For a moment I could only stare at the ominous orange glow in the distance as my breath caught in my throat. Once I could get the words out I asked, “What happened Venika, when did it start?”

“It’s only been a few minutes. I called you as soon as I first saw the fire, it just appeared so suddenly and it’s spreading like crazy,” the Sprite replied with a worried expression.

“I’ll try to call Tien and see if she can tell me anything.” I took the phone from my pocket and called Tien’s number. It rang several times and then went to her voicemail. Either she was too busy dealing with whatever was going on or it had caught the village completely by surprise. Neither was a reassuring thought. “Can you see anything with your Farsight ability, Venika?”

The Sprite’s tiny eyes seemed to go super focused, and at first, she just stared off into the distance. “Just fire, smoke, and shadows… oh shit.” The last was sputtered after she gasped and from the expression on her face, whatever it was she saw wasn’t good.

“What is it, Venika?” Phinik inquired before I could. “Is it the Redcaps?”

“Oh Goddess, everything is burning. I saw a large shadow passing through the smoke and flames. I thought it was my imagination at first, but I just saw it again.” She shook her head slowly and turned toward me. “We have to do something, Taelya. It’s a dragon, and it’s destroying the whole village.”

“Aw crap.” See Venika, I didn’t swear just then, even though I really wanted to. It was going to be like fighting the Lindwyrm all over again, only this time we had no horde of undead handy to lead it to a gas station that we could blow up. Hell, the only gas station that Haven had was down to fumes anyway. Regular guns, bows, and melee weapons weren’t going to do shit to that thing unless we could weaken it first and I wasn’t sure about sending anyone inside its mouth, we had been lucky that Nishalle hadn’t been roasted alive the first time. I could try something like what I’d used against the Kraken but while it was up in the air I had nothing to anchor the crystals to, even if I did have the energy to pull that off again, which I sincerely doubted given my lack of proper rest and overuse of mana earlier in the day.

“Well, they did want to test it, and now is as good a time as any,” I muttered as I found Denise’s number on my phone and hit the call icon.

It was several rings before she picked up. “Faun Firearms, Denise speaking.”

“Hey Denise, it’s Taelya, Ashura told me that you have a prototype ready to test?” I quickly fired off.

“Hey, Your Highness. Yeah, we got one ready to go and three others ready to assemble if the test goes well. We were planning on testing first thing in the morning. We’re trying to pump out as much ammo as we can, just like you asked.”

“We’re going to need it ready to go ASAP. A dragon is burning Haven to the ground and I’d really like some way of taking it down. What’s the range on it? Do you think it can take down a dragon?” I pressed.

“She should remain accurate at just over a kilometer and a half and Ashura modified the scope for night vision. I don’t know if it’ll take one down, but it’ll probably feel it. It’s pretty ironic because we decided to call this baby the Dragon. She’s all about firepower.” she answered confidently. I’ll have the whole kit and a bag of ammo ready to go in a few minutes. You’ll need someone strong with you though, the Dragon’s no lightweight.”

“I’ll bring Lissany, she should be able to handle it, thanks, Denise.” I quickly disconnected the call and reached out with my senses, calling out to the wind element and willing it to carry my words to everyone in the Glade. “Fae and allies of the Glade, this is Taelya nír Keshwaindyr, Princess of the Autumn Court. Haven is being attacked by a dragon. I’m calling on anyone willing to help the village in their time of need, as we have pledged to do. Until we can get the dragon out of the sky this is a search and rescue mission, it is about saving lives not being heroes so please don’t endanger yourselves needlessly trying to slay the beast. All I ask is that you help find the wounded and evacuate the village and that Magi prepare to put out the fires and Healers prepare for the injured while I work on a plan to distract the dragon and take it down. All Sprites with magick please meet Venika at the front gates to the Estate as soon as possible.”

Venika and Phinik nodded grimly as I finished my speech. “What do you need us to do?” Venika asked.

“I need you both to get every magically inclined Sprite in the air to pester that thing with every spell you can. Keep your distance though and try to stay out of its line of fire. Just keep its attention on you instead of the village for a bit while I get things ready. I’ll wind whisper you when we’re ready for stage two,” I told them, trying not to show just how tired I was from using Nature’s Call again like I just had.

