checked the serial code once, twice. Match.
The voice returned in his ear. “You got eyes on the package?”
“Working on it.”
The seal asked for clearance. The wire slid from his wrist again. This lock was better—meaner. The console fought him for three full seconds before the light turned green.
The cargo hatch hissed. Cold air breathed out from inside the freighter, carrying a smell that didn’t belong on any manifest—sweat, fear, blood gone stale.
The new hire froze.
The hatch opened the rest of the way.
At first, just shapes in the dim hold—small, hunched forms pressed together in the dark. Then movement. Figures shifting, shrinking back from the light. And then the faces.
They were children—all Mer-lings, staring back at him with exhausted fear in their eyes.
They sat huddled together on the cargo floor in tattered clothes, wrists chained to a single central line bolted into the deck. Bruises marked their faces, their arms, the thin places where bone pressed too close to skin. One of them, a little girl with one swollen eye, pulled a smaller boy behind her as if her body could hide him.
None of them screamed.
That was worse.
Myth did not move. The respirator rasped once, then again.
His hands rose slowly to his helmet. The seals unlocked with a soft hiss. He pulled the hazmat helmet free.
Myth stared into the freighter, hair damp against his forehead, red eyes wide beneath the flashing alarm lights.
For once, there was no joke ready, no curse sharp enough, no clever little exit—only seven children chained together in a ship he had been sent to rob.
The voice crackled through his comm. “You got quiet. What’s going on?”
Myth swallowed. The smallest child flinched at the sound.
Writing a DD2 love story / horror-fantasy. It’s based on my actual character Lune and his main pawn (Redd). I don’t have the pawn with me anymore that initially inspired Feng but Chat got pretty close based on the description I gave. Gonna be a 3 act one-shot about whether love can actually exist between Arisen and pawn. Honestly this is exactly how they look in the game. Will be doing my own art for it, but for now….Chat got the job done with this cover. Along with some edits I made myself. Story will be posted soon!!!
I realized I get sketches done way faster when I draw on paper instead of my iPad. Did this in about 15 min. Might have to get back into the old pencil & paper 🤷🏾♂️. BTW this is my DD2 Arisen, Lune.
I write cinematic, punchy action-fantasy and sci-fi with a dark edge—mythic characters, tense relationships, and high-stakes set pieces. Expect visceral imagery, fast pacing, and ‘legend-in-the-making’ moments… with consequences.
Originals
King’s Mantle — (Ongoing) [Masterlist: Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4 / Chapter 5 / Chapter 6 / Chapter 7 / Chapter 8 / Chapter 9 / Chapter 10 / Chapter 11 /]
Elevator pitch: King’s Mantle is a dark epic fantasy about a young king inheriting a divine power—and the brutal political war that begins the moment the crown touches his head.
Tags: #kings mantle #kings mantle masterlist
StarCutter — (Ongoing) [Masterlist: Prologue / Chapter 1 / Interlude / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4 / ]
Elevator pitch: StarCutter is a cinematic sci-fantasy about raiders, runaways, and would-be legends navigating a violent sky-empire where every score has consequences.
Tags: #starcutter #starcutter masterlist
The chamber beyond Sky Haven Temple’s blood-sealed gate was vast, quiet, and ancient in a way that made even breathing feel disrespectful. Torchlight rolled across weathered stone and gilded carvings, chasing shadows over the great wall of the chamber where the dragon mural stretched from end to end like a frozen memory.
Delphine stood near the base of it with arms crossed, her face lit by fire and frustration in equal measure. Esbern, by contrast, looked almost boyish in his awe. He moved slowly along the mural, fingers hovering near the carvings without quite touching them, his eyes wide behind the lenses of his spectacles.
“Alduin,” he murmured, more to himself than anyone else. “There can be no doubt. This mural depicts the World-Eater’s return… and more importantly, the ancient Nords’ attempt to stop him.”
Eradros stood a few paces back, gaze moving over the wall with quiet attention. Beside him, Taviiah watched with her usual unreadable stillness, arms folded, eyes narrowing whenever Esbern paused too long on one detail. Gavhelus, meanwhile, had found a stone bench near one of the pillars and slouched across it with all the solemnity of a man attending his own execution.
Delphine glanced back at Esbern. “You said this place might have answers. I’d prefer one we can actually use.”
Esbern nodded distractedly, still studying the mural. “Yes, yes, of course. This panel here—see? Alduin’s dominion. The dragons ruling openly. And here…” He moved a few steps to the right, gesturing to a cluster of carved figures. “These must be the ancient Nord heroes. The ones who opposed him. This entire wall is a history, Delphine. A warning preserved in stone.”
