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He hadn’t just fought battles. He’d invaded. Conquered. Killed and then stripped the dead of their dignity to fill his ranks.

“And what about them?” She glanced at the watching crowd. “What’s their mutual interest?”

“Oh, the usual. They think they’re saving the world—culling the sickness dragging birth rates into ruin.

Not every human will come willingly,” he admitted.

“Those who refuse to join my army will be given to them instead so that they may fulfill their… righteous duty. Kill the problem at the root, so to speak.”

Taly masked the bloom of horror behind a slow sip.

She’d heard the rumors, of course—whispers about how humans were somehow poisoning the land, as if their mortality was some kind of contagion.

They were ridiculous. Not based in science or fact, but…

people believed them anyway. The lie had settled easily into the minds of those hungry for a scapegoat.

Aneirin shifted slightly, his fingers drumming in a slow, thoughtful rhythm against the table. “We can end this—right here, right now. Give me your oath.”

The room held its breath, waiting.

“And if I say no?” Her voice was even. Careful. “I’m assuming there’s a second, less generous offer?”

His mouth turned downward. “Are you saying no?”

“I’d like to be aware of all my options.”

Aneirin smiled, slow and knowing. “If no is your answer, I’ll simply have to try again until you see it my way.”

Taly knew a threat when it came.

It was strange—this swell of anger and fear, yet without the usual signs. No racing heart. No surge of adrenaline. Her body was still far away and sleeping.

What remained was raw emotion flooding through her like a current with no anchor.

Around them, the crowd shifted, murmurs rippling.

But it was Luck behind the bar who drew Taly’s eye.

She’d smirked through most of the conversation. Now, though—her attention was diverted.

“ Go away ,” Luck muttered, her gaze flicking to a part of the room where the shadows deepened. She paused, as if listening. “ Well, tell her I don’t care. A real hero wouldn’t be about to cave. She backed the wrong horse. It happens. ”

Taly felt it then. Like a shiver.

The inkling of a bad idea.

Well, not bad… not every part of it.

Her eyes flicked to her host. “ Aneirin .”

“Yes?”

“A- nei -rin.” She rolled the name around, testing its weight. “Anie? Or maybe Renny? No, that doesn’t quite fit . ” She clicked her tongue. “You know who you remind me of? That one guy in the old epics whose name meant cursed disappointment. What was it? Oh, right. Billamire.”

His smile froze. “I’m sorry,” he said smoothly. “But what are you doing?”

“Just finding something that suits you,” Taly replied breezily. “I mean, if we’re going to be working together, shouldn’t we drop the formalities? And something about you just screams… Bill .”

The look of horror on his face brought her more joy than she’d been expecting.

Names were important to him. Admiration wasn’t just a desire. It was a necessity. He’d brought an audience to watch her yield.

Which only made her want to bring him to his knees.

The newly named Bill chuckled, a hidden edge underneath. “It always amazes me how indistinguishable bravery is from stupidity.”

He wasn’t wrong.

“It would please me very much for you to call me Aneirin .” That affably charming smile became strained.

“Oh, I’m sure it would. But I think I’ll stick with Bill,” Taly said, setting her glass down. “My answer is no.” She rose from the table. “Tempris is my home, and there’s nothing you could give me that would make me stand with the man who slaughtered her people.”

Her fingers brushed the pistol at her hip.

“Nothing .”

Taly drew and fired. The gunshot cracked through the air.

Bill’s body hit the floor as his chair tipped and sent him sprawling.

A heartbeat of stunned silence.

She seized the moment, grabbing the table and flipping it. Plates crashed, and glasses shattered. The guests lurched back, gasping as cutlery scattered across the floor.

Luck was moving.

“Hey!” She barely got the word out before Taly re-aimed. Then a smirk. “Just kidding.”

Luck flicked her wrist, and the runes along the barrel went black.

So, Taly did the next best thing and hurled the gun like a brick.

The base of the grip hit the little psychopath square on the forehead. Luck went cross-eyed, staggering.

And with that slip in her attention, her hold on the dream loosened.

It was as if a single thread had been pulled.

The feeling was strangely reminiscent of Taly’s own magic. She could almost see it—a silvery strand wavering in the air like heat rising from stone.

When she reached out, pinching the air—she could actually grasp it.

The dream began to tear.

One thread led to another. With each pull, the girl’s control unraveled.

Slow at first. Then faster.

The crowd’s fine gowns melted into rags. Masks dropped like petals caught in a strong wind. Their faces twisted and blurred.

Thread after thread after thread—Taly ripped them loose faster than Luck could re-bind them.

Thrusting her hands into the air around her, she tore through the fabric of the dream.

Then she plunged her fingers into the floor. The marble softened into strands, spilling outward, shimmering.

The illusion shuddered.

The beams of the tavern collapsed into a haze. The walls fell into nothingness.

Each pull sent another part of the dream spiraling into oblivion.

And while Luck was scrambling—

While Aneirin was still recovering on the floor—

Taly’s eyes darted to the corner. To the shadows that shimmered and twisted.

Luck had made one fatal error. She looked away. And in doing so, her illusion blinked. For just a second, Taly saw the seam.

“This is my island,” she snarled, loud enough to tear through the din of panic. “I will not be made to beg for it.”

And then—Taly ran.

“Go fuck yourself, Bill,” she threw over her shoulder.

The crowd blurred as they parted. Her instincts screamed at her to stop—that the wall ahead was solid.

But she barreled through anyway—and immediately fell.

The world vanished beneath her.

Taly plummeted through air, through space, through the infinite black where the dreamworld ended and the nothingness began.

The rest of the dream shattered like a glass dome struck by a hammer. Splinters of the illusion spun outward, gleaming with images of masks and glinting jewels and ancient eyes filled with menace.

Still, Taly fell.

And as she did, she worked on her next problem.

The first rule of lucid dreaming: always use a tether.

But she hadn’t brought herself here. Which meant she didn’t have one.

No tether. No way to find her way back.

So, she fell, and kept falling—deeper into the dark. Into the void.

Until there was nothing left of her but smoke, unmoored and drifting.

And in that stillness, she let go.