I felt bad about having to interrupt their fun, everyone’s actually, but I opened my menu screen and furiously typed out a party alert message. Usually, I’d use a spell to contact each of them, but I was too tired and I was pretty sure that I was going to need to conserve my energy for later. -Sorry everyone, but I need everyone on search and rescue duty in the village. Lissany, Daenyss, and Nishalle, I’ll need you in the living room ASAP.-

I teleported back to the living room where I found Lark, Rob, and Kinara already in their Lindwyrm-hide armor and heading toward the door while Lissany waited for me and the Wisps slept peacefully on the couch. “No need for your armor yet Liss,” I told my Guardian quickly. “I’m going to need your strength though so you might want to change forms.”

“You got it, Your Highness,” the Beastkin girl agreed, making her armor vanish while she changed into her hybrid-jaguar form.

Daenyss appeared in front of me, looking a bit flustered from whatever I had interrupted between her and Salem but she was ready to go. “Sorry Daenyss,” I told her sympathetically. “I know that I promised you the night off.”

“You needed me at your side Mistress, so that is where I will gladly be. I know that this was not something that you were expecting and that you did not want to summon me. You’re a better Mistress than I could have ever hoped for, you’re always thinking about my needs and desires as much as your own and I appreciate that. Salem and I can continue some other time,” She said with a smile that was probably meant to reassure me of the truth of her words. She did mean what she said, I knew that because that was just the kind of person and friend that Daenyss was. I still felt bad though.

I felt worse as Nishalle appeared from the shadows under the stairs a moment later looking just as flustered as Daenyss. She was in her armor, but her hair was a mess and I didn’t need a sensitive Fae nose to smell what both she and Daenyss had been up to with their respective partners before my rallying cry put an end to it. “Sorry,” I muttered again.

“You’re planning something crazy and probably reckless. You’ll need me by your side, Sis.” Nishalle wasn’t fooled by my act, she could see how tired I was already, and I could see it in her crimson eyes.

“Yeah, I have Denise and Hadrick working on a little present for you and I’ll need both you and Daenyss to familiarize yourselves with it. There’s three more in the works and they were meant for the Redcaps, but it needed to be tested anyway and I can’t think of a better time,” I explained before gathering mana and performing the sigils for the Exodus spell. “Kaida liantuir tala siashe yasrin!”

I teleported us directly into Denise’s workshop where she and her team were working furiously. As soon as she saw us the Doe Beastkin half-dragged me to a large, roughly-made workbench where the fruits of her labors sat. I didn’t even have a minute to get over the dizziness of casting another high-level spell while already exhausted. I turned to Nishalle and offered a tired smile. “What do you think? Is that enough penetration for you?”

“Omigod, it’s so huge!” Nishalle exclaimed as she just stared for several long seconds at what was being offered to her. “Is that a fucking anti-tank rifle?!”

Denise just grinned at her. “It’s a custom anti-materiel rifle, I call her the Dragon. Hopefully, she should have the stopping power you need. We haven’t tested it yet, but I think she should have about a one-point-eight kilometer range and she fires 22-millimeter shells. She’s a bolt-action, can be quickly assembled or disassembled, has a swing-out bipod, a night vision scope especially artificed by Ashura, side-mount 5 shell detachable box magazines, a recoil reduction system that Ashura and Grell came up with, and the ammunition comes in three tasty flavors.”

“Three?” I asked in surprise. “I only asked for the shells made from the energy-sapping crystal that I used on the Kraken.”

“I thought that I should come up with alternatives in case the crystal didn’t work on the Redcaps,” the Doe said with a shrug and an evil grin. “So you have your crystal shells, high explosive, and incendiary rounds.”

Once she had shown Daenyss and Nishalle how to tell the difference between the different types of rounds and how to assemble and disassemble the Dragon, Denise gave the fully assembled rifle to Lissany and a duffel bag with three of the magazines and extra shells to Nishalle. “You know, I might be able to fit one of those in my chest in your rooms Mistress, once it’s fully broken down,” Daenyss said thoughtfully. “I should have enough room left for it and some spare magazines.”

“That might be a good idea, you could just summon the pieces when you need it and we wouldn’t have to haul that big cannon around with us,” I agreed. “Is it too much for you Lissany?”

“This is heavy, but I can handle it,” Lissany replied. “It’s not much heavier than having my full armor and all of my weapons on, it’s just the length that makes it a bit awkward.”

