The silence stretched between Sael and the dragon like a held breath.

  "I can assure you," Sael said, keeping his voice measured, "that I am, in fact, myself. I understand that's not particularly convincing, but it does happen to be true. Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated."

  The dragon's response came as a roar that seemed to shake the foundations of the palace itself.

  "LIAR!"

  Guests stumbled backward, chairs toppling, goblets clattering to the floor. Someone screamed. No one ran, though. Where would they go? The exits were too far, and dragons were faster than any creature had a right to be. So they stayed, pressed against walls and pillars, frozen in that particular terror of small things hoping not to be noticed by something very, very large.

  Sael turned to look at the children.

  They were afraid. Of course they were afraid—only a fool or a madman wouldn't be afraid when a dragon was in this state. But they held their ground. Robin's jaw was set, his hand on the hilt of a dagger that would do absolutely nothing against a creature of this magnitude. Ilsa stood close beside him, pale but steady. And Orion...

  Orion was terrified, his hands were shaking, but he hadn't moved. He stood his ground like the others, and there was something in his eyes that looked almost like determination.

  Sael felt a twinge of something uncomfortable. If he, as the boy's master, did not expect much of Orion, then who would? The boy would rise or fall to the expectations set for him, and Sael realized he may have set them shamefully low. He should apologize later. Yes. That would be good.

  "Do not avert your gaze from me, impostor."

  The dragon's voice cracked through the chamber. Sael turned back to find those enormous golden eyes fixed on him with renewed intensity, a fresh curl of smoke rising from flared nostrils.

  Its massive head lowered, snaking down until it was level with Sael, close enough that he could count the scales around those enormous golden eyes. A growl rumbled from somewhere deep in that cavernous chest, resonating in the chamber.

  "Prove what you claim to be," the dragon said, "or I will devour you where you stand. You and your companions. I will crack your bones between my teeth and scatter what remains across the mountainside for the crows."

  Sael considered this.

  "That seems," he concluded, "a bit much."

  Which it was.

  The dragon's pupils contracted to slits.

  "I only mean," Sael continued, "that there are intermediate steps between 'I don't believe you' and 'I will eat you.' We could try questions first. Or—"

  A throat cleared.

  The sound was so incongruous, so politely mundane amid the tension, that everyone looked. Even Sael. Even the dragon.

  The elf from earlier stood near one of the side passages, hands clasped before him. He was tall for an elf, with silver hair pulled back severely. His robes were simple but immaculately cut, deep blue trimmed with thread-of-gold.

  Sael knew that face. He was certain of it now. Something about the set of the jaw, the angle of the cheekbones. But the name, the context... it slipped away like water through fingers every time he tried to grasp it.

  The dragon's head swung toward the elf, and a fresh wave of heat rolled through the chamber.

  "Kezess." The name came out as something between a growl and a snarl. "You forget yourself. Do you not see I am in the middle of something, chancellor?"

  "I see clearly, my lord." Kezess inclined his head, the gesture respectful without being servile. "And I would not presume to interrupt were the matter not relevant to the current... discussion."

  So this was the dragon's chancellor. Sael studied him with renewed interest. The role made sense; someone had to handle the tedious business of governance while the dragon did whatever it was dragons did with their time.

  It occurred to Sael, not for the first time, that he probably should have paid more attention to these things back when it mattered. Bran had always been the one to handle diplomacy when their party passed through a kingdom, to sit through the interminable meetings with nobles and monarchs and, yes, the occasional dragon. Sael had been content to let him, preferring the comfortable solitude of magical theory to the exhausting performance of politics.

  Perhaps that had been a mistake. Perhaps if he'd bothered to learn how to talk to people—really talk to them, the way Bran did, with patience, charm and all those other qualities Sael had never quite mastered—he wouldn't currently be on the verge of fighting a dragon in a room full of people.

  "Discussion." The dragon's laugh was a terrible thing, all smoke and rumbling stone. "Is that what we're calling this?"

  "You have demanded proof," Kezess said, and he seemed to know exactly how far he could push and precisely when to stop. "The accused claims to be Sael the Great. You, quite reasonably, require evidence beyond mere assertion. I simply wish to offer a suggestion that might resolve the matter efficiently."

  The dragon's tail swept across the floor behind him, sending a decorative pillar crashing to the ground. The guests who had pressed themselves against the walls flinched as one, but still no one moved.

