“No offense, Sire, but that is always the case.” He slid his gaze out to the other magic-users who stood on the wall with us. “And you have many on your side, while they have none.” He looked back at me. “We have trained together, something rarely done, and it is all because of you. You have made us even stronger and showed us possibilities we didn't know existed.” He bowed. “Thank you for that.”
Another shiver ran through me, this one not so kind. There was a threat in Risarren's gratitude—a promise to find a way to elevate his people even higher. And I don't mean the Eljaffna.
But that was a worry for the future. At that moment, I had greater demands on my attention.
“King Lyrandir, you have three minutes to come down here and submit to my rule.”
“Ah, so he is the usurper,” my father said.
“No, he did not just say submit,” Aras growled. He spun his head to glare at me. “Put him down, Ly! Now!”
“Are you the winner of the unlawful tourney?” I shouted down at the traitor.
He flinched, then straightened his shoulders. “It was not unlawful. But yes, I will be the next king.”
I laughed. I laughed hard and scornfully. I laughed so jubilantly that it was infectious and my troops started laughing as well. I realized that it was the best kind of confidence booster for them—my certainty in their skill.
The man below scowled at me and shouted, “Two minutes!”
What did I care about the rules of war now? They had brought siege weapons to my city. These were my people who had turned against me. They had no intentions of playing fair, so why should I? And I wanted to see just how arrogant they were. If they had trained at all. Particularly in Water Magic.
Hey, it had worked on the others. And the dead hadn't revealed how they died.
“Warn the troops to prepare for imminent dragon fire,” I said to Kleves.
The General saluted me and passed the message on to the colonel beside him. The Colonel hurried off.
Meanwhile, I summoned the strange power inside me, the magic that should have been at odds with the one I'd been born with, but instead gave me balance. Many Dragons embraced it because it meant more power, but they didn't train with Water as I did. Daily. Enhancing what our god gave us and finding union with the gift of the Goddess. That was the secret—the harmony between the two. Most saw those elements as too conflicting to ever work together. But one look at nature proved otherwise. One look at ourselves and our history.
If you knew the story of the Dragon Gods, you'd know that to create life, there had to be a balance between the magic of the gods—Water from Karadas and Fire from Ensarena. The first Dragons had been born of Fire alone, and they had destroyed each other. Water was important. It formed our flesh. It made our blood liquid. It was the basis of our essence. Ensarena may have given us mating magic, but Karadas made our existence possible. Harmony was the key.
So instead of merely attacking this traitorous usurper with Water Magic, I blended the two inside my body and sent the harmonious union out to strike the man who dared to stand against his king. It was time to show these Dragons what I was truly capable of, and who ruled them.
The man was about to speak when droplets gathered around him, swirling up in stunning arcs to weave a cage that lifted him off his feet. He gave a shout and several Dragons ran forward to help him, but there was nothing they could do as their chosen replacement was enveloped in water.
He, however, tried to fight back. The water bulged as he called upon his Water Magic to combat it. For a few tense moments, we battled each other, but I quickly sensed that he was no match for me. For one thing, he didn't know about harmony.
“You are all traitors!” I roared. “You have no honor! Bastards and fools, the lot of you. I hereby strip you of your titles and sentence you to death!”
There was a thunderous sound from the army before me—gasping. They came to attack me, but they were still Dragons. They lived under laws that were created at the dawn of our existence. And those laws ran deep. Already, they had turned against some of them, but they assuaged those ill feelings by telling themselves that I had broken laws too. It wasn't true. And either way, I was still their king. I had the right to remove their status. And yes, I believed that was what shocked them the most—the removal of their nobility, not the threat of death. They were now, every last one of them, commoners.
Those priorities were about to change.
While the nobles gaped and gasped at this unforeseen turn of events, their chosen one drowned in boiling water. His magic wasn't enough to save him. But his immortality would if I didn't finish the job.
The nobles finally realized what was happening when the water rose, taking the drowning Dragon with it. Bringing him to me. I lifted him over the wall and my family stepped back, making room for me to drop the wet mass onto the stones.
Where my army could see him.
He crumpled into a monstrous heap, his flesh bright crimson and covered in boils that ruptured as I watched. He couldn't open his eyes. I suspected they had melted. But he still gasped and clawed at the ground, his body trying to heal.
“Behold the usurper!” I shouted for all the soldiers to hear. “The punishment for betraying me is death! I will commit this first execution myself, but then I charge you, my brave and loyal soldiers, to carry out my command and execute the rest.”
Before the Dragon could recover, I lifted him by his throat. The invading army—or rather, the traitorous army who I'd just sentenced to death—went silent as I easily hefted their champion off his feet. Globs of flesh dripped from him to splat onto the stones below. He moaned as my grip dislodged fat and skin, showing the muscles beneath.
“As your king, I have the right to judge and punish you,” I said to the man. “I find you guilty of treason and sentence you to death.”
A squeeze, that was all it took. But I added a twist to take the man's head off his body. Then I tossed that head to his friends.