“Yeah, she’s not meant to be carried fully assembled like that,” the Doe admitted, “but I figure that you’ll want her ready to go. Careful with that bag Nishalle, remember that some of those shells are meant to go boom. Good luck ladies, and let me know how she handles.”

After I had teleported the four of us back to the roof of the Estate and Nishalle had gingerly put down the duffel bag and showed Lissany where to set up her new toy I allowed myself a few minutes to rest while she got set up. Exodus was a mana-hog of a high-level spell and I had just used it twice in a relatively short time while I was already tired. “Are you alright, Mistress?” Daenyss asked in concern.

“I’m fine, I just need to sit and rest for a few minutes before using any big magick again,” I told my Attendant with a weak smile.

She wasn’t the only one looking over me in obvious concern. Neither she nor Lissany seemed to be buying it and Nishalle kept stealing glances at me as she finished setting up the Dragon. “Okay, I’m all set up here, Sis. Do you want me to try the crystal shells first?”

“Yeah, if they can pierce a dragon’s scales then they should work on the Redcaps. If they don’t penetrate or don’t do much damage try the other rounds and see what works,” I instructed the Tokh'dhraí Assassin.

“We might be a bit out of the range, even if it’s as high as Denise thinks…” Nishalle muttered. “Okay I got it in my sights…whoa she didn’t say anything about the scope having a target-range detector. Damn, we’re just over two kilometers away, I could try shooting from here, but I’d probably just waste ammo with all that smoke from the village obscuring it. We’re going to need to get closer.”

“Or we bring it toward us,” I thought aloud before querying, “Can you see how the Sprites are managing through that thing?”

“Yeah, it’s a little hard to see with the smoke but it looks like they’ve got its attention, they’re pounding it with spells from two sides. Oh! Those sneaky little devils!” Her while teeth flashed against the darkness of her skin and the night in a grin. “It’s big but it’s slow to turn. As soon as they see it about to turn to try and flame them they scatter or teleport away and start attacking from another side. I don’t know how long they’re going to last though, they’re really peppering it.”

I smiled as drew in mana and started to draw and speak the sigils for the Wind Whisper spell. I knew I could count on Venika. “Tanuus tiurin’híel naethrin aentuire,” Then I quickly spoke my message “I need you to draw it toward the Glade, try to keep it in the air above the forest so its flames can’t do any serious damage and keep it halfway between the village and the Glade. We’re going to try to bring it down. Send Sprites that you trust to tell anyone from the village and rescue teams and Mahair and the Huntsmen what we’re doing and to be prepared to box it in but not get too close until it’s weakened, Venika.” As I spoke her name I also drew her personal sigil to send the message.

It was a good thing that I was sitting down because I was really getting tired, and a bit light-headed, from all the magick I’d been using. My three companions looked at me in concern and Nishalle muttered to Daenyss, “When this is all over please make sure she goes to bed and stays there, I don’t care if you have to get Rei to tie her down.”

“I shall see that Mistress gets proper rest,” Daenyss promised.

I was too tired to even give an indignant snort. They didn’t have to baby me like a small child, though I did appreciate their concern. I did work up the energy for an exasperated sigh though when Nishalle lined up her first shot and grinned as she fired and said, “Oh yeah! Bitches love cannons!” Rei and I really had to stop watching anime with her. It was a terrible influence on her.

My sister was just gaping and staring through the scope for what seemed like an eternity and we were all pretty tense as Lissany asked, “What? Didn’t it do anything?”

“Actually, I was just expecting much more of a kick and it surprised me. I don’t think I pierced its skin, but I’m pretty sure that I blew off a few of its scales on its chest. This baby has some punch, but it has less kick than my sniper rifle. I’m loving this recoil reduction system. I’m going to try to hit the same spot as before, maybe with the scales missing I can penetrate its skin.”

Nishalle fired again and let out an excited whoop. “Got it! That one definitely penetrated! I’ll empty the rest of the clip into that big fucker and… Are they bat-shit fucking insane?!”

“What?!” Lissany, Daenyss, and I asked as one since we couldn’t see what my sister was going on about.

She took another shot before saying, “Sorry Tae, but I think you come by the Fae crazy-gene honestly. Your Fae-daddy just teleported onto the dragon’s back with Maekin and now they’re shredding its wings. I can’t rule out Mahair though either, she’s done some crazy shit too.”

