She landed hard, knees slamming against the nearest rooftop.
Pain shot up her legs, but she forced herself up.
Run.
She had to run.
The wind howled as she scrambled across curved tiles, jumping between slanted roofs, her dress whipping behind her like a ghost. The city spread beneath her—endless, unknowable, filled with eerie flickering lights and structures that seemed to defy logic.
Behind her, the dwarf's voice echoed. "That's not a good idea! That's really not a good idea—!"
She ignored him.
She moved like she had in Valyria's forests—quick, agile, desperate.
Then—
A shadow moved above her.
Ariel slowed. Her breath hitched.
Something loomed on the next rooftop, waiting for her.
Something huge.
Something alive.
A creature stood there, waiting.
Not a man.
Not human.
A beast.
Dark as night, massive as a mountain, covered in layered obsidian scales that gleamed like polished onyx.
A dragon.
No—a Golvon.
Dark, scaled, eyes glowing like molten gold.
