Several Cinders jumped to attention when Pyre approached the wall surrounding the main estate, bit not a one dared bar his entrance. One guard tapped their staff on the elevated platform he stood, and the large double doors pulled open much like they would in a castle. This castle wasn't much for defense though. Made of mud, sand, and thatch, it would fall if a Cascade so much as sneezed around it.

Pyre walked in with little care to the mumblings of his people who should have been loyal to him. They backed away as he headed for the main door, but one of them grabbed Stone's cloak. Before Pyre could curse the man out, Stone had the offender face down on the ground, a hand on the back of his head and a knee planted in his back. The mage struggled, but Stone wrenched his arm so hard that he stilled with a gasp of pain. Soulless grey eyes looked to Pyre for direction, and he waved Stone forward. The order Pyre wanted to give was for Stone to gut himself, but as obedient as the vampire was, Pyre doubted he'd kill himself at Pyre's behest.

It was not difficult to locate Blaze, his powerful magic emanating down the halls, but finding Blaze did Pyre little. In a lounge like area with circular couches and a bowl of ice filled with alcohol, Blaze was resting, his spikey, red hair waving from the breeze of a battery operated fan. He was likely recuperating from his attack on Talamayas, but if so, then it meant they intended to strike again. All the more reason Pyre needed to slap sense into him. The sound of Pyre's heavy footfalls snapped Blaze's eyes open, but he barely paid him any mind before zeroing in on Stone behind him.

"What is that?" Blaze nearly laughed, sitting up in his white, sleeveless, mage coat, confident that Stone was no threat due to his lack of magic. Or at least he was at first, until he looked too long at Stone's dead eyes and rigid form, his body poised and ready to strike to kill at any moment.

"Local help," Pyre smiled as he descended the half flight of stairs into Blaze's recessed lounge. "I enlisted a tour guide to see the sights." The words came from Pyre's mouth bitter, a joke yet a threat of what Stone really was. Blaze was too calculating to respond, so Pyre continued, "You have to stop this, Blaze. Turn yourself in, release the Cinders here to the Alliance's judgement, and return Talamayas' mate. The Alliance will treat them much less harshly if they turn themselves over."

"I do not bow to those vampire fucking pigs." Blaze's exact wording had Pyre flinching. That term now included his daughter, but Pyre'd be damned if he let Blaze find that out.

"You can't win against Talamayas, Blaze. What math did you fail at in this calculation?" Pyre tried cold hard facts rather than conscience since Blaze appearedly had no remorse for the way he was condemning their people.

"No, I can't, not with Cinders alone. Good job figuring that out, Pyre. I'm impressed."

The sheer weight in Blaze's condescension made Pyre want to break his face, but they were too evenly matched to go toe to toe with any real benefit. Blaze had never liked that Pyre was in charge, but the level of hatred in his voice struck a chord that had Pyre worried for his children. For a while, he'd doubted whether Blaze would try to hurt Helia or Horus after he'd set Pyre up, but now there no doubt in his mind.

There would be no place safe from death until Blaze fell.

"You are giving me little choice, Blaze."

Pyre's eyes darkened as he realized he'd have to take Blaze down now, before the man could doom his house and strike at his children. Stone picked up on his plans and shifted to his back in an instant. It had Pyre clenching his teeth from the vampire's back flush with his, the disgust of the position paling in comparison to how quick and competent Stone was in combat. Helia had taken in a wounded wolf, but it had healed and was showing its fangs. How long would it continue to follow its new master before the call of the wild had it ripping out their throats?

"Quite the tense atmosphere in here."

A deeper voice had Pyre jumping his attention to the doorway on the far side of the upper level. It bordered the lounge, up only a few feet, so Pyre didn't have to look far to find the deadly ash eyes and blood-red hair of Riff Song. It had been more than half a century since Pyre had seen the first general of the Songs, and Riff had aged none in the years. The war general had only gained strength, both in muscle and magic. Riff crossed his bare arms over his chest as if he didn't think Pyre was worth noting.

"You can still join us in taking down the Sols, Pyre," Riff said evenly, no hatred pouring from him like with Blaze. There was still an ocean of condescension, but the Songs had always been pretentious pricks when dealing with other mage houses. "It's a shit fight either way, both Blaze and I know that, but it's a worthy one. That torturer has been left to his sickening pleasure for far too long. It's time to cut out his knees and hang his head from the battlements for all to see."

"Where is Wren?" Blaze asked, and that name peaked Pyre's attention.

"Taking the scenic route." Riff's stiff tone said that it was none of Blaze's business.

Even though they were allies, there was contempt between them, which meant their endeavors would fail regardless of how many chain wielders they could muster. Talamayas would run through a united front with his armies, let alone this ramshackle handful of grand mages and the fools that followed them.

"You mages look like you're having fun." A man walked into the room behind Riff. The wavy ember hair and eyes gave Pyre the first impression that he was a Cinder, one of his people. The sharp cut of his jaw and narrow eyes trained for death resembled the Cinder generals so well, but dark magic permeated the air around him. It felt off, warped in some way, but its existence meant that this one wasn't a mage.

Pitch clothed him from shoulder to ankle, covering his arms in fine silk, and his pants hugged his built thigh muscles before they opened near his feet. None of it was mage attire. It was more like the rich clothes of some society-bred whelp who was parading around on a pre-college world tour.

"Agni, what are you doing here?" Riff growled with every vampire-hating fiber in his body. Whatever the man was, he was unwelcome by everyone here, yet Riff remained calm. Agni wasn't a threat to him even if he wanted to spit in his face.

