#cr1

"How fucking dumb do you think I am, Morvaris?" Fenlara is already reaching for the conjuration aether tied to her cat before Wysaris finishes speaking. She yanks her familiar out of the tavern through a sliver of the Feywild and drops it on the back of Wysaris' neck with its claws out. Wysaris shouts, and his body weight immediately shifts off Fenlara as he reaches backward for the clawed, biting thing attacking him. It's just enough Fenlara can twist out from under the press of his boot. Blind him! Fenlara screams into her cat, scrambling forward and back up onto her feet. Scratch his fucking eyes out! Her cat spits and Wysaris shouts again — "You fucking bitch!" — but Fenlara doesn't look back. She sprints toward the lane, knowing she can't waste a second of the precious time the cat is buying her to get away, get away, get the fuck away— Fenlara's entire body suddenly locks mid-stride. She gets a fleeting glimpse of a figure melting out of invisibility ten paces ahead at the junction where the alley meets the back lane before the momentum she's no longer in control of propels her shoulder into the wall. Fenlara's body twists around and her face slams hard into the stone with a sickening crack. White, nauseating pressure explodes behind her eyes. A deafening ringing fills her ears. Reality distorts into fragments. Fenlara blinks, trying to understand why she's laying on cobbles and crumpled on her side. Salt stings her eyes. Something wet and warm and metallic tasting slips over her lip and into her mouth. She tries to reach up to wipe at the drip but her arm is dead again. Both her arms are dead. Her legs are dead. A cat hisses. "Get this fucking thing off me!" someone shouts. Where am I? What's happening? Fenlara can't move her head. Her eyes strain at the edges of her peripheral vision, searching for the source of the shouting. "It's just a cat you idiot." Legs walk past her. The cat's next yelp is cut short. The pressure behind her nose and her eyes hurts. It hurts a lot. "Are you sure it's her?" "Of course I'm fucking sure. She tore a door off its hinges with magic vines, then dropped a fucking cat on me out of thin air." Through the pain, Fenlara feels the faint, slow trickle of magic flowing into her. The hand wearing the ring is trying to flex, is straining with effort to break through paralysis and dig Fenlara's fingers into the cracks between cobblestones to reach the earth so she can do more than sip from the air's feeble supply of aether. The ooze of blood out Fenlara's nose slows. Then stops. I can't move, Fenlara thinks slowly. Why can't I move? She blinks, and the next time Fenlara opens her eyes the world is a little less blurry. She remembers the shape of a man appearing in front of her. He was invisible. He cast a spell. I'm being held by a spell.

Look folks, I can't post a teaser containing Percy and Vex right now, those two kids are in a very nsfw place. 🌶️🌶️🌶️