Unsurprisingly, the stone door closed the minute all of us stepped through, "Clane." Kanin said. The rebel leader's son didn't need any more explanation.

The tips of his fingers lit up like candles, illuminating our surroundings as I let out a whistle. I knew the others couldn't see much in this darkness, but I could. I tucked my wings in as much as they would allow me to make myself smaller as I took in our surroundings.

"We're in some kind of ornately decorated underground base of sorts," I informed them, scanning the high walls and ruins on the floor, "It looks abandoned, column ruins everywhere...but I see faint footprints, male."

"Just one person?" Kalinier asked suspiciously. The others kept quiet. Let the thieves go to work.

"Yes. If the rebels are here, they must have been taken in from another entry way. I'm guessing we entered through a forgotten back door."

"What else do your arkryllian senses tell you?" Kyra asked. I was surprised not to hear a single drop of ire in her voice.

"Someone, or someones have been here recently, they're probably still in here somewhere. My senses are telling me this place is huge. We might need to split up, everything else is safe to walk on, just watch out for ledges. I think this might once have been a safe house."

"A safe house built by rich people." Kalinier quipped.

I smiled in the darkness, "I suppose the son of a wealthy family would know."

"Keep at it, Rai. You wanna dig that hole any deeper?"

Clane chuckled darkly. Kanin and Nikolei seemed to be thinking the same thing, "Split up," Kanin said, "Me, Kyra, and Xylin take the left passages. Raila, Kalinier, Clane, and Nikolei take the right. We'll search for the rebels, you four try to keep their captors distracted."

We all nodded, our different hair colours glowing in the light of Clane's fire as Kalinier teleported us closer to the first hallway.

. . .

It didn't take long for Kanin and his half of the team to confirm my suspicions. A series of scraping noises sounded, and then the sound of swords being drawn. Clane, Kalinier, Nikolei, and I rushed towards the sound of fighting and yelling. Kalinier swore once as he pinpointed their location and teleported us to the source of the fighting.

The scene was one word: Chaotic.

I froze and took in everything. The rebels we had been tasked to rescue were huddled against each other in the furthest corner, twenty three in total if I had counted correctly, the exact number we had been sent to retrieve. They all looked dehydrated and hungry, their skin starting to cling to their bones and their eyes were full of such sorrow. Their weapons had been taken from them as well. They wouldn't be able to fight any time soon.

I growled, wanting to tear their captors apart with my bare hands. I found them a little too quickly. Soldiers dressed in black scaly armour, at least thirty in total were trying to circle around Kanin and the others and cut them off from one another. Kyra snarled as she slashed at a soldier with her xiphos, jumping off of his fallen body and shifted into a giant white wolf, roaring in challenge as five more soldiers charged her from all sides.

Kanin and Nikolei were fighting back-to-back, the former willing the earth to respond to his will as thick vines, thorns, and boulders continuously kept crawling out of the ground, flattening soldiers in their wake as lightning shot outward from Nikolei, striking soldiers directly in the chest, but their armour must have been made of a specific material for they did not fall easily.

And Xylin...true to his word, Xylin probably was the most impressive of them all. Kanin had taught him well. He held a sword in one hand at his side while he would raise his other hand towards a group of soldiers, immediately sending them flying back into the stone pillars with sickening crunches. Those that got close enough to him would find themselves facing an invisible opponent. They didn't stand a chance as Xylin suddenly reappeared half-way across the room and blasted those soldiers back as well.

Clane unleashed a battle cry and leapt in immediately, swinging his sword in one hand while torching soldiers with fire in his other. At least that worked.

I drew my own blades as Kalinier winked at me, daggers in hand, before disappearing into mist and shadow, reforming behind two soldiers and stabbing them through the chests. He didn't bother watching them fall before he was facing another opponent.

My awe at his fighting skills cost me. One look at my exposed wings sent a majority of the soldiers at me. I raised my swords and sank into a fighting stance. This wasn't practice anymore. I could die. I will not, not today. They charged me with battle cries of their own as I blocked the first soldier who reached me. I got under his guard and he was dead in two moves. I barely had time to pull my swords out before the others reached me.

From there on, everything was a blur of battle instinct and death. Time seemed to become endless as Kanin's battle training clicked into place. Dodge. Strike. Parry. Strike. Again and again until I didn't even think about it. Until it came naturally and I soon found myself facing the last surviving soldier as he snarled like a wolf and slashed at me.

I realized too late why he had survived the longest. A gust of cold, unyielding wind knocked the breath out of my lungs as the hooded soldier approached me. The others were still preoccupied with their own opponents to help. I don't need their help.

My name is Raila Astrin Felynis. Daughter of Larsen Felynis, an arkryllian warrior of Ithyneia.

I kept repeating that in my head as I got up and went on the offensive. The soldier's hood had fallen down at one point and he grinned madly as we fought. At one point I might have roared as my wings flared wide and I spun near the ground, aiming for my opponent's legs as my wings swiped him. Thank the moons they had claws at the tips. He shrieked with pain as my claws slashed through muscle and he fell to the ground with a scream of agony. He was dead the next second with a sword through the chest.

I barely had time to come back to myself and absorb the fact that I had survived the bloodbath before another figure appeared, this time walking calmly up to the ledge to watch us all from above. I craned my neck to get a good look at him. Coward. But there was something different about him. As though the soldiers we had just killed were mere pawns in his game.

He grinned when his gaze landed on me, on my bloodied, red tainted wings, and I snarled in response. Like his soldiers, he were wore the same scaly black armour, except his was much more sophisticated, built to hold more weapons, and the face of a silver wolf was pinned to the front of his armour. Right where everyone could see it. And his face, cursed moons, I was never going to forget it. His face was rugged, but in a handsome kind of way.

He had mid-length pale-blonde hair that went down to his shoulders and a scar running down his left eye up to his temple. And his eyes—they were gold, not like Kyra's, but sinister gold. Like they had been crafted by the gods to look inhuman and not from this world.

He spoke, and everyone's breathing immediately quieted, "I welcome you, my guests," He spread his arms wide like he was expecting an embrace. No one gave him one, "I've been expecting you rebels. I have heard of Captain Hylenius's famous team of individuals and wanted to meet them in person. I must say, well done defeating my soldiers."

Xylin stepped forward, sword still in hand and face speckled with blood, "Who are you?"

The man in question grinned even wider, and it was unnerving, "My name is Renithyn Halythern."

Xylin staggered back like he had been struck a physical blow, "You're the king of Ithyneia." That got my attention. It got everyone's attention, even the barely conscious rebels.