"I didn't realize the Songs has stooped to working with vampires." Blaze's disgust was pointed toward Riff, but it lessened as simmering grey eyes pinned him. The way Blaze shrank from Riff showed who was in charge around here.

"The Songs would never deign to associate with vampire filth. Agni is a dhampir from the heinous coupling of one of yours with a beast."

So Pyre's first impression had been correct. Agni was a Cinder, but a dhampir?

"Yet you know him." Blaze didn't know when to bite his tongue.

"Yes, its mother sheltered us to hide for many years, so I tolerate its presence. That is all. I would never involve a half-breed beast in my plans. Return to the caves, Agni. I won't have your mother heckling me because you followed."

"That's no fun." The dhampir showed his fangs when he growled, stretching his thin pale lips. Whatever Cinder had borne him was from Blaze's mousey branch. Pyre's side of the tree had broader noses and fuller lips. "What about that? Are you going to kill it? Can I kill it?"

The it was Pyre, and he shifted back only to flatten himself against Stone's rigid form. Riff's grey eyes met Pyre's and knew that he wasn't going to join them.

"You do have a grudge against the Cinders who ordered your death, don't you. Don't touch any of the ones loyal to me, but you can kill Pyre. Shred him for all I care." Riff's sharp words were echoed by a dark cackle as the red eyes of his people warped with the dark magic of a vampire.

Strong arms moved Pyre even before he'd gathered enough of himself to run, Stone pulling him along out the door. A wall of Cinders waited side by side for the result of Pyre and Blaze's conversation. Stone paused, but they had no intention of accosting them. They were, however, barring their escape through the way he came, so Stone dragged Pyre down a long corridor in the other direction.

Dark magic chased them, ricocheting off the walls, but by then Pyre was moving on his own with Stone flanking him from behind. The hall seemed to lead around the complex, but there were no doors or windows for them to escape from. It was a narrow death trap of clay bordering anti-magic deep within, so trying to blow through them would be wasted energy. It was sturdier than Pyre had been able to tell from the outside. Somehow he'd walked into a fortress thinking it was a hut, and he knew his worry for his children had pushed him to make the rash decision.

They were the one thing that could tear away his better sense.

Pyre's face hit the ground, and he realized only after struggling like a fool that it was Stone's hand holding his head. When he was allowed to lift his chin, Pyre found the boy cut like shredded lettuce. The cloak he wore was nothing but tatters, and slices from blades littered him in red, oozing slashes. The best Stone had managed was keeping his head on his shoulders and his limbs attached, which wasn't much. The wounds started to close slowly as Stone picked up Pyre and continued to move, but cuts caused by dark magic took longer to heal.

Pyre found the source of the danger in several dark half-moons that bounced from wall to wall in a lethal volley ahead. Those had passed, and they sped along before disappearing, but more would follow. Dark magic in close quarters was a death sentence, but they had no choice but to continue on. Even if Pyre stopped to beg for his life, not that he ever would, Blaze was no longer here. It was just Stone and he dhampir, the first of which pushed him forward and stopped.

"I'll keep him here. Please flee." The darkness in Stone's eyes showed that he knew they were mismatched. Vampires had the advantage in small spaces, but Stone had no magic, and from what they'd seen of the dhampir's abilities, it would be a short fight even with it. The beast had grown in caves, if Riff was to be believed, so this dank underbelly of the earth was its playground.

"You should be the one running, Stone. I got you into this by bringing you along, and I can't just leave you to die." Pyre couldn't believe he said the words even as they came out of his mouth. Stone didn't miss them either and something soft rolled behind that grey gaze.

"I won't die, Pyre. I will stall him until you're safe, then flee myself. Now go." Stone pushed him as the dhampir dropped down in front of them with a growl hungry for death.

Pyre ran. Not because he was afraid to face his enemy or his end, but because he knew the vampire was too stubborn to do so in his stead. Even with their decision to split, the effort was mostly wasted. Pyre headed down the hallway with what haste he could manage, but the dhampir saw that he meant to flee and pushed Stone with force and magic until he was right behind him. Again and again.

Dark magic followed in a hellish rain of blades that Stone did his best to thin before Pyre was tossing himself through the air like a salad to hope he'd fall back in one piece. The door to the outside came on them in a burst of light, but half-moons chased him, and Pyre pushed off the ground to throw himself into the open and out of their path. Doing so thrust him face first into the arc of a curved blade, and the momentum he'd used to escape one death doomed him to another.

"Pyre!" Stone's yell did little as Pyre closed his eyes reflexively, knowing it was futile but also desiring very little to watch his own demise.

A shove to his gut sent him reeling but pushed him out of the way of his end. The force had him gasping for air as he collided with hard cobblestones surrounding a small well, but he picked himself up to face whatever enemy lay ahead. Moisture dripped from his face, and he wiped it away only to find his hand soaked in crimson. It was blood, and it was cold.

"No," Pyre's whisper shook as he tried to make sense of the scene at his feet. Blood pooled there, soaking into his white mage attire as it poured from Stone's head. Or where his head should have been. The boy had pushed him out of the way and taken the blow meant for him. And he wasn't getting back up. The blade had severed his head through the center, and the gruesome, near-headless corpse had Pyre's eyes filling with tears that he shook away as his stomach heaved.

"Damn, I missed," a second dhampir said, dropping down to the ground from the roof of the building across the alley. It was a twin of the first, wavy hair the color of flames, pale skin, and ostentatiously rich clothes. Light magic coursed under his fingers, but the same wicked fangs shined as the man smiled. With a chuckle, it yanked the blade from Stone's corpse, and slid hits hand along the spell-forged metal to wipe the blood off. Turning to Pyre, it lined the blade with light magic and tapped the cobblestones. "I won't miss again."

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