Gale shook the branches, nearly pushing Adamai off. The dragon held on to the tree trunk and shouted "Yugo!"

The eliatrope, crouched on a thick bough, spared him an over-the-shoulder glance. His eyes, bloodshot, red, were flaming with mad anger. His fringe was whipping in the storm.

Adamai dodged a portal, scrambled back on the bough and dodged again when Yugo charged at him, screaming. With a graceful leap, the dragon got to another branch to stand face to face with Yugo panting, his hand clenched on the wakfu sword.

"You were my brother, Yugo! I loved you!" He cried over the moan of the gale, but his opponent merely yelled before attacking again.

Adamai dove among the branches and flew up from underneath just in time to see the other rubbing his sore forehead. Leaves flew inbetween them on a gust of wind.

He backed out from the next furious charge and landed on a higher bough.

"It's over, Yugo! I have the high ground!"

For a flicker, the angry scowl gave way to pure bafflement. "What?"

Adamai sommersaulted back, launching a burst of stasis in the air, then, not looking back, flew into the forest.


A gust of wind flapped her cloak as she kneeled at the wounded boy's side.

"Hurry!" Her servant nodded before vanishing in the haversack, while she run her hand over Yugo's cheek, wet from the rain. Bloodshot eyes stared at her imploring, pained.

"Hush… Do not try to speak. Save your strenght."

"A..." the boy groaned. "Amalia..."

"It seems, in your anger, you killed her." Lady Echo said.

"Noooooo…"

The servant got out of the haversack, dragging a Foggernaut suit of armour behind him.


* Ten years later *

The girl hissed with frustration. Blowing a ginger lock off her eye, she put her hands on her hips and said "Okay, we'll try again, but do it right this time."

She cleared her throat. "Help me, Goultard." She recited. "You are my only hope. Got it?"

A tiny yellow bird, perched in front of her on a stack of raw planks, rolled its eyes.

"Ugh, I really don't get it!"

There was a chink of steel behind her. The girl straightened up with a smile on her round face that would not be unfitting for a monster hunter. That is, a nasty one.

"Finally. Go now." She ordered the bird, reaching for the scabbard on her back. The sword she effortlessly drew and spun around was almost as long as she was high.

The bird fluttered away into a dark alley.

"Elely! You are under arrest by the Empire!"

She spun around, grinning. "I've been waiting all day!"


"Only passengers. Myself, the boy, a tofu... and no questions asked. "

Enutrof laughed inwardly. This iop might think (heh!) he's tough, the way he's chopped those drunks up, but Ruel knew desperate a kilometer away. That might be the deal of the lifetime.

"Eleven hundred thirty eight kamas." He said casually.

"We could buy our own ship for that!" The young cra exclaimed.

"And you'd sail it, eh?"

A pouch landed on the wooden table with a clink of spilling coins.

"That's an advance." The iop said cooly. "You'll get the rest in Bonta."

Ruel bit a coin, taking care not to choose the first one, but third from the top. Real gold. Nice.

"Somebody seems real interested in your handiwork."

The iop passed a glance at the bar, where two Imperial soldiers stood, speaking to the inn-keeper. He nodded at the boy. They both left discreetly, leaving Ruel with the pouch in his hand, warm fuzzies in his heart and the best poker face those Imperials were ever going not to notice.