Salos did not like the plan. But as usual, he did not have a better one.

  His heart hammered in his chest as he leapt from Cass’s shoulder into her shadow and Shadow Stepped out around a corner and out of sight.

  His Stealth pushed out to the maximum as he waited for Cass and her pursuers to pass. It was an eternity of tense worry she would be caught. It was a matter of seconds as they raced by, none the wiser that the true demon lurked just out of sight.

  Now, to stay that way. He scampered down the halls, from one shadow to the next, unseen as much because no one was looking for a black cat as because his experience kept him out of their gaze.

  Distantly, he could feel Cass running. Her heart beat to a frantic rhythm; her good sense terrified, but her Concept singing.

  Those sensations overflowed their bond, drowning his own collected calm. Yes, Cass’s emotions were the only reason for his pounding heart.

  Cass would be fine until he got back.

  He had done solo missions like this all the time back in the day. Operating independently was his M.O.

  His target was just ahead. The door was shut, but that wasn’t an issue for his Shadow Step. He was behind it with a thought.

  Before him was the dragon.

  It was a sad sight. Dragons were proud people. Vain. Greedy to a fault.

  But noble. Kind. Honorable.

  Annoyingly so.

  The thing snarling before him was none of these things.

  The dragon’s scales were smeared in grime, the luster gone entirely. The horns coiled back, chipped and flaking.

  In truth, the dragon’s state was none of his business. Bleeding heart Cass could cry about it. He had a job to do.

  He circled the runes on the floor. He could feel his Runic Knowledge skill straining. He knew more about runes than this. All of it was hazy. So much of that knowledge had been supported by the skill. A skill that was now a fraction of its old level. There were a lot of symbols that he recognized only for the meaning to slip through his mind like a broken sieve.

  He recognized enough of it, though. There was one of the repeating sections describing how the field should hold its contents. There a section outlining power sources. Over there, a clumsy repair where a sword or claw scratched through the pattern at one point.

  This was more than a simple containment field—a ritual to hold a monster within a bound field. This structure also sapped the strength of the creature within and suppressed Focus recovery. Impressive, but probably the bare minimum needed to hold a dragon against its will.

  People thought that a single misplaced rune would collapse the entire structure. And that was technically true, if the working was poorly designed. A well-made structure included several layers of redundancy. Especially for something as critical as a containment field.

  That being said, there was always a weak point in any design. Redundancy cost more to run. More materials. A bigger circle. Everything was a balance and a tradeoff. This was no exception. There would be a section only repeated once. There would be a rune the inscriber struggled with that he could exploit. There would be sections he could short or overload. He just needed to find them.

  The dragon was still growling at him. Salos ignored him.

  There. The holding pattern on this side was missing a Verinth rune. What about over there? He continued his slow pace around.

  Cass’s heart pounded in his ears, her emotions overflowing. How close had the paladins come to catching her?

  Yes, the inscriber surely had trouble drawing Gollsorn, too. That was the third sloppy carving of the character.

  A mental image of the circle built in his mind’s eye. With the aid of his skill, he simulated changes. Would weakening this section bring the whole thing down? How about that one? If he supercharged this side, would that unbalance the entire working?

  He made his changes, his claws scratching into the floor with the aid of his Transcribe skill. It wasn’t efficient, and he cursed whoever had chosen Morden Glass for the floors, but rune by rune, he altered the pattern.

  And then the door opened.

  Salos jerked around as the paladin walked in.

  The dragon roared as she entered, straining against its chains. The lights of the runes flickered. The dragon’s Strength surged, but the chain held.

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  “Give it up, Kelstor,” the paladin said. “It’s finally ending. You can rest soon.” Her voice was soft for a woman who had held the dragon captive for who knew how many years. “This is the last time. Just hold still.” She approached slowly, unaware Salos lurked on the far side of the dragon or that the runes protecting her from the dragon’s immense strength had failed.

  She held a stone disk in one hand. It pulsed in a way Salos couldn’t describe. It wasn’t a light. And it wasn’t physically changing. Not a sound. Not the way her voice was a sound. And yet, it pulled at his attention. Promised things he didn’t understand but wanted.

  He shook his head. What she was doing didn’t matter. He raked his claws through the last rune he wanted altered and felt the pressure from the field drop entirely.

  The dragon lunged at the paladin. She jumped back. “Woah! Stop that!”

  The dragon gnashed its teeth in response. Its chains strained to hold it back.