Delphine exhaled through her nose. “Lovely. Now the practical version?”
From the bench came a soft snore.
Delphine’s eyes flicked toward Gavhelus, then to Eradros. “Charming company you people keep.”
Eradros smirked faintly. “He’s useful in… other situations.”
Esbern ignored them, already moving toward a low stone table near the wall where a number of old texts and scroll cases had been stored. Time had not been kind to them, but some were intact enough to open. He carefully unrolled one, brow furrowing as his eyes raced over the faded script.
Delphine paced a few steps, then stopped. “Even if this place confirms what Alduin is, that still leaves the same problem. We need a dragon. A live one. We can’t force one to land where we want, and the moment we get close enough to try anything clever, we’ll be ash.”
Eradros’s expression shifted slightly at that. “Bhishiir seemed to think otherwise.”
Taviiah glanced toward him. “Right. There was something else written at the bottom of the note.”
Eradros reached into his armor and produced the folded scrap Bhishiir had left behind them. He opened it and read aloud, his voice dry.
“If one wishes to catch a dragon… one must simply reach.”
There was a beat of silence.
Then Delphine’s mouth tightened. “I swear to the gods, of course it’s a riddle.”
From the bench, Gavhelus snorted awake just enough to mumble, “Mm. Sounds like’im.” Then he promptly sagged back into half-sleep.
Esbern actually smiled.
Delphine pointed at him. “Don’t encourage it.”
“I can’t help it,” Esbern said, adjusting his spectacles as he took the note from Eradros. “It is rather amusing. Infuriating, yes—but amusing. And very much Bhishiir.”
Delphine muttered something under her breath and turned away again.
Esbern read the line twice, then a third time, his smile slowly fading into concentration. “If one wishes to catch a dragon…” He looked up toward the mural, then back to the text in his hand. “One must simply reach…”
Taviiah tilted her head. “You’re stuck on the wrong part.”
Esbern blinked. “Explain.”
“The end,” she said. “You keep thinking about catching.”
Eradros’s eyes narrowed a touch. He repeated the phrase quietly, more to himself now.
“...one must simply reach.”
He looked at Taviiah.
Then past her.
Then his gaze slid toward Esbern.
Esbern had already gone very still.
Delphine huffed. “Well?”
Esbern turned slowly, his excitement returning in a rush. He moved to one of the open texts and flipped through it with trembling hands until he found the passage he wanted.
“Here,” he said. “An old account from the reign of Olaf One-Eye. Most think of it as court myth, but if this is accurate…” He looked up, voice rising. “Dragonsreach.”
Delphine frowned. “What about it?”
Esbern tapped the page. “It wasn’t simply named for grandeur. It was built with purpose. A fortress designed, at least in part, to hold a dragon.”
That finally dragged Gavhelus fully upright.
“…Come again?”
Esbern’s eyes shone. “The name. Dragonsreach. Not just a hall that reaches skyward, but a place that reaches for a dragon.” He held up Bhishiir’s note with growing delight. “That sneaky little devil. He was pointing us here the entire time.”
Delphine stared at the mural, then at the note, then back at Esbern. “You’re telling me the answer was actually sitting in that lunatic’s riddle?”
Eradros folded his arms. “Wouldn’t be the first time he solved a room before the rest of us realized there was a question.”
Esbern let out a breath of laughter. “Marvelous. Absolutely maddening, but marvelous.”
Delphine shook her head, equal parts irritated and impressed. “You’d think he’d take this more seriously. And yet… somehow he keeps being present for the parts that matter without actually being present at all.”
Esbern chuckled. “A rare talent.”
Taviiah’s gaze moved between them all, then settled on Delphine. “So. We trap a dragon in Dragonsreach. Then what?”
Delphine’s expression hardened, purpose settling over her again. “Then we use it. We force it to tell us what we need to know about Alduin.”
Gavhelus dragged a hand down his face and groaned. “Brilliant. We’ve gone from killin’ dragons to bloody trappin’ one. I wonder what kinda pets they make.”
“Not very good ones, according to One-Eye’s testimony,” Esbern replied. “But that's our best bet.”
Eradros gave a small, humorless smile. “At least now we know where to start.”
The torchlight crackled. The mural loomed over them in ancient silence. For one brief moment, the path ahead felt almost clear.
Then, far from Sky Haven, in the cold dark beneath Morthal—
Steel screamed.
And Kin’s battle with Movarth deepened into something far uglier.
