From the confines of the barrier, desperate bolts of battle magic traced futile arcs toward the nimble airborne assailants. The skies seethed with my smaller kin, their scales a chaotic patchwork: deep forest green, volcanic black, and pristine icy white. The threads of connection linking us ran cold and dim; their minds and mana were equally scarred.

  Below, the capital streets was a tapestry of chaos. Humans fled the city in droves. Outside the city, I noted those who had already been displaced by the slavers’ attack on me. This seemed to be the only are that wasn’t in chaos; but that was likely because they had an ancient silver dragon positioned between them and the city.

  Vox had some explaining to do.

  With a growl, I turned my focus back to the city. It looked like the domesticated dragons primarily focused their rage on the castle, but the city wasn’t unscarred. The cloying odors of smoke, blood, and fear wafted up from the twisting streets, prefacing a shrieking pandemonium. Once graceful buildings now slumped over in a pile rubble, felled trees and wreckage lay strewn randomly about.

  Cacophonous draconic threats echoed from above, answered by the screams of terrified citizens. Chaos reigned, as the city came to its knees. There was a certain irony that the monster attacks sponsored by the horrors had failed to overrun the city, but the rage of their former guardians proved to be too much. It was a gut churning scene, yet I perceived the necessity of it through draconic eyes.

  My lesser brethren were simply reclaiming the power that had ever been denied them, heedless of concepts like mercy or restraint.

  As we circled lower through streams of black smoke, individual details leapt into focus. A fleeing woman desperately clutched an infant to her breast. Dragonlings too young to be ridden exhilarated by their first tastes of unfettered destruction, dive-bombed targets with abandon. Such was the ruin of Forlay.

  I couldn’t invoke much by way of sorrow at the sight we returned to. The sorrow I felt most strongly was Cami’s, but when she spoke it wasn’t to plead for me to save the humans.

  “They’re going to ruin everything, if we don’t reign them in. The last thing we need is a war between humans and dragons.”

  I had to nod in agreement before diving closer in, streaking towards the dome as I opened my jaws and roared. The sound split the air, drawing the attention of every dragon in the sky and each human upon the ground—as was only proper.

  My message was clear: the King had arrived.

  Chapter 26 - Lost Sheep

  My roar shook the sky and the waves of dragon fear which rolled off of me paralyzed the humans in the city. I felt my outrage surge. It wasn’t that I felt what the domesticated dragons were doing was wrong—far from it. I understood their outrage, but their desires fell secondary to mine.

  There were issues in play larger than their little minds could understand, and until I could restore them to what they were meant to be, they needed to obey—like children. No fresh hatchling would long survive an argument with their mother, and to all these soul-crippled dragons, I was both mother and father.

  As far as I could tell, the power created through my bond with Cami was their only hope for restoration. Beyond that, I was a dragon monarch. I was still learning what that meant, but I wasn’t going to allow disobedience on my first day.

  One of the freed dragons came flying at me. It was no more than a quarter of my length. Make that… her. She was definitely a female. Whoever she was, she had the courage of a dragon. That wouldn’t be enough; our foes didn’t care about heart.

  Strength was all that mattered.

  Cami asked, “How do you want to handle this?”

  “The only way possible. The law of strength must be honored. If one of them attacks me, I will put them down.”

  “Strength may be the first law,” Cami argued, “but there are other laws. They are dragons—as best they can—and they are your family, in a way. Surely the law of family will temper your strength. Or do you wish to slay your own kin as Tiamat did?”

  If any other human had said such things to me, I would have scoffed and then done as I pleased. But this was Cami, my bonded. I’d let her become my conscience when it came to humans—the question was whether I trusted her to counsel me when it came to dragons. Perhaps there was a way to temper strength with compassion.

  At least this one time, I would try it—for Cami’s sake.

  “Keep her busy but be ready to leap back to me,” I sent to my rider.

  Cami didn’t bother to affirm her understanding. During battle we were starting to work as one, and she understood my plan.

  Shadow Step

  She was suddenly gone from my back. The defiant green was almost close enough to spit at me, when Cami suddenly appeared atop her back. The small shadows created by the green’s beating wings as they rose were enough for her to work with. Her spear appeared in her hands and she drove the blade into the dragon’s wing, ripping the blade through the membrane which helped keep the green aloft.