I was a little pissed off now. I spent most of the evening looking for Narek and he chooses to appear just to do something that would probably get him killed. And he thought that Mahair and I were reckless and stubborn? “I hate to break it to you Sis, but if Mahair is crazy and it is genetic… well you’re her daughter too,” I pointed out.

“So?” Nishalle said with a shrug and a grin after taking another shot. “I like being crazy.”

“Of course you do,” I replied with a shake of my head.

“They’re heading to the ground pretty fast, so there won’t be much more that we can do from here,” the Tokh'dhraí reported. Then after far too long a pause for my comfort she spoke again. “I can’t see really well through the tree cover, but it looks like they managed to jump free before it hit the ground.”

“If that jerk lived, I’m going to kill him,” I muttered. “Let’s leave your new toy here for now and see what we can do to help finish that thing off.”

Nishalle put a hand on my shoulder as I started gathering mana, when I turned to face her she shook her head. “No, Sis. Lissany and Daenyss may not feel it’s their place to tell you what to do because you’re the princess. But I’m your sister before anything else. No more magick. You’ve been overdoing it all day and you can barely stand right now.”

“I’m not going to go lay in my cozy bed and sleep while our people are fighting something like that, they need to see me standing with them, and the people of the village are going to need us,” I insisted. At Nishalle’s stern expression and the worried looks on Daenyss’s and Lissany’s faces though I offered a compromise. “I’ll ride Ghost there and I won’t cast any spells or use Nature’s call unless it’s absolutely necessary. I do have other skills besides magick you know.”

Nishalle sighed and relented. “Fine, but you’re only there for morale, leave the fighting to us. I know that you can do things other than use magick, but I know you love using it too, and it’s almost instinctual for you sometimes to use it before anything else. Now let’s going and finish this so Her Highness will go to bed without arguing.”

It took longer than I would have liked to get to the stables since Nishalle wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to use magick to do it, not that I intended on breaking my promise to her. I would only do that if lives depended on it. Ghost seemed eager to go though and made up the time fairly quickly. The others rode behind us on Cú sídhe, though as part cat Lissany still wasn’t entirely comfortable riding one of the large green canines.

The downed dragon had been severely weakened by the combination of Nishalle’s new toy and its forced landing when Kinara’s father and mine had clipped its wings. Nishalle’s last shot had pierced deeply enough to strike the dragon’s heart and by the time we arrived at the crash site, the uninjured players from the village and the members of the Fae host were just trying to stay out of harm’s way and contain any fires as the massive reptile trashed its way through its death throes. Thankfully most of the players and NPCs from the village seemed to be fine including Tien, though her arm was in a sling.

I was relieved to see the Vietnamese Druid since I had been worried when she hadn’t called about the attack or answered her phone. I dismounted Ghost and gave her a nice affectionate rub and then went to speak with Tien, “Thank Goddess that you’re okay, I was worried about you.”

“That dragon hit us out of nowhere, half the village was on fire before we even knew what hit us,” she replied with a shrug and wincing at the pain it caused her. “Part of the building that I and some of the others were in came down on us. My phone’s lost in the rubble, I would have been too if some of your people hadn’t found us and dug us out when they came to get everyone out of the village and see to the injured.”

“How bad were the losses?” I asked in concern.

“From the last count we’re still missing a couple of dozen players from the village, only ten dead so far though and that includes some of the Sprites that came to draw the dragon away from the village. The healers think that they should be able to resurrect most of them and heal them up though,” she answered. It wasn’t as bad as I had feared it would be at least, but I still felt a pang of guild about the Sprites.

“Are Rei and Salem working with the other Priests and Medics with the injured then? Was Venika among the dead or injured?” I was worried about Lissany’s mother. I had sent her into that situation, but I was worried about all the members of my party. I hadn’t seen most of them since before all of this started.

Tien seemed to understand and tried to address my concerns. “Salem is working with the other Medics, Priestesses, and Priests. Rei went with your mother when she and the other mages went to see about putting out the fires a little while ago, she thinks she can help locate any others who may have been trapped and need to be resurrected or at least get a better count of the dead. Venika is fine, but she and a lot of the other Sprites were exhausted from too much spellcasting. Lark, Pete, Kinara, and Rob all went to either help put out fires or look for injured.

