They made good time through the abandoned streets. Neska spotted a few students near the entryway, having decided to elope, and looked extremely flustered as the group slithered, walked, and hopped pa...

The next day was the day of their first foray into the city below and the adjacent tunnels. She was excited...but also a little nervous, considering who they expected to find by the end. Neska thought...

Between classes, training, research, and planning, Neska felt the fatigue building over the next few days. If she wasn’t figuring out every angle to her new and improved abilities, it was finding equi...

Risha whirled around and shoved Markus away. She grabbed the athame off her belt and thrust it to press against the scales of his neck, a cold, uncomfortable anger etched in her eyes. “Don’t you ever....

Neska smiled as her long-bedridden professor walked in, favoring his left side over his right. Kalloway rushed over to him, offering him a seat. “Professor, I see you managed to evade Selkies' care? Y...

“This is a deal with a goddamn devil, Neska.” Neska had heard Juni upset before, but not furious. She didn’t think the normally book-shy mouse was willing or capable of reaching a full-alarm level of ...

No one moved. Everyone froze at the Seeker's sudden action, blood still dripping onto the table. As far as Neska was concerned, it was more dramatic than it was practical. The Seeker, like her, knew t...

Neska folded her arms, scowling at Kalloway. “Okay. Who let my professor in, and…why?” Kasfew nodded. “That was me. As soon as I heard the Seekers had found a partial accessway, I figured it was likel...

The trickle of power running across her scales was more than enough to convince her she'd found the right athame. “Okay, I must ask, Suzie. How will I know I've found the right one?” Neska asked in a ...

Neska spent the next two seconds assessing which explanation would sound less crazy, and realized they all sounded crazy. Therefore, it didn't matter which one she used. “I can…sort of explain.” The w...

Neska and the others backtracked to the main row of vendors, with her determined not only to end that horrific practice, but also to slap the humanity back into people. She should have expected this. ...

Falling forward through space, time, and energy was not something the lamia had prepared for. She couldn't feel her body, she instinctively wanted to coil around safety, trying in vain to latch onto s...

No power this dangerous should ever be used. Neska stared at the incident report for a good minute, blindly taking in information. It wasn’t the details about the necrogen gas that bothered her, or w...

Neska held her sides as she finished the second set, her lungs on fire. Her fingers were numb again. More importantly, she'd demonstrated that her [Witchery] passive was absurdly powerful, and she nee...

Could I kill someone if the evidence was present and absolute? Can I even find his killer with any degree of certainty? Am I sliding down a slippery slope, trading favors for targeted killings? What w...

Finally. Two more levels to go until she could unlock her next Tier. Lay it on me, Vivi. In the meantime, everyone gathered to surveil the n

“Hey, open up, snake! I can hear you in there! We need to talk!” Neska tapped Syrona’s snout to keep her from hissing menacingly at the door where the presumptive Kasfew stood outside. She slid over t...

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All five of them had gathered in Neska’s dorm later in the evening after drying off. There was a touch of chill in the night air now, and a few trees on the campus were slowly changing color, revealin...

Of all the challenging things she had done in her life, Neska found the hardest task was to do nothing. No, wait, was this her second life, or a third? Just how many damn lives had she lived? She was ...

“Hey, stop slithering so fast! I'm gonna have Brent use you for a fetch toy, lizard noodle!” Neska was already bee-lining toward the library, late as it was in the day. The arcane lights had flickered...

“Neska, hey, slither down! I mean, settle down!” Juni called out from behind Neska. Now was not the time to settle down. She pushed faster toward the blocky building of the Redwinn Medical Center, bru...

Neska hadn’t heard much about the man present in the large conference room just outside of the administration office Resalio worked out of. Hadley and Jurik had clued her in that this was Major Gorovi...

“Another attack?! Who, when?” Neska immediately jumped to questions. The guard wagged his hand. "Last night. Two students were hurt, and one Academy professor was lightly injured. They’re all lucky to...

Neska...you have to stay determined... no matter what. Stay alive. Mom...you have to let me go. It's okay to let go. Let the long dark come. I can't. I can't, knowing what I know. You will not suffer ...

“No goddamn way.” Felix had said that at least three times in the last five minutes. This day had turned from bad to shit in that little span of time. First, the hobgoblins had run screaming into thei...

No one spoke for a moment. Neska held onto the clawed leg of the queen for a few seconds before she took the item out of its hand, wiping the ichor off. “Is that…its core?” Noricatu whispered. “Where’...

Neska's gambit paid off: The fiery ray missed by inches, incinerating her duplicate. The Instance core's eye widened in shock as it realized its miscalculation. She curled her body around the core, co...

Neska never broke her gaze with the Instance core. Its presence weighed down on her, made her thoughts muddled, the same way that Marikand had projected the Voice on the night Risha died. She had a na...

All the sound died in the world. The only sound left was Neska’s heart, thudding in her chest, and her rapid breathing. What is going on…what is happening… We remember you, but not this you: the serpe...

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Neska felt the world swirling back into focus, and she gasped as a pair of tiny needle-like pinpoints on her wrist stung, delivering a dose of liquid fire into her veins. She gasped and raised her bod...

Everyone had their positions and their role. Kasfew began casting a stream of fire at the forge, weakening the thermal insulation on one of the struts keeping the entire structure stable. Of the three...

You have got to be kidding me. Neska didn’t know whether to be disgusted, terrified, or furious at the new monster bounding into the room, its hackles raised. She didn’t know what to call it, other t...

Neska slithered around the remnants of the hobgoblin squad, determined to find Kasfew and Noricatu, two of the teams's heaviest hitters. A leg twitched beneath her gaze, and Neska let out a disgusted ...

Hated by humans. Hunted by monsters. Neska will prove that strength comes from more than defeating foes. Neska Aksen knew early on she was different from other snakes, spending her days giving mice bi...

Of all the ideas she'd had, this had to be the most dangerous one to date. Yet, when Neska examined her list of evolutions, she realized that the applications of a dimensional storage were limitless. ...

Neska didn’t need an engineering class to know the danger these goblins presented. She triggered her [Ember Hex] on the blast charges in their hands as they tried to close within throwing range. One d...

The sight of her dying witch. The manic laughter of Marikand. The casual decapitation of a soldier's head by Felix’s toothy maw, the body crumpling lifelessly. Neska had felt her soul scar from these ...

“So, who wants to try the sneaky approach?” The team had pulled back out of sight, huddled in close formation in the middle of a dense grove of trees, near the lookout point. Neska realized they were ...

If there were two things Neska took to heart, it was that there was something new to learn every day, and to be prepared for anything. Right now, she had no idea what to expect: it wasn't normal for t...

Neska opened the window to let Syrona fly out, diving low and then sweeping back to scoot through a doorway as students returned to the dorms. She heard a shriek from one girl…and what sounded like a ...

Meanwhile, at Rivilat... Before anyone could react in the room, everybody's lapels started giving off a small crystalline ping. Neska frowned and tapped it in response, knowing this must be a special ...

Thundering Woods, north of Rivilat… Two weeks of slogging it back to the frontline. Several close calls with Valosian military patrols, and more tracking hounds and flying patrols than he cared for. F...