The draconoid snarled and went for Minton.

  Not for Wilt. Not for Lothar. Not for the guards. Straight at him, as if no one else existed in the room.

  Minton stumbled back and reached for the desk, but his legs gave. He would not have made it to a panic button, a sidearm, or the men in the doorway.

  Lothar von Finsterherz reacted on instinct.

  He did not raise his hands with any elegance. He lunged forward and a force barrier swelled around Minton, dense and cloudy, with the faintest blue tint. Like glass, except alive.

  The draconoid slammed into it full body. Teeth snapped. Claws scraped the surface. It struck again and again, ripping, biting, battering as if fury alone could chew through a wall.

  The barrier shuddered.

  Finsterherz felt it like tendons tearing inside his chest. He clenched his teeth. His throat was already burning, and now it turned savage, but he held.

  “Lothar,” Wilt shouted. “Hold it.”

  “I have it,” he forced out, and he knew it was a lie. The barrier was already starting to crack.

  The draconoid dug at the field with its snout, like an animal rooting through meat. Claws caught and raked. Saliva smeared dark streaks across the barrier. It seemed to understand that if it broke the partition, Minton would be gone.

  Goodman snapped his weapon up.

  “Clear the line,” he barked at the guards, not even sure who he was yelling at anymore.

  He fired nitrogen rounds.

  The shots were short and flat. The rounds struck the draconoid’s body. White frost spread across its scales. For a second it jerked and howled, the sound slicing at their ears.

  It began to freeze.

  Then heat rolled through it. The frost hissed and melted. The scales went slick, as if someone had poured hot water over them. The draconoid arched, and its panting turned it into a furnace.

  “Bastard,” Goodman breathed. “It is heating itself.”

  The female inquisitor stepped closer. Her blade stayed in her hand, but not as an answer in steel. She studied the creature as if solving a different problem.

  “I am going to suppress its mind,” Wilt said.

  Finsterherz wanted to argue, but there was nothing left for speech. The barrier shook. Behind it, Minton sat on the floor, white as paper, staring at the thing like it was his personal death.

  Wilt pulled off a glove. She ran a fingertip along the edge of her blade and nicked herself. Blood rose immediately. She closed her fist as if preparing to strike.

  “Do not interfere,” she said, and her voice carried to everyone at once.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Then she hit.

  Not the draconoid’s body. Not its skull. She punched the air in front of it, as if driving through an invisible door. In that instant, Finsterherz felt the female inquisitor drop into a чужой mind like a crowbar through a wall.

  Wilt jerked, as if shocked.

  Her face went blank for a heartbeat. Her eyes turned glassy. She stood upright, but it was as if she was no longer in the room.

  Finsterherz held the barrier and watched from the corner of his vision. Cold sweat ran down his spine. If Norcutt fell and did not come back, they would be left with the creature and without the one person who understood what they were dealing with.

  The draconoid kept hammering the shield.

  And Norcutt was inside.

  She did not speak to it. She did not bargain. She forced her way in.

  What she found was darkness. Not mystical. Not beautiful. Dirty. Primitive.

  The creature’s mind was simple. No plans. No memories the way a human kept them. One goal, hammered into it like a nail.

  Destroy Stanford Minton.

  Nothing else.

  Norcutt tried to tear that goal out. Break it. Cut it free.

  It would not move.

  This was not desire. It was an embedded command, so deep it held the creature by a string.

  Someone built it, she realized.

  A chill slid through her. This was not just an attack on Minton. This was a tool. Which meant the hand that held it was nearby, and maybe not alone.

  Norcutt shifted approach.

  What if, she thought.

  The idea was ugly. Heretical, if you used Inquisition language. In a colony where people got zeroed in batches, heresy sounded like a joke.

  Do not remove the command. Rewrite it.

  She grabbed the goal like a thread and pulled. Twisted it. Broke it not with brute force but with shape, like drawing over a чужая blueprint until the original lines vanished under her own.

  Destroy Minton, no.

  Serve Wilt Norcutt, yes.

  The creature resisted. Fighting it in the dark felt like wrestling an animal that could not be reasoned with, only restrained. Norcutt pushed and pushed until the resistance dulled into something thick and sluggish.

  She built a cage inside it. Not walls, more like frames. Limits. A simple rule. Listen, and do not surge outward without permission.

  Then one more instruction.

  Suppress the shape.

  Let it look human. Let it wear the assassin’s body. Otherwise they would be shot the moment they walked outside.

  Wilt sucked in a hard breath and opened her eyes.

  She was still standing with her fist raised, blood on her fingers. Her face looked paler than it had a minute ago.

  The draconoid backed off the barrier. It froze. It twitched as if hit from within. Scales slid away like water. The muzzle collapsed into a face. Fingers became fingers. The body tightened and shrank into something human.

  Seconds later the assassin stood in front of them again. Only the gaze had changed. Flat. Empty. Steady. Like an animal taught to sit.

  Finsterherz’s knees nearly gave. The barrier around Minton dissolved. He released it because he could not hold it a second longer.

  “Did you drive it out?” Finsterherz asked, hoarse. “How?”

  Wilt wiped blood from her finger on her sleeve.

  “No,” she said. “I sealed it.”

  She looked at the girl. The body stood still and waited.

  “For now it serves me,” the female inquisitor went on. “But the person who owned that face is gone. There is nobody left in there. It is more like a pet.”

  Goodman watched with open disgust.

  “Is that normal?” he asked quietly.

  “In our line of work,” Wilt said, giving him a look, “it is useful.”

  Minton hauled himself up with a hand on the desk. His face was gray, but his voice had found its anger again.

  “I do not care what you did to it. Who sent it.”

  Wilt nodded as if she had been expecting the question.

  “That is what we find out now,” she said. “Who wants Minton dead.”

  She turned to the guards.

  “Bring in every key person. Now. Ranke. Becker. Jordan. Dorn. Voss. All of them. One at a time. No warning.”

  The guards flinched, but the Head of the Colony was steady enough not to argue.

  “Do it,” Stanford said. “And if anyone tries to run, shoot.”

  Finsterherz perched on the edge of the desk so he would not fall. His throat burned again. Inside him, the chains felt heavier. The dragon listened, interested in what came next.

  Wilt stood straight, as if she had not just climbed into someone else’s head.

  “We start simple,” she said. “With the ones who benefit if the colony burns.”

  Then she looked at the pet in the assassin’s skin.

  “You stay close. You watch. If any of them belongs to whoever made you, I will see it.”

  The girl nodded. Not like a person.

  Like a dog.