  "Speak, then. Quickly."

  "The histories are clear on certain points." Kezess's gaze shifted to Sael. "The Archmage Sael was rarely seen without a particular artifact. A staff of considerable power, said to have been crafted in the early days of the Archmage himself."

  A murmur rippled through the crowd. Terrified as they were, curiosity proved stronger than self-preservation. They whispered among themselves, and Sael caught fragments drifting through the chamber.

  "Eld," someone breathed, the word carrying like a prayer. Or perhaps a curse.

  Kezess nodded, a slight motion that somehow commanded the attention of the entire room. "Indeed. Eld, the Eternal Flame. The staff that burned like the sun at the battle of Yrsult and held back the Tide of Shadows for seven days and seven nights." His attention returned to Sael, and this time there was something almost like a... challenge in his expression. "If this person is who he claims to be, then surely he could show us this legendary weapon. Unless, of course, he cannot."

  The dragon's growl had subsided to something merely threatening rather than immediately lethal. Those golden eyes fixed on Sael with renewed intensity.

  "Well?" The word was a demand. "Can you?"

  The murmuring swelled. Sael felt the weight of every gaze in the chamber pressing down on him: the terrified nobles, his bewildered companions, the chancellor with his unreadable eyes, and above all, the dragon, waiting.

  Sael sighed. It was a quiet sound, almost lost beneath the murmuring of the crowd and the dragon's rumbling breath, but it carried the weight of something very old and very tired.

  The truth was, he had avoided wielding Eld for... well. Centuries, now. The staff had been made for war, forged in those distant days when his master was preparing him for something Sael hadn't understood was coming. Back then, he'd been young and eager and so terribly certain that power was the answer to everything.

  Eld reminded him of that time. Of battles he'd rather forget, and choices he'd rather not examine too closely.

  And there was another reason, perhaps the more pressing one: like all staffs of true power, Eld had its own ego. Its own preferences. And those preferences tended to align with Sael's most unfortunate emotions. Wrath, primarily. The staff had always been eager for that particular feeling, and always hummed with approval when Sael's temper slipped its leash.

  But as things stood now, with a dragon demanding proof and a room full of terrified nobles and three children who had inexplicably decided to trust him with their futures...

  Sael raised his hand to the side of his head and scratched at the interior of his ear, frowning slightly.

  "Now where did I..." he muttered.

  "Are you," the dragon said slowly, smoke curling from its nostrils, "scratching your ear?"

  "It's been a while," Sael said, still frowning and scratching. "I know it's in here somewhere. Just give me a moment."

  The nobles were staring. Even Kezess's neutral expression had cracked slightly. It was becoming quite embarrassing.

  "Sorry," Sael said to no one in particular. "It really has been quite some time. Ah."

  His fingers touched something that wasn't quite there. A familiar warmth, tucked into a fold of space that existed only because Sael had made it exist a very long time ago.

  "There you are."

  He pulled, and then there was light.

  It wasn't like sunlight, not exactly. Sunlight was something you could look at, however briefly, before turning away. This was so bright and so absolute that for a moment it seemed to erase everything else in the chamber, the dragon, the crowd, the walls themselves.

  People cried out, throwing arms over their eyes. Even the dragon recoiled, wings half-spreading, a snarl tearing from its throat that sounded almost like surprise.

  And the staff grew.

  From Sael's hand, something was emerging: small at first, barely the length of a finger, then longer, and longer still. The light pulsed and expanded with it, white-gold and blinding, and the thing grew and grew until it was the proper length of a staff, and then it was simply there, real and thrumming with power that made the air itself seem to vibrate.

  [You have equipped a named artifact (Eld)]

  [Level adjusted: +2000]

  [Current level: 8807]

  Sael filed the notification away. This reminded him that if Orion ever truly mastered Erwyn, the boy would receive a similar buff, around fifteen hundred, if he remembered correctly. Something to see to when this mission was done.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  But for now, there was Eld.

  The staff was made of wood the color of dark amber, shot through with veins that glowed faintly gold. It was warm in Sael's grip, almost hot, and it was vibrating. A low, resonant hum that seemed to come from somewhere deep within the grain, building and building until the glasses on the nearest tables began to rattle and the great doors at the far end of the hall started to tremble in their frames.

