We headed for Word Paynn's citadel.

I had to hide as we drew near and stayed in the shadows. The others found high places with a bird's eye view of the roads and alleys.

Before we left, Parmon hacked into the signal for my communication headset in my helmet and recoded it to be linked to their system.

"Someone's following you, Invalta," Parmon warned.

I hid in a dead end to ambush my follower.

When his shadow appeared, I crouched, ready to spring. I saw a dragon's head come around the corner and almost pounced, but a familiar feeling held me still. As the dragon came into full view, without a rider in the saddle, I recognized him.

"Kiite!" I said, breaking cover to run toward him.

He was wary of me, not recognizing me. I stopped and understood and took of my helmet. "Kiite!" I yelled again as he recognized my face.

"Invalta! Watch out! Wraith dragons!" When Parmon shouted that warning, Kiite's holographic image faded and the wraith hidden beneath it attacked.

"Paynn!" I put my helmet back on and transformed part way for speed. A race through the alleys proceeded, but the distance steadily increased. Then I hid once out of sight of the wraiths.

"Parmon," I whispered. "How close are they?"

"They're coming around the corner towards you." I twitched.

They came running around and passed me by. A minute later, Parmon said, "Okay, coast is clear. Come meet up with us at the destination."

I was careful to stay in the shadows as I made my way back to the place we had decided to meet up at.

"I think Paynn has him," I said as I approached. "He's using him as bait." I made a flash decision. "I'm going on recon," as said as I suddenly left. They protested, but I went anyway. "It's just recon. I won't try anything. I'll come up with a plan first."

I entered from above the wall and jumped down on the crisscrossing beams and wires. I could see Kiite, forced into submission with black gear. I barely contained myself.

Paynn was taunting him, but I couldn't hear what he was saying. He walked away and left.

A noise high above me distracted me from my target and I looked up. It was Artha and Beau.

"What was that?" I whispered into my headset.

"Is that Kiite?"

"Yes. Paynn just left. I'm going to go for it." I dropped down to the lowest ledge.

"Wait!"

"What? I'm getting Kiite back!" I got as close to him as I could, then jumped down next to him. "Kiite, it's me!" He recognized my voice. "Be quiet, so I can get you out of here." I deactivated the first lock and it fell away. Nothing happened other than that. So I unlocked the other three and jumped on Kiite. "Let's get out of here," I told him.

We ran towards a ledge and jumped up on it. But our escape window narrowed as Paynn walked back in. He saw Kiite missing, and then located us. But he didn't say anything. I got worried when he smiled because he had been expecting me.

I saw Artha up above and headed towards him, with Kiite running as fast as he could. To Paynn's astonishment, we evaded all his traps and escaped. But I searched Kiite as soon as we left and found a tracking device. I took it off and broke it into pieces.

"Paynn didn't try very hard to capture me," I stated, worried. This could be a precursor to several things, but I decided not to think about it. Best not to feed the paranoia and let it die.

That night I stayed with Artha again, eating and sleeping with Beau. The Penns gave me weird looks as I ate and again when I said I would be sleeping on the floor with Beau again.

"Calm down. Its fine."

"It's not normal."

"It is for me."

The argument was dropped there.