Silver fire bloomed from Ryelle's feet, launching her skyward in a controlled explosion that sent tremors through the platform's ancient stones. She twisted in mid-air, tracking Liselotte's dive with eyes that had learned to read the subtle shifts in wing position that preceded each strike.

The Harpy Queen came fast and low, talons extended, but Ryelle was no longer the earthbound prey she'd been weeks ago. Fire erupted from her palms, twin jets that sent her spiraling to the side while flames scorched the air where Liselotte's claws had been aimed.

They met in the space between sky and stone, Ryelle's fist wreathed in dragon fire catching Liselotte's ankle before the harpy could withdraw. The impact sent both of them tumbling, but Ryelle used the momentum, letting herself fall while dragging Liselotte down with her.

At the last moment, she released her grip and fired downward, the explosive thrust cushioning her landing while Liselotte spread her wings to arrest her own descent.

"Better," Liselotte said, settling onto the platform's edge with barely ruffled feathers. "Still wasteful with energy, but thinking like predator instead of prey."

But Ryelle was already moving again, her feet finding purchase on scorched stone as she launched herself sideways in a rolling burst of flame. The maneuver caught Liselotte mid-compliment, forcing the Harpy Queen to abandon her perch and wheel away from dragon fire that painted her previous position in molten silver.

"No rest between strikes," Ryelle called, her voice carrying the sharp satisfaction of a hunter closing distance. "You taught me that."

She'd learned to read the micro-expressions that flickered across Liselotte's face—surprise giving way to approval, then sharpening into genuine focus as the Harpy Queen realized this wouldn't be another teaching exercise.

Liselotte climbed steeply, her wings catching thermal currents that lifted her beyond easy reach. But Ryelle had anticipated the move, fire already building in her palms as she tracked the ascent. When Liselotte banked for a diving attack, Ryelle was ready.

Twin fireballs bracketed the Harpy Queen's approach, forcing her to choose between maintaining her attack vector and avoiding the flames. She chose the flames, twisting aside with aerial grace that made the maneuver look effortless.

But the choice had cost her momentum, and Ryelle capitalized immediately.

Dragon fire erupted beneath her in a sustained burn that lifted her toward Liselotte's new position. Not the explosive bursts she'd relied on before, but controlled propulsion that let her adjust direction mid-flight. Her fist, wreathed in silver flame, caught Liselotte's wing-tip and sent the harpy spinning.

They grappled briefly in mid-air, talons scoring shallow cuts across Ryelle's shoulders while her fire-wrapped hands sought purchase on feathered limbs. Neither could maintain the aerial wrestling match for long—Ryelle's fire burned through energy reserves while Liselotte couldn't support both their weights.

They separated by mutual agreement, Liselotte spreading her wings to glide while Ryelle controlled her descent with short bursts from her feet. But the momentary truce lasted only until they were both in position to resume the dance.

"Your fire control improves," Liselotte observed, circling just beyond arm's reach. "Less waste, more precision."

"Still learning." Ryelle wiped blood from a scratch along her cheek, her breathing controlled despite the exertion. The dragon fire had come without conscious thought, responding to her will like an extension of her limbs. No hesitation, no analysis—just pure instinct shaped by weeks of brutal conditioning.

"Learning what?"

"How hungry I can afford to be."

The words came out before Ryelle could examine them, carrying implications that made her pause. Hunger. The driving force Liselotte had awakened in her, the predatory appetite that made combat feel like claiming territory rather than simply defending it.

She could feel it now—the dragon essence in her blood singing with each exchange, each moment when flame answered will and will shaped violence. Not the careful, measured responses Ebonheim would have chosen, but something rawer. More honest.

Liselotte's smile showed too many sharp teeth. "Good answer."

The Harpy Queen's next attack came without warning, a vertical dive that turned into a spiraling corkscrew as she approached. Ryelle tracked the complex approach, fire building in both hands, but held back from the obvious response.

Instead, she waited.

The moment Liselotte committed to her final vector, Ryelle moved. Not backward or to the side, but forward, launching herself directly into the attack with flames streaming from her feet. The maneuver should have been suicide—meeting a diving aerial predator head-on while limited to brief periods of flight.

But she wasn't trying to match Liselotte's aerial superiority. She was using her own advantages.

Dragon fire erupted around her entire body as they collided, turning her into a living meteor that crashed into Liselotte with force that sent both of them tumbling across the platform. They rolled apart, Ryelle's flames guttering as her energy reserves hit their limits, while Liselotte's feathers smoldered from the close contact.

For a heartbeat, neither moved. Then Liselotte laughed—not the mocking sound she'd used during early training, but genuine delight.

"Now that," she said, pushing herself upright with singed wing-tips, "felt like hunting."