  The mana Eld was releasing was visible even to those without the sight: ribbons and currents of white and blue light streaming off the staff like heat shimmer off summer stone, coiling through the air, making the shadows dance.

  "Easy," Sael murmured, adjusting his grip. The staff's vibration intensified for a moment, petulant, and a nearby window cracked with a sharp ping. "Easy, old wood. I know. It's been a long time."

  The humming subsided. Not entirely—Eld was too pleased to be wielded again for that—but enough that the doors stopped rattling and the glasses stopped their nervous dance across the tabletops.

  The dragon had gone very, very still, and so did the crowd.

  Sael turned to the chancellor.

  "This is Eld," he said. "In its true form. I hope this will be sufficient."

  Kezess inclined his head, a faint smile playing at the corners of his mouth. Sael noticed it, wondered at it briefly, then let it go. He was probably overthinking things, as he always did. So he turned back to the dragon.

  The creature had not moved. Its massive head remained lowered, those golden eyes fixed on the staff. The pupils had dilated slightly, and there was something in that gaze that Sael recognized immediately for having seen it in before: a hunger, the particular covetousness of dragons for things that gleamed or glowed or held power within them.

  He glanced back at Kezess. The chancellor was still smiling.

  Ah, Sael thought, a flicker of suspicion stirring. That may have been a mistake.

  Before Sael could consider the implications of that smile, the dragon spoke.

  "It is him."

  The crowd stirred, and people started talking all at once.

  "The Archmage—" someone said.

  "—actually alive—" another supplied, helpfully.

  "—all this time—" added a third, in case anyone had missed the point.

  The dragon waited. He did not demand silence; he simply existed, and eventually the room remembered what it was in the presence of. The voices died away to murmurs, then to nothing.

  "Sael the Great." The dragon's head rose slightly. "You honor my court with your presence. It has been... a very long time since you were heard about."

  "It has," Sael agreed. "Thank you for the welcome."

  A rumble that sounded like amusement. "You will forgive my caution. The dead do not often walk into my halls demanding audience."

  "Reasonable."

  The dragon settled back slightly, its wings folding against its flanks. The immediate danger had passed, Sael could feel it, the tension in the room easing like a held breath finally released. But those golden eyes remained sharp and calculating.

  "Before I ask how the Archmage of old stands before me still breathing," the dragon said, "I find myself curious about a more immediate matter. You came to my court as an envoy. A representative of some foreign merchant association." Smoke curled from its nostrils. "Why the deception? Why not come as yourself?"

  Sael considered several responses and discarded most of them.

  "We thought it would be easier," he said. "The envoy credentials would grant access to your court without... complications. A quieter approach. More peaceful."

  "And yet here we are."

  "Yes. Here we are."

  The dragon's tail shifted behind it, scraping against stone. "So. What is it you actually want, Archmage?"

  Sael adjusted his grip on Eld. The staff hummed contentedly, warm against his palm. Somewhere far below his feet—beneath the marble floors, beneath the foundations of this palace—he could still feel that now familiar presence, faint but unmistakable.

  Aldric was down there. Alive, presumably. Waiting.

  "We came for a man," Sael said. "A human named Aldric Eryndor. You encountered him several days ago."

  The dragon's eyes narrowed slightly.

  "He's from Albyon," Sael continued. "The duchy of Orlys, specifically."

  For a long moment, the dragon said nothing. Then, slowly, its massive head inclined.

  "I remember."

  "Good," Sael said. "Then I—"

  "The man was arrogant."

  Sael closed his mouth. That was quite rude, he thought, but he also didn't want to create trouble, so he said nothing.

  The dragon's tail swept across the floor, leaving shallow grooves in it. "He walked into my court as if he belonged here. Spoke of power at his fingertips, of armies waiting to be commanded, of a new order rising in the east." Smoke curled from the dragon's nostrils and Sael wanted to ask about that last part, but the dragon wasn't finished. "And then he had the audacity to ask me to join him."

  The word dripped with contempt.

  "Me. Join him."

  The dragon laughed, loud enough to make the chandeliers tremble, and the court laughed with him—nobles, officials, guards—though Sael suspected most of them did so because the alternative seemed unwise. That had to be it, since he failed to understand what was funny, but then again, he had never known much about jokes.

  "So you refused his offer," he said, when the laughter had died down. "Yes?"

