42 – Sun and Moon

Aury’s outstretched claws reached the vial first, snatching it through the air.

His remaining hand closed around the glass before Paco’s dive could intercept it. Blackened fingers locked tight despite the ruined state of his arm.

He dragged the glass against his collarbone, twisting in midair, turning what was left of his body just enough, and Paco missed the catch, slicing past him.

“Aury!” Ashley dropped after them. “Stop this. Talk to me.”

He gave her nothing. No answer. No flicker of recognition. He didn’t even pause like someone deciding whether to listen.

He lifted the bottle to his mouth without a word.

“Aury, don’t,” she screamed, her knuckles whitening around the wood of her staff.

The brass teeth closed around the glass with a sound that made her skin crawl, but for one awful heartbeat the vial held. Its surface trembled between those metal jaws as thin white lines began to spread from the point of contact, branching through the glass like frost.

The pup twisted hard in the air, killing his failed dive with a frantic beat of wings, and he curved back around in a tight purple arc and struck Aury in the back of the head.

The impact was small compared to the chaos tearing through the chamber, but it landed exactly where it needed to. His horns struck Aury across the skull, and the familiar’s jaw snapped open before the teeth could finish closing.

The vial shot free from his mouth and spun away, flashing as it tumbled through the air again.

Aury’s hand snapped up before Paco could pull back, and his claws closed around the small dragon’s throat, piercing the skin.

Paco’s wings beat once. Twice. Then they faltered entirely. His claws scraped at Aury’s blackened wrist, skidding over burned flesh and hardened demonic hide without finding purchase. A thin, strangled sound left him, but it was more air than voice.

Ashley checked her dive above them, still falling as mana gathered at her fingertips.

Aury had Paco too close to his ribs for any clean shot, and every angle she found put the small dragon in the spell’s path. Her aim kept breaking away from him, dropping to the glass as it spun farther below, then snapping back to Paco’s throat.

I can split the cast. Maybe.

The idea was already forming: one spell to sever Aury’s hand, another to catch the vial before it shattered. But the moment she reached for both threads of mana at once, her control thinned, and the risk sharpened into something she could not ignore.

Two spells at once. Two different aims. One mistake, and she could lose both.

Ashley’s fingers tightened around the staff until the wood creaked. If she dove for the vial, Paco might not get another breath. If she went for Paco, the vial would lose the bottle.

For one brutal heartbeat, she couldn’t choose.

An ugly, irrational surge of irritation hit her. Why did Paco have to get caught right now?

Before the guilt could settle, the longer she hung there the worse the choice became.

A broken rasp dragged her attention downward.

Smulknefire had managed to turn his head beneath the misericordia’s guard. The movement was slight. The pressure still pinned his throat to the floor, but his eyes found her through the chaos. He looked straight at her.

The absolute stillness of that look cut through her more sharply than any roar.

His eye shifted toward the falling bottle.

The realization hit her an instant before his jaw opened.

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He had seen her hesitate. He had seen the dilemma split itself in two and leave her useless between them.

The dragon forced his mouth open against the weight across his neck. The effort dragged a harsh, grinding breath out of him as his tongue slid over his lower teeth and onto the stone, slow and deliberate.

It crept forward like a wounded hand, then lifted just above the smoking pool of crystal-fluid, stretching into the vial’s falling path without touching the molten surface below.

She nodded at him in thanks, hoping she was right and that he wouldn’t swallow it.

Ashley committed to the dive.

Aury’s eye tracked her as her angle changed. She saw it in the small shift of his ruined body, in the way his arm pulled Paco tighter against his ribs, turning the hatchling into a shield before she had even finished choosing a spell.

He knew her angles. Of course he did. He had been with Celestine long before Ashley had inhabited her body.

“Dodge this,” she said, raising the staff. “[Wind Blade].”

The spell left the tip in a flat, horizontal arc, cutting straight for his neck at an angle she was sure her familiar could dodge. Aury bent back, the edge passing close enough to shear the air beside his cheek.