Around the platform's periphery, other harpies had gathered to watch the exchange. Ryelle counted at least a dozen, their multicolored plumage creating a ring of interested observers. None called encouragement or offered commentary—they watched with the focused attention of predators studying new techniques.

"Energy management still needs work," Liselotte continued, settling back onto her perch. "That final burst nearly emptied your reserves. Against multiple opponents..."

"I'd be dead." Ryelle flexed fingers that still tingled with residual heat. "But against a single target that thought it could overwhelm me with superior mobility?"

"Point taken." Liselotte's head tilted in acknowledgment. "Your instincts adapt quickly once freed from protective constraints. Three weeks ago, you would have tried to block that dive, or dodge aside. Today, you turn aggression into opportunity."

Three weeks ago, the idea of grappling with an airborne opponent would have been absurd. Now it felt like discovering a limb she'd never known she possessed. The dragon fire wasn't just a weapon—it was proof that she could grow beyond her original parameters, that avatar status didn't mean permanent limitation.

"How long could I maintain that pace?" she asked.

"Against single opponent? Perhaps ten minutes. Against multiple enemies..." Liselotte shrugged eloquently. "Depends how quickly you learn to conserve effort."

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"And if I can't conserve effort?"

"Then you learn to end fights faster." Liselotte's crimson eyes held depths that suggested years of experience with exactly that choice. "Dragons don't win through endurance. They win through overwhelming force applied at precisely the right moment."

Ryelle nodded, understanding the lesson beneath the words. Her fighting style would always be energy-intensive, requiring careful timing and explosive commitment. But that wasn't necessarily a weakness—it was a different approach to combat, one that prioritized decisive action over prolonged engagement.

"Again?" she asked, flames already beginning to gather around her palms.

But before Liselotte could respond, a shadow swept across the platform, wings beating with the ragged rhythm of panic rather than fatigue. Mesyori landed hard, her yellow plumage dulled with dust and her talons scraping stone as she struggled for balance.

"Skytalon," she gasped, chest heaving. "Western hunting grounds... something wrong. Very wrong."

Liselotte's expression shifted from instructor to ruler in an instant. The temperature seemed to drop around them, though no clouds crossed the sun.

"Speak."

"Prey animals fled three days past, all at once, like forest fire drove them but no smoke, no flame." Mesyori's wing-arms folded tightly against her body, a sign of distress among her kind. "Went to investigate. Found tracks."

"What manner of tracks?"

"Not natural. Heavy, like ox-cart wheels but wrong shape. Grooves carved too deep, too straight. And beneath them..." Mesyori's voice dropped to barely above a whisper. "Tunnel mouths. Fresh-dug, wide enough for Skytalon herself to enter."

More harpies arrived as the report continued, landing around the platform's perimeter in a widening circle of multicolored feathers. Merethyl settled nearest to Ryelle, her white plumage and silver eyes reflecting troubled depths.

"Did you enter the tunnels?" Liselotte asked.

"Tried. Air inside tastes of old blood and newer rot. Made breathing difficult, thinking... strange. Like something whispered words that weren't words." Mesyori flexed talons that showed chips and scratches from hard surfaces. "Merethyl went deeper."

All eyes turned to the white-plumed harpy, whose dreamy expression had sharpened into something approaching focus. She gathered herself slowly, as if wrestling memories from reluctant claws.

"Tunnels go down, then across, then down again. Like roots seeking water but finding something else." Merethyl's gaze fixed on a point beyond the platform's edge. "Things move in the deep places. Heavy things that scrape stone and breathe wrong. Saw eyes that burn red in darkness that shouldn't hold light."

"How many?"

"Couldn't count. Maybe dozen, maybe more. But working together, digging with purpose, creating spaces for..." Merethyl paused, her head tilting in that characteristic gesture. "For others. Bigger others."

The assembled harpies rustled with discomfort. Creatures that built underground lairs in hunting territory weren't random wilderness dangers—they were invasive species establishing permanent presence in areas that belonged to aerial predators.

"Anything else?" Liselotte inquired.

"Sky-wrongness," another harpy called from the platform's edge. This one bore scars along her wing membranes and carried herself with the tense alertness of a veteran scout. "Western valleys show air currents that bend wrong directions. Air that flow upward when should flow down, wind that tastes of places far from here."

"Explain."

"Flying patrol routes become... difficult. Navigation feels uncertain, like landmarks shifted when not watching. And twice now, encounters with things that shouldn't fly." The scarred harpy's wing-arms folded tighter against her body. "Dark shapes with too many eyes, moving through sky like they own it."

Ryelle's curiosity stirred beneath the surface concerns. Flying creatures invading harpy territory represented more than simple territorial dispute—it meant something was challenging the fundamental order that gave sky hunters dominion over aerial space.

"These dark shapes," she said. "How large?"