  The dragon stopped laughing. Its head swung toward Sael, and there was coldness in those golden eyes now, like he was offended. Was he offended?

  "Of course I refused."

  The words came out clipped and irritated. Definitely offended.

  "I am Ozyarathes the Glorious, King of Ashams and the Four Sandrealms beyond." The dragon's wings unfurled slightly, casting long shadows across the hall. "I am dragonkind, descended from the Primordials themselves, born of fire and fury when the world was still young and soft. We were old when the elves first opened their eyes, ancient when humanity crawled out of its caves. We do not serve, Archmage. We do not follow. We do not join." A low rumble built in the creature's chest. "Kings have knelt before me and begged for the privilege of calling themselves my allies. Emperors have offered their daughters and their treasuries for a single hour of my counsel."

  The dragon leaned forward, and Sael felt the heat of its breath wash over him.

  "I am the one others join. I do not join others."

  The room fell silent. Solemn, almost, as if the dragon's words had demanded reverence.

  Sael felt he should say something to that. He wasn't sure what, and did not want to overthink it.

  "I see," he said.

  That seemed appropriate. Not too short, not too long, and it conveyed the sentiment properly. The dragon regarded him in silence, seemingly satisfied with its monologue. Then it settled back, smoke still curling lazily from its nostrils.

  "So," Ozyarathes said. "What do you want from me, Archmage? The man is in my dungeons. He is my prisoner now."

  "He is Corrupted," Sael said.

  The dragon did not seem surprised. Which meant he knew. Sael realized that and found he did not mind it; if pride alone could keep a dragon from falling to Corruption, then it was a good use of pride.

  "I would like to take him with me," Sael continued. "Back to Orlys. To deal with him there."

  "Orlys," the dragon repeated, as if tasting the word. "A long journey."

  "It is."

  "And you came all this way for one man."

  "He is important."

  "Important enough to deceive your way into my court."

  "Yes."

  The dragon's claws scraped idly against the marble, a sound like knives on stone. "And what do I gain from this... arrangement?"

  Sael frowned. "What do you mean?"

  "The man is my property now," Ozyarathes said, as though explaining something obvious to a child. "My prisoner. To do with as I see fit. I do not give away my property. Not without compensation."

  Sael considered this. "What do you want, then? Gold? Gems? Something from Albyon, perhaps?"

  The dragon's eyes drifted, almost casually, to the staff in Sael's hand.

  "I have always wanted to own a staff," Ozyarathes said. "They are so rare, you understand. So difficult to come by. In all my years, I have never had the opportunity to acquire one, and—"

  "No."

  "No?" the dragon repeated.

  The word hung in the air, and the temperature in the room began to rise.

  "No," Sael said again.

  Ozyarathes shifted deliberately, the way a predator did before it struck. The mana in his core began to leak outward, pressing against the air itself, and Sael watched as the nobles and officials in the court began to stumble, some of them clutching at their chests, others falling to their knees entirely. The pressure was immense, a weight that seemed to push down on the very concept of breathing.

  Sael glanced back. Ilsa, Orion, and Robin stood unaffected, wrapped in the protective spells he had woven around them before they had even entered the palace. They looked confused, perhaps a bit alarmed, but they were fine.

  "LOOK AT ME WHEN I SPEAK, ARCHMAGE!"

  The roar shook the walls. Dust fell from the ceiling, and somewhere behind him, Sael heard glass shatter.

  He turned back to face the dragon,

  ...Not to be pedantic about it, but he was quite certain Ozyarathes hadn't been speaking when he turned away. Just roaring incoherently. Factually incorrect to demand someone look at you when you speak if you weren't actually speaking at the time. Sael considered pointing this out—the dragon seemed like the sort who valued precision—but then decided it probably wasn't the best use of his time given the current circumstances as his attention was elsewhere now.

  The shadows he had sensed at the gates—they were closer. Moving not toward the throne room, but beneath it, toward the dungeons, toward the presence he recognized as Aldric. The dragon had said Aldric asked him to join. Join him in what? And that bit about a new order rising in the east, that had been new information, and it confirmed what Sael had hoped would not be confirmed: this was bigger than one Corrupted mage.

  The shadows weren't here for the dragon. They were here for Aldric. Allies, perhaps, coming to free him.

