Kess's head snaps up from where she's been centering herself for the ritual. "How many?"
I reach out with senses that go beyond sight—feeling the disturbance in the air, the weight of multiple dragons approaching fast.
"Fifteen. Maybe more." My jaw tightens. "And blessed weapons. I can feel the holy fire from here."
"Go." The mystic doesn't look up from her preparations. "We'll start without you if we have to."
"Kess—" I cross to her, cup her face in my hands. "Stay in the circle. No matter what happens, no matter what you hear?—"
"I know." She grips my wrists, strong despite everything. "Go kill your father. I'll be here when you get back."
I kiss her—hard and desperate and far too brief.
Then I'm running for the courtyard, letting the shift take me before I'm fully outside. Bones crack and reform. Wings unfurl. Fire builds in my chest like a furnace stoked to killing heat.
I launch into the sky as my father's forces descend.
Fifteen dragons in tight formation. War God priests in blessed silver armor that catches the dying light and throws it back wrong—designed to hurt dragon eyes, to blind and disorient. They're mounted on six of the beasts, weapons already blazing with holy fire.
And at the center, my father. Massive. Crimson. Ancient and terrible and utterly certain of his righteousness.
"FATHER." The word tears from my dragon throat. "YOU GAVE US THREE HOURS."
His laugh rolls across the sky like thunder. "I lied. A habit you should understand."
He hits me before I can respond.
Three hundred years of combat experience behind a collision that sends us both spinning through clouds. His claws rake my shoulder, drawing blood that sizzles against scales. I snap at his throat, miss, catch his wing instead and tear membrane.
We plummet together, grappling, fire and blood and screaming wind.
I wrench free before we hit the courtyard. Stone explodes beneath his impact—he's slower to recover than I am, age or arrogance making him careless. I use the moment to gain altitude, to put myself between the castle and the dragons circling above.
"Stand down," I roar at the priests. "This isn't your fight."
"It's exactly our fight." A woman in silver armor raises her spear—blessed fire dancing along the tip, designed to pierce dragon scales. "You're destroying everything the War God built."
"I'm destroying a curse that murders children."
"You're destroyingpower." She hurls the spear.
I twist. Not fast enough.
The blessed fire catches my flank, burns through scales that should be impervious. Holy weapons. Fucking holy weapons. The pain is extraordinary—white-hot and wrong in ways that go beyond physical damage.
I tear the spear free with my teeth. Hurl it back at her dragon. Miss the rider, catch the beast in the shoulder. It screams and wheels away, trailing smoke and blood.
One down.
Fourteen to go.
Dragon combat is brutal.
Not the elegant aerial dance of songs and stories. It's close and vicious and ugly—claws tearing flesh, jaws snapping at throats, wings used as weapons. My father and I have fought before, training sessions that drew blood, but never like this. Never with killing intent on both sides.
He knows my patterns. I know his. Every advantage cancels out until we're just two dragons trying to destroy each other while the castle burns beneath us.
A blessed chain wraps around my wing—holy metal that sears where it touches, disrupts the magic keeping me airborne. I plummet twenty feet before I tear free, leaving scales and skin behind.
