AHHHH!!
The darkness swallowed her whole. She was falling again—tumbling down through the hollow mountain, wings scraping against stone, claws scrabbling for purchase on nothing.
And then the terror took hold.
Sol opened her jaws and screamed.
But what emerged again was not a scream.
It was ice.
Torrents of it.
Glaciers of it.
A blizzard exploded from her throat with a force that shook the very mountain. Frost erupted in every direction—coating the walls, filling the air, transforming the hollow space into a frozen cathedral of crystal and snow.
She heard Korin's roar from above—alarmed, warning—and saw his golden form veer sharply away from the entrance, narrowly avoiding the ice storm that burst from the opening.
Pyrran's silver shape wheeled in the opposite direction, and his voice boomed with shock and respect.
But Sol couldn't stop.
The ice kept coming, pouring out of her in endless waves, her new body unleashing decades of suppressed power in a single, cataclysmic release.
She crashed against the floor of the empty cavern—hard—her massive form skidding across stone that cracked beneath her weight.
Pain lanced through her.
Everywhere.
All at once.
She ended up on her back—a ridiculous position for a dragon, she thought dimly—staring up at the empty space above her.
The cavern stretched high and wide, walls bare and waiting.
And even through the pain, even through the exhaustion, even through the shock of everything that had just happened. . .
One thought crystallized in her mind.
Clear.
Certain.
Undeniable.
This space is empty.
Exhaustion spilled over her.
This space needs treasure. Gold should fill it. Gems. Crowns. And it’ll be all mine!
The thought was not human. It was dragon—pure and ancient and utterly possessive. And it felt more right than anything she had ever thought in her entire life.
Mine. My hoard. My. . .
And somewhere in the fading edges of her consciousness, another primal thought surfaced.