Kin’s blade met Movarth’s blood magic in a burst of sparks, the impact so violent it rang through the entire atrium. He twisted, caught the return swing on the flat, and shoved off—only for Movarth to be on him again at once, laughing low in the dark.
Another clash.
Then two more followed.
Each strike came heavier than the last, the vampire lord driving him backward across broken stone with inhuman force. Kin’s boots skidded, his shoulders straining with every block. Movarth moved entirely too fast for his size, every step predatory, grin widening each time Kin barely survived the exchange.
“Good,” Movarth hissed, eyes gleaming red in the gloom. “Struggle for me.”
Kin bared his teeth and met the next blow head-on.
The impact exploded through his arms.
His guard held for half a second—then shattered.
The force hurled him skyward.
Kin spun upward, cloak snapping behind him as the floor dropped away beneath his feet. He started to right himself—
A pale hand shot up and clamped around his leg.
Claws dug through leather and into flesh.
Kin sucked in a sharp breath through gritted teeth.
Movarth grinned up at him, savage and delighted. “I wonder...”
Then he swung him. "If the dragonborn..."
Once.
Twice.
The whole world became a violent blur of stone, torchlight, and red eyes.
And then Movarth let go.
“...Can fly!”
Kin went hurtling toward the upper wall of the atrium like a stone from a siege engine.
For one razor-thin instant, death rushed up to meet him.
Then his lips parted.
A whisper escaped them—small, precise, sharpened by desperation and practice.
The air bent.
His body struck the wall—
—and stopped.
Boots planted hard against the vertical stone.
A sharp crack spidered through the masonry beneath his feet, but he held.
A thin trail of breath spilled from his mouth, pale in the cold dark, curling downward as dust and grit rained past him through the shaft of torchlight.
Below, Movarth stood at the center of the atrium, looking up.
Kin slowly raised his head and stared back down at him, murder in his eyes.
Movarth’s grin lingered for only a moment. Then his expression shifted. He lifted the hand that had caught Kin by the leg, dark blood glistening across his nails. Curious, he dragged one claw across his tongue.
His smile thinned.
“Hmm.” His crimson eyes narrowed. “Definitely Dragonborn… but wrong somehow. Almost…” He tasted it again, brow creasing with eerie fascination. “Artificial.”
Kin’s body tensed.
He launched anyway—pushing off the wall in a burst of air, diving toward Movarth with his blade drawn, but his focus had slipped—just enough. The word hit him harder than the throw had. For a single, fatal beat, it caught him off guard. As he came down with a savage slash, Movarth vanished into a swirl of red mist.
Kin’s blade carved through empty air.
Then the temperature behind him dropped.
Movarth reappeared at his back with one hand raised. Blood rushed to his palm from the grate, twisting together in an instant—forming the broad, gleaming edge of a crimson axe. His smile deepened into something feverish.
“Now I have to see those insides.”
Kin’s eyes widened. So did everyone else’s.
He knew at once he could not get clear in time. He twisted and threw up his metal arm just as the axe came down with murderous speed.
The impact was catastrophic.
The blood blade crashed against his arm and drove him bodily into the iron grate beneath him. Metal shrieked. The grate bent inward beneath the force, rattling the whole chamber. Sparks burst from the point of contact in violent sprays of red and gold.
Movarth lifted his other hand. More blood spiraled to it at once, forming a second axe.
Then he began to hack.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Every strike slammed Kin deeper into the warped grate, sparks exploding with each hit as the metal arm groaned under the punishment. Movarth laughed through it all, wild and manic, his eyes blazing.
“Come on, Dragonborn!” he snarled between blows. “Just a little peek!”
Minevi’s eyes flashed white.
She had already been irritated by Bhishiir’s detached fascination with the arm. Watching Movarth test it like some rabid scholar finally snapped the last thread of her patience.
“The arm fucking works,” she growled. “Now I’m ending this.”
She burst into motion.
Minevi charged low and fast, boots hammering the stone with predatory intent. But Movarth reacted before he even looked at her—like the blood itself had warned him. His smile vanished instantly.
“Don’t interfere, dearie,” he said coldly. “You’ll lose your head.”
Minevi felt death a heartbeat before she saw him move.
She dropped into a slide, shield raised.
A crimson axe screamed across the air above her—a shining horizon of death. It smashed into her shield with a shriek of tortured metal, dark red and gold sparks flying in a vicious arc as she slid beneath it.
She came up hard on one knee, planting her feet—
But Movarth was already there.