“We should go and see what we can do to help,” I said with a sigh but the looks on the faces of my sister, Guardian, and Attendant quickly nixed that idea.

“Daenyss and I are going to take you home so you can rest, Your Highness,” Lissany stated, proving the futility of thinking about doing any such thing.

“And I’ll put my new favorite toy away and go let Denise, Hadrick, and the others know how well it worked so they can assemble the others and pump out more ammo,” Nishalle added. She took one look at the expression on my face and sighed. “I know that you want to do everything that you can to help everyone, Sis. Sometimes that means taking proper care of yourself so that you can be ready when we really need you. In twenty-four hours or less, we’re going to be facing a clan of Redcaps and we’ll need you at your best. Please, for all of us, go and get at least six hours of sleep.”

“I… okay sis, I did promise after...” I stopped speaking mid-word as I looked around and caught sight of Narek getting treated by Khyrin, who was casting a healing prayer over his right knee. My brow furrowed and I threw a cold, “Excuse me for a moment,” over my shoulder.

I barely heard Lissany mutter “Uh-oh.”

I strode purposely toward the pair, ignoring the comment. I had my mind on something else. Khyrin looked up at my approach and quickly smiled and bowed. “Your Highness, how can I help you?”

“Good evening Khyrin, what is my Pájar’s condition?” I inquired a little more stiffly than I intended. I felt bad instantly, it wasn’t her fault that Naerk was an asshole. I did look him over in concern though. What he and Maekin had done was reckless and stupid and I was pissed at both of them, especially after Narek had lectured me and Mahair about the same thing. I noticed that he wasn’t wearing the amber crystal from my dream, but I hadn’t seen him wear it since I met him. I didn’t have a viyr’kuor either, so why the hell would I dream about that? I tried to shake it off, I had more important matters to attend to.

“He merely sprained his knee when he landed,” the Fae Priestess offered. “He should be fine in a few hours with the prayer I cast.”

“That’s the only thing wrong with him?” I asked. When she nodded in confirmation I gave her a weak smile. “Thank you Khyrin, I would like a moment alone with my Pájar please.”

Narek looked decidedly uncomfortable as the Priestess excused herself. He looked even more so after I slapped him as hard as I could and started yelling at him. “You arrogant, hypocritical, frustrating, asshole! First, you drop that ‘I’m your father’ shit on me and you’ve been avoiding me every chance you get since! I spent all evening looking for you so we can talk about all of this and maybe figure out what we are to one another and you were nowhere to be found, but a dragon shows up and suddenly you and Maekin pull that cowboy shit! Were you both trying to impress your daughters or something?! Dying doing something stupid isn’t impressive, it’s just stupid! You said that Mahair and I are frustrating, stubborn, and don’t think before we act and then you go and do something like this?! I cannot believe the balls on you!”

“Taelya, I…”

I cut him off. I wasn’t finished yet and I really didn’t care to hear his excuses right now. “Sahnae says that you’re avoiding me because you’re blaming yourself for something, and at the moment I don’t care what that is, but make no mistake we will be having words about that! You don’t want me and Mahair endangering ourselves needlessly then you better damn well do the same thing! No more avoiding me! My dad in real life up and left when Nishalle and I were kids. Doing the same damn thing to me after telling me that I’m your kid isn’t the smartest way to start off a relationship with me if you want to be a father figure!”

He at least looked contrite with his head hung as I continued to berate him. “You can’t have it both ways! You can’t start teaching me the family fighting style and avoid me the rest of the time because you’re afraid that I might get upset about something you once did! I… I…” That was when everything that had happened and the overuse of magick seemed to catch up with me all at once and I passed out.

I was slipping back to my private quarters in the royal residence after having to practically order Venika to stay quiet about my visit with Seamus. I was nearly there when Mahair’s voice spoke behind me. “Where have you been all day, Taelya? How are you going to learn more than the most basic spells if you do not take your lessons seriously?”

She was going to send me to live with my Pájar? If that happened I may never see Seamus again. No, I could not accept that. I decided that I would leave that night when everyone was asleep. I would do as Seamus had asked and become his ‘wife’. I still had much to learn about Humans and their customs but I knew that I could make a life for myself among the Humans if I tried. I have decided that I will leave my Aen’kuorüis for Pájar in my quarters with a short note. Perhaps he will understand where Mahair could not.