  "—DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU ARE REFUSING? I HAVE BEEN GENEROUS, MORE THAN GENEROUS, AND YOU STAND THERE WITH THAT LOOK ON YOUR FACE AS IF I AM THE ONE BEING UNREASONABLE—"

  The dragon was still talking. Sael's attention drifted back to him.

  "—I SAID LOOK AT ME!"

  "Enough."

  Sael's voice echoed strangely, as if spoken from the bottom of a vast cavern, or from everywhere at once. The word rippled outward, and his mana core released in response, meeting the dragon's pressure and canceling it out entirely. The effect was immediate: a vacuum of silence, of stillness, where even the dust motes seemed to hang frozen in the air.

  The dragon's mouth was still open, mid-word, but nothing came out.

  This was no longer the time for doing things peacefully. Ozyarathes had made that abundantly clear with every word he had spoken since Sael revealed himself. No, he would do things the way he saw fit, the way he had always seen fit, without worrying about proper etiquette or diplomatic niceties. He would be practical.

  He turned to his three young companions behind him.

  "I am going to go ahead and retrieve Aldric," he said. "We will be leaving soon. Please behave, and defend yourselves if you must."

  Robin opened his mouth to say something, but Sael was already pointing his staff at the marble floor. The spell came without gesture.

  "[Disintegration]."

  A beam of white light lanced downward, punching through stone and earth and whatever lay beneath with the ease of a needle through silk. The floor cracked and groaned, a perfect circle of destruction boring down through the palace, through bedrock, down and down toward the dungeons below. He could have simply phased through it. It would have been faster, quieter, less destructive.

  But at the moment, Sael felt childishly petty. He had not felt that in a while, was it Eld's influence? No matter, it was almost refreshing.

  "WHAT ARE YOU—" The dragon's voice returned, fury blazing in every syllable. "I AM IN CHARGE HERE! THIS IS MY COURT! MY KINGDOM! YOU DO NOT—"

  "Do you feel in charge?"

  It was a genuine question. One the dragon, to his credit, seemed to genuinely consider. Sael watched the shift in those golden eyes, the fury giving way to something else as Ozyarathes seemed to have arrived at the correct conclusion. Which, by pride or stubbornness or both, he refused to accept, because the dragon's nostrils flared, fire building in its throat, wings spreading wide to fill the throne room with shadow—

  The dragon's maw opened, and Sael could see the fire rising from somewhere deep within, a blinding orange glow climbing up the creature's throat.

  "[Seal]."

  The dragon's jaws snapped shut by force, an invisible vice clamping down on that massive snout, fusing scale to scale, locking the mouth closed with the fire still building inside.

  Ozyarathes's eyes went wide. A muffled roar vibrated through the sealed jaws, smoke already beginning to leak from his nostrils, and then the fire that had nowhere to go found its answer.

  The detonation was contained, but only barely. The dragon's cheeks bulged grotesquely, smoke erupting from between clenched teeth, from nostrils, from the corners of eyes. The shockwave rippled outward, shattering what remained of the windows, sending nobles tumbling across the marble floor as Sael cast spells to keep them from getting hurt. The dragon staggered, legs buckling, and then collapsed with a sound like a mountain falling, unconscious before he hit the ground.

  He would live.

  Sael's gaze flicked to one of the shattered windows. Through the broken glass, the night sky stretched endlessly dark, pinpricked with stars, and he cast [Farsight]: his vision sharpened, extended, pushed past the clouds, past the curve of the horizon, past the thin veil of atmosphere itself, until he saw the cold black expanse beyond, the endless nothing where stars hung like distant embers in the void.

  Good enough.

  He extended his will, wrapped it around the dragon's massive form, and cast [Teleport].

  Ozyarathes vanished.

  The throne room erupted into chaos. Nobles screamed and scattered, soldiers brandished weapons with no idea where to point them, the chancellor shouted for calm, words Sael did not bother to hear. The man's smile from before still lingered in his memory, and he found he did not quite trust it.

  "[Pull]."

  The chancellor lurched forward, yanked off his feet by an invisible force, and Sael caught him by the throat as he passed.

  "You're coming with me," Sael said.

  Kezess's eyes went wide, his composure finally cracking, but Sael paid it no attention. He stepped forward, to the edge of the hole he had carved through the palace, and looked down into the darkness below.

  Then he descended, the chancellor dangling from his grip, as the shadows continued their approach.

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