He appeared directly in front of her and struck.
Minevi got her shield up just in time, but the blow still blasted through her guard and sent her skidding backward across the floor. One of Movarth’s axes flowed and narrowed in his grip, its edge reshaping into a wicked blood-red spike.
Then he was gone again.
Minevi’s breath caught. She could almost feel the predatory intent creeping up behind her.
But before she could turn into the waiting blade, a shout split the chamber.
The next instant, Movarth’s arm went spinning through the air.
He recoiled, more shocked than pained, black-red blood spraying across the stone as he looked up.
Kin hovered between them.
His metal arm was braced at Minevi’s back, steadying her. His other blade had just sheared clean through Movarth’s limb. His eyes were feral, lit by something deeper than anger.
“Don’t you dare…”
The elbow of the metal arm split open with a sharp mechanical snap. Fire roared from within.
Kin pushed off Minevi into a twisting spin.
“—TAKE YOUR EYES OFF ME!”
His metal fist, pushed by the flames, crashed into Movarth’s face.
The flames erupted hotter on impact, blasting outward in a violent bloom as every ounce of Kin’s strength went into the strike. The punch folded Movarth’s head sideways and launched him across the atrium like a cannon shot.
He slammed into the far wall with a deafening explosion, stone and metal erupting outward in a storm of smoke, rubble, and fire.
For a moment, no one moved.
Dust rolled through the atrium in great choking waves. Bits of loosened stone clattered down from above. Kin dropped out of the air a second later, landing in a rough crouch before one knee hit the floor. The metal arm smoked at the seams, heat hissing from within. In the socket at the forearm, the soul gem had gone dull.
With a sharp mechanical click, it ejected.
The spent gem bounced once across the stone.
Then again.
Then skittered off into the dark.
Kin stayed where he was, breathing hard. Every part of him ached. His ribs burned. His leg throbbed where Movarth’s claws had bitten through leather and flesh. The metal arm hung heavy now, its last burst of fire spent.
Behind him, Minevi approached carefully.
“Kin…” Her voice was quieter than usual, stripped of its edge. “I was sure I was dead. But you…”
Kin turned his head toward her, still breathing through the pain.
“Are you hurt?”
Minevi stared at him for a beat, then let out something between a breath and a disbelieving laugh.
From the far side of the chamber, Passha and Bhishiir emerged through the settling dust.
“That’s our line,” Passha said dryly.
The haze thinned.
That’s when they saw him.
Movarth hung pinned to the far wall by a jagged spike of broken metal and stone. It had punched clean through his back and out his chest, burying him in the ruined masonry like prey on a butcher’s hook. Blood ran black-red from the wound, dribbling down the spike in slow streams. His remaining hand clenched weakly around it as if sheer spite might pull him free.
He couldn’t move.
But he was still alive.
Blood bubbled from his mouth with every breath. He coughed once, then again, crimson spilling down his chin.
Kin rose slowly and began to walk.
His footsteps echoed through the hollow chamber.
Step.
Step.
Step.
Until he stood just in front of the monster.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke. Kin simply stared into Movarth’s eyes, chest rising and falling, soot and blood streaked across his face. Movarth glared back through the pain, lips wet with blood, his expression still somehow clinging to that same awful amusement.
Kin’s jaw tightened.
“Guess I’m the bigger monster.”
A beat passed.
Then Movarth smiled.
He spat blood at Kin’s boots.
“Maybe so,” he wheezed. “But you don’t own the right to it.”
His body trembled around the spike. The strength was leaving him now. Even so, his eyes never left Kin.
“And deep down…” he rasped, voice wet and failing, “I think you knew that all along.”
He gave one last painful chuckle.
Then his head fell slack.
The hand clutching the spike loosened.
And Movarth died there—impaled against the wall, smiling through blood like he’d managed one final cruelty on the way out.
The words clung to Kin’s mind harder than he’d liked. He wanted to brush them away—forget about anything that lunatic said, and write it all off as gibberish.
But he couldn’t.
He stared at Movarth’s lifeless corpse silently, his arm still hissing from the discharge. The silence was soon broken by the sound of clapping. He turned to see Bhishiir and the others.
“This one is impressed,” Bhishiir mused as his applause ended. “Bhishiir installed the rear discharge valve, but did not think it would serve so soon.”
“During the fight…” Passha said, hand clutching her chin. “He called you… artificial. Is it possible Movarth knew something we didn’t?”
Kin turned around, his face seeming bothered but calm. “He’s dead now. Who gives a damn?”
