The Three land as the first slivers of light slowly inch across the dunes, their ship disturbing the planet’s serenity. The twin suns promise a warm day.

Born of a human mother and a wyvermorph father, Argent, Titian, and Sinope have one objective: to rescue their father, Pyrin. Following an attack on their home world, he was taken.

They scan the area for the blood lake, a constantly shifting phenomenon and access to the military stronghold, Formgol, in the heart of the forbidding landscape. Finally, sighting the entrance, they move.

“Remember, General Finvarra will have him beneath the hub in his private lab,” Argent mutters. Unlike her sisters, she sports green eyes, and tissue-like shimmery scales cover her face. Her body is silver-white, and one snow-white hair curl falls onto her forehead.

Two nod.

The latest intel on their father’s whereabouts is solid. Finvarra’s brutality is known throughout the galaxy. His predilection for inflicting torture before death goes without saying, particularly with wyvermorphs. He hates the breed and will take his time with their father, the Elder of the species.

 

* * *

 

Once beyond the bloody gateway, the sisters trek along a narrow sinuous cliff dotted brownish-red by past libations. Rotting corpses of fallen sky travellers teem with hungry maggots. Kneeling, Sinope makes the sign of the Protectress on her bare breast. Grim-faced, they walk on—the fortress beckons.

The edifice juts at rough angles from the rugged rock of the cliff face. On its right are the choppy waters of a purple ocean. Waves crash against the rock face. Multiple bluish-grey stone walls peek from behind modernized walls, and intrusive vines snake along the crumbling remains of yesteryear, seeking a crack or foothold. Hungry weeds stand upright against the stonework. There is no visible entry point amidst the desolation.

“You know what to do, Sinope, ” Argent urges.

Sinope, her green metallic skin undulating, touches the stone. Shoots of acidic plant tendrils burst from her nail beds and race along, smothering and dissolving the metal surface of one wall section. A further crop generates and continues its aggressive progress until nothing remains but a smoking clump of rubble and oozing metal.

 

* * *

 

They file through the opening to the inner perimeter. Armed personnel throng the area.

Argent places her hands on the ground, letting the damp soil run between her fingers. She grins—enough copper, salts, and ions to maintain the charge. Electricity flows from her body as her sisters watch. The guards fall where they stand, victims to her direct current, which quenches their life force.

The installation is a crisscross of gangways and corridors and Sinope’s corrosive touch quickly dispatches panicked stragglers. They locate the passageway to the underground holding cells and Finvarra’s torture room. Argent runs her hand along the walls as she walks. A bismuth and tungsten composition. Carbonized steel floors. Her ability would have little to no effect here.

Titian takes the lead, and the others follow. The deeper they get, the cooler it becomes. Accompanying them are the agonizing cries of a sole occupant: their father. Titian quickens the pace. One errant trooper patrolling the area meets a swift end as her flame-filled fury decorates the path with his human-sized ash pile.

The prisoner’s screams become silent as they approach the final barrier, a polygonal blast door.

“Are we too late?” Titian asks, nibbling her bottom lip.

“I don’t know. We must hurry.” There is a catch in Argent’s voice.

Sinope makes short work of the door, and they step into the underground lab.

Inside, a gore-ridden polymer rope snakes through holes cut in Pyrin’s upper arms, restraining him. Gory globs collect like tarnished, grotesque chestnuts on his shredded flesh, and sticky splatters congeal, almost obliterating the silver veins on his bronze-tipped wings—bloody smears pepper his thinning green hair. A brief glimpse of diamond tail-tip peers shines amidst a sea of red, and his midnight black tail is sodden with blood.

Titian’s lips draw back in a snarl. She lunges for Finvarra.

“Not yet, Sister,” Argent warns, seeing the gun the general is pointing at their father’s downcast head.

“Smart decision. My men?” Finvarra asks. At Argent’s expression, he pales. “It seems I’ve underestimated you.”

“No argument here,” Argent replies, staring at her father.

“He’s still alive. So you let me go, and you can have your Elder once I’m safely aboard my shuttle.”

No response. All three look at their father. His eagle feet twitch. Alive. They turn their attention to his captor.

“Did you hear me?” Finvarra shouts.

“Yes, we heard,” Titian’s voice is quiet. “This is not the first time our father has been captured. He is prepared to die, as are we.”

“F-F-Father?”

“Are you prepared?” Titian walks towards him.

Finvarra shoots, but the bullets ricochet off of the sisters. He tries to run. A flash of a blade flies through the air—a wet sound. Finvarra stumbles, the knife protruding from his thigh. Titian moves in for the kill. Howling in pain, he pulls the knife from his leg. Blood gushes. Titian laughs as she transforms. Her father’s daughter.

Finvarrra’s eyes widen in horror as he sees her bronze skin tear apart, revealing a scaly, monstrous interior. Screaming in terror, he plunges the knife into the left-hand side of Titian’s morphing face. She shrieks in pain and pins him to the wall. Blood seeps from her wound, colouring her face crimson. Sparks flare in her violet eyes as they grow, her jaw extends, and when she stands there in her wyvern form, Finvarra shakes uncontrollably.

“I will be merciful since our father yet lives, ”she whispers, her breath warm on his clammy skin.

Hope flickers in his eyes.

“I will make it quick.”

Hope dies.

Titian smiles as she throws him into the air. His screams resound as her flames engulf him mid-air, licking his body until he disintegrates into grubby coloured motes that flutter to the ground.

 

* * *

 

Two new suns rise as the Four leave the stronghold; the Three carry their wounded sire.