  Salos slipped over the now inert circle and up to the post to which the dragon was chained. More runes ran up and down its length. More Focus draining runes. Runes for suppressing Will. Runes for strengthening the post. Runes for reinforcing the chains.

  Say what you would about this Order of the Copper Crescent, they understood redundancy.

  “Fine, we’ll do this the hard way,” the paladin said, holding her empty hand out. It glowed the sickly green of Fortitude. “Hold.”

  Her word rolled over Salos like a tsunami. He froze in place. Invisible chains held him in place.

  His mind split. He wanted to continue toward the post and finish releasing the dragon. And yet, he had to stand still. It wasn’t a want. It wasn’t a decision.

  It was a fact. He had to hold.

  A Command.

  Only Cass should have that power over him.

  The dragon froze too, its muscles strained against the Command.

  “I’m sorry,” the woman said as she approached. She placed the disk flat against the dragon’s forehead and began a chant.

  How did this woman have Commands? She wasn’t his master. She wasn’t the master of the dragon, either. A skill? It couldn’t be. If it were that easy to corral demons, the Custodia wouldn’t have been half as necessary. Demons would have been a joke, not an epidemic.

  Whatever it was, it wasn’t a powerful Command. Already, it loosened around him. The truth that he had to hold still fading until it was just a ghost over his skin. He bolted forward, his claws tearing into the runes of the post.

  The enchantments they carried buckled. He hadn’t been careful about it—a dangerous thing to do. Recklessly destroying empowered runes could blow up. The space within could warp. The energy contained could do any number of wild and unpredictable things.

  That was fine for this purpose. He wanted the post the runes were written on to break.

  Break it did.

  The energy bolted up the rod, arching through the chains, shocking the dragon.

  The paladin yelped in surprise, her hand pulling back, her disk pulling away from the dragon’s skin.

  The dragon roared. Pain and anger and bestial madness echoed off the walls. He tore against his bindings. Chain snapped, his returned Strength finally greater than the metal’s integrity.

  Jaws snapped at the paladin.

  Her shield was up in seconds, though the panic was obvious on her face. The dragon’s maw clamped down around it, crushing closer to her body with every second.

  “Release!” she shouted, her voice again a Command.

  The dragon flinched, its jaws loosening for a fraction of a second. Long enough for her to pull her shield from its mouth and turn for the door.

  Not long enough for her to make it far.

  It lunged. The jaws snapped shut. She screamed as they closed around her torso, biting through the metal of her armor and the Fortitude of her body.

  The dragon roared as her corpse collapsed in pieces to the floor and then slammed its way through the doorway. It wasn’t an elegant process. He was far too big for the door. His head fit through, as did its neck. But its shoulders caught on the frame. It pounded against them, glass shattering with every impact. It roared down the halls with every attempt until, finally, it was through.

  Flames sprung up around its body, licking its scales and melting indents in the floor.

  Voices down the hall shouted warnings. They would have been better served keeping quiet and hiding.

  The dragon tore down the hall and out of sight. A moment later, the shouting was gone, but the roaring continued.

  Feral indeed.

  Salos picked his way out of the remains of the containment field. He needed to return to Cass, but he had questions.

  What exactly had they been doing to this dragon? How had the paladin Commanded him?

  She was far too dead to answer the question directly. Identify had little of interest to share about her corpse.

  Order of the Copper Crescent Paladin (Deceased)

  Lvl 33

  [The body of a vile demon hunter. Rejoice, for you have triumphed over a most hated enemy. Her soul is unguarded. Steal it before her goddess claims it to her halls.]

  He grimaced at the description. Every death looked like that to him now. A demon thing, he assumed. One he had no intention of humoring.

  He ignored it. It would be gone in a moment, the temptation removed for him.

  He focused on his investigation.

  None of her equipment suggested it offered the ability to Command. None, save the disk she’d pressed to the dragon’s body.

  Soul Scalpel

  [Class: Tool

  A device designed to slice pieces of a soul off of an already damaged soul, creating soul cores from the harvested piece.

  - Grants minor Command over entities who have undergone this treatment to holder]

  Salos blanched. That answered his questions. Answered them and more.

  What an awful devise. Was this a common tool in this era? He’d never seen—

  Pain laced through him as a memory flickered at the edges of his tattered mind.

  He was tied to a table. Containment runes ran over every inch of its surface. They coated the bindings holding him down. They ran over his skin. Painted? Tattooed? Branded?

  She stood over him. A disk in hand. A Soul Scalpel.

  She pressed it to his skin.

  Screaming.