Slowly, he started walking towards the exit. Each step he took was heavy, but he didn’t complain. He didn’t say anything. Passha said nothing in response either. She simply turned and followed him out.
The chamber had gone quiet now.
Movarth hung dead against the wall. Bhishiir stooped to retrieve the spent soul gem, turning it over in his claws as if the fight had ended exactly as expected.
Minevi stared at him in disbelief.
“You really just stood there,” she snapped. “You watched that thing hack into him like a piece of meat.”
Bhishiir didn’t look up. “It was quite the spectacle.”
“No,” Bhishiir said flatly. He tucked the gem into his coat and finally met her eyes. “You nearly died.”
That stopped her cold.
Bhishiir rose, coat hissing softly with steam.
“You stepped between two monsters in full collision and almost got squashed. That was not this one’s miscalculation. Nor was it the boy’s.”
Minevi’s eyes widened with an incredulous glare, unable to find the words to respond.
The old cat tilted his head, studying Minevi’s frustration. “Bhishiir said it before, did he not? This one does not gamble.”
She scoffed. “Eradros may gamble, but not with our lives. What you did—”
“Oh I see…,” Bhishiir interrupted. “You still believe yourself his guardian.”
Minevi glared at him. “It doesn’t matter what I believe. He’s not one of your ridiculous experiments.”
Bhishiir’s ears twitched once. “No. But now he is prepared… thanks to this one’s ridiculous experiments. You still believe he needs a shield. Wrong. What he needs are fangs and claws.”
Bhishiir moved to leave, but Minevi’s voice caught him first.
“A weapon then? Is what you plan to make of him?”
He stopped.
For a moment he said nothing. Then, without turning:
“Better that than a corpse. But until you all stop codling him like a babe… he will remain unsharpened.”
He let that sit, then sighed as if having to explain it was a bother.
“As we speak, your friends are getting closer to what we need to understand our enemy,” he said. “And thanks to the arm—and our little field test today—he will be ready.”
Minevi’s fingers tightened around her shield.
Bhishiir moved past her, steam hissing softly from his coat. “You all asked for this one’s help. I have given you more than that. I made your Dragonborn whole while setting the stage for him to play his part.”
He stopped just behind her.
“You would do well,” he said quietly, “to ponder what yours is going forward.”
Then he was gone. His footsteps faded into the darkness along with the hiss of his coat.
Minevi stood alone in the atrium, with nothing left but the silence and the bruise of his words.
[Meanwhile — Sky Haven Temple]
Back in Sky Haven Temple, the mood had gone strangely still.
The great chamber sat wrapped in torchlight and old stone, its secrets finally dragged into the open. Esbern had returned to his texts, still muttering excitedly under his breath. Delphine stood off to one side with arms folded, already wearing the look of someone trying to turn revelation into a plan. Eradros lingered near the edge of the chamber, gaze drifting now and then toward the shadows beyond the blood-sealed gate. Taviiah leaned against one of the pillars, quiet as ever.
For one brief moment, the temple felt almost at peace.
Then Gavhelus woke.
Not slowly. Not groggily.
One second he was slouched on the bench, the next he was upright with a bound axe already crackling into existence in his hand.
The change was immediate. Unsettling.
His shoulders squared. His head tilted slightly, nostrils flaring as he drew in the air. Then he began to pace the chamber in slow, deliberate steps, eyes sharp and faintly feral, like something in him had slipped its leash without warning.
Everyone watched him.
Delphine’s hand dropped to her sword. “What is it?”
Gavhelus didn’t answer right away.
He just kept pacing. Sniffing. His expression darkened with each pass, the axe hanging loose in one hand like he was moments from burying it in something.
Then he stopped.
“…Not sure,” he muttered. “Whiffed it before, though.”
That was enough.
The whole room tightened.
Taviiah straightened from the pillar. Eradros’s hand drifted to his weapon. Even Esbern looked up from his books, his excitement draining fast as Gavhelus slowly turned toward the upper dark.
He sniffed once more.
His eyes narrowed.
“Orc.”
A soft scrape answered him.
Leather on stone.
Every head turned upward.
And then a figure stepped into the firelight.
Perched high on the ledge like she’d always belonged there.
Yaza.
Gavhelus lifted the axe a little higher. Delphine drew steel with a hiss. Eradros went completely still.
Yaza looked down at them all with that same easy, infuriating calm, one hand near her weapon, the other hanging loose at her side. Her gaze settled on Eradros first.
Then her mouth curled.
“What?” she said. “You thought I wouldn’t find you?”