"Smaller than Skytalon but larger than fledgling. Wings of stretched hide, not feather. Six eyes that glow like coals, claws that trail shadow-stuff." The scout's voice carried the reluctant respect of one predator describing another. "Fast, aggressive, unafraid of harpy presence."

"Did they attack?"

"Tried. Found them less dangerous than appearances, but..." The harpy paused, her scarred wings twitching. "When struck down, bodies turned to smoke and ash. Nothing left to examine, learn from."

Liselotte's crimson eyes narrowed to slits. "How many such encounters?"

"Mmm, four, possibly more. Different patrols, different valleys, but same creatures each time. Always near areas where ground-wrongness occurs."

As the discussion of harpy territory incursions continued, Ryelle saw patterns emerge. Underground excavation, aerial invaders, environmental corruption—all hinted at more than a simple territorial skirmish. This felt like coordinated incursion by forces seeking to unseat harpies from their ecological perch.

"What about the land? What caused our prey to flee?" Liselotte asked.

"Hunting grounds going dead," Mesyori replied. "Places where prey should gather showing no life sign. Water sources that animals avoid despite clean appearance. Trees that stand but feel hollow, like someone drained sap without cutting bark."

The description matched what Ryelle had sensed in the distant grove, the wrongness that made her teeth ache and her dragonic senses writhe as if caught in a snare. But this sounded more advanced, as if whatever process had begun there was reaching full maturation in harpy territory.

Liselotte glanced at Merethyl. "Did you sense this draining effect in the tunnel depths?"

"Mmm, yes and no. Wrongness was different. Deeper, wider, like roots spreading beneath everything. But also upward, higher..." Her voice trailed off, words fading into unfocused silence.

"Merethyl is speaking true," Mesyori said. "Skytalon, something seeps into heartwood of land from underground, makes it bleed slow. Changes flow of air, plants, everything that should remain untouched."

Liselotte tapped her talons against stone, the dry clicking like bones cast for an augury. Ryelle could almost see scenarios playing out behind those ruby eyes, each weighed, tested, discarded.

"We check tomorrow, at sunrise, see for ourselves the scale of threat." She stood, muscles rippling beneath feathers and flesh in unconscious display. "Prepare scouting parties. If invaders dwell beneath our forests and winds, they will learn what it means to challenge us."

Night brought restless winds that set the floating islands swaying like ships anchored in an invisible sea. Ryelle lay on her woven grass bedding, counting the gaps between gusts as she struggled to quiet the whirlpool of half-formed thoughts circling inside her skull.

Sleep proved elusive. Every time she closed her eyes, images from the scouts' reports flickered through her mind—red eyes burning in unnatural darkness, tunnels carved with impossible precision, flying creatures that dissolved to ash when killed.

Footsteps approached her shelter, bearing the distinctive rhythm of harpy movement. Ryelle sat up as Gwynelle ducked through the entrance, her teal eyes bright against the muted glow of moonlight filtering through the canopy.

"Nae sleep either?" the young harpy asked, settling cross-legged on the packed earth floor.

"Too much to think about."

"Scary thinking. Things that dig where shouldn't dig, fly where shouldn't fly."

Ryelle pulled her knees up, resting her chin atop folded arms. "Territorial disputes aren't unusual for harpies, though. You've dealt with those before, right?"

Gwynelle clicked her talons together, a gesture of subdued agreement. "Mm, aye. Owlbears encroach on hunting grounds, sometimes. Or wyvern flock grows too bold."

"But this is something new."

Gwynelle nodded, her head tilting as if listening to sounds beyond the wind's muted wail. "Feeling under skin tells so. Like prey-scent but worse, harder to grasp. Something in tunnel-darkness that shouldn't be."

"Whatever it is, Liselotte isn't taking any chances."

"Mm, Skytalon knows when to strike hard and when to watch carefully. Wisdom born from leading strong." A wry smile tugged at Gwynelle's lips. "Not always that patient, though. Except this time."

Ryelle absently traced patterns in the dirt with her fingertip. Something in the back of her mind nagged at her, some half-formed suspicion she couldn't quite bring into focus. The scourge within the Old Drakon Castle, Xellos's involvement, and now this—she had the creeping feeling they were connected.

Most likely more Asuras. But that's only a guess.

After Gwynelle departed, Ryelle spent the remaining night hours practicing fire manifestation with new understanding. Flames bloomed around her palms on command, their incendiary beauty offering a fleeting distraction from more troubling thoughts.

By dawn, she could launch herself skyward in an explosive burst, sustain elevation for several seconds, then descend in a controlled dive. The technique still burned through her internal reserves, but at least she no longer felt like a stone plummeting earthward.

Liselotte found her on the platform as morning mist still clung to the islands' undersides, her azure feathers catching early sunlight like scattered gems.

"Ready?" the Harpy Queen asked.

"Ready."

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