  The wound was one which could be easily healed yet would force the dragon to land. She screeched her rage but broke off from me as she began a slow spiral downward. I was sure she’d give Cami a fight to stay on her back, but I had confidence in my bonded—just as she did in me.

  I just needed to prove that confidence wasn’t misplaced.

  These dragons, as small as they were, were still too large to remain aloft solely by the might of their wings. They might not have true control of Ileria’s magic, but they innately drew upon it to keep them in the air.

  Reaching out with my expanded might, I realized my soul was becoming something greater—just as Cami’s was. Whether it was my elevation to dragon monarch or something else, I knew I could do… more.

  As my will settled on the very air itself, I felt the world warp to fit my needs.

  The sensation was similar to my class ability, I Am the Storm. But this was more fundamental than wind, water, and lightning. In the air there were small tethers of energy for which I didn’t have a name. They bound everything together. Fortunately, I didn’t need to name them to control them. I yanked and, with a second mighty pull, ripped away all of the magic that kept the tiny dragons aloft.

  Panic struck as they began to fall, quickly followed by outrage at being denied the sky. Though I could empathize—my months in human form had taxed me in a similar way—I had no sympathy for children who could not obey. Their survival instinct took over and they using their wings to glide and control their fall. A dragon’s wings might not be enough to keep them airborne without the magic of Ileria, but they could glide to the ground as they pleased.

  But I wasn’t done.

  I sucked in my breath and breathed out lightning—just not a condensed bolt of plasma which would kill.

  Spark Storm

  I pushed my breath weapon to its limits, thinning out the effects of this limited form of lightning as I spread it across the sky. I needed to control where the rogue dragons landed. I pushed them toward the opening where Vox was waiting.

  If they landed in the city, the loss of life and destruction would be tremendous. I could support their attacks against the nobility. I could understand their rage. But I couldn’t afford to let them ruin the alliances against the terrors I was building.

  I swooped amongst them, herding them like a shepherd’s dog gathered a lost flock. I pushed against them with Dragon Fear, my roar, and carefully placed nips or slaps with my tail.

  Soon, the entire flock, hmm… a ‘flock’ didn’t sound grand enough. What did one call a formation of dragons? We were solitary creatures. The humans called them a flight or a wing, but it didn’t feel right to use human terms to describe free dragons. Then inspiration hit me.

  A group of dragons in flight would be called a prayer, because if they descended upon you that was all you could do.

  An instant later, Cami activated Spectral Tether and returned to my back. She chuckled, “A prayer? Really? Sounds like someone wants to declare war on the gods… I like it.”

  I hadn’t realized I was thinking so loudly that she heard me through the bond, but the excitement in her voice only confirmed my choice. I watched as Nagafen worked to calm the human refugees outside the city as Vox direct the descending dragons into a controlled area. A part of me thought that the time for control had passed, but I’d seen Tiamat. We hadn’t always been solitary creatures.

  Eons had flown by since that had been the case. Now, solitude was part of who we were as dragons—but we could work together. We’d have to, if this was going to work.

  I landed on the far side of the dragons. There were twenty-seven freed dragons large enough to have been bonded and ridden, with another twelve juveniles. Some of them were little more than five feet long.

  The angry green bellowed, “Who are you to stop us from wreaking our vengeance upon the humans?!”

  Stepping forward, I pumped out Dragon Fear in a narrow focus. With a snarl, I pushed it against the green female. She was the only one foolish or bold enough to speak up, which meant I needed to win her over.

  “I am, Nicosandumas. You owe your freedom to me.”

  The green struggled to lift her head, which was pressed down to the ground under the power I exerted against her. As she tried and failed, a black from behind her shouted, “So we have exchanged one master for another?”

  I roared and pounced. It might have seemed brutal to the humans who were watching, but we weren’t human. My extended claws struck before he could react and the black was driven backwards.

  The other dragons scurried out of the way, making a dueling circle for us. They’d hardly turned around, though, before it was finished. The duel, such as it was, ended in an instant. He launched himself against me but couldn’t penetrate my scales. Shocking Aura electrocuted him both times he tried to attack. After demonstrating the futility of attacking me, I struck.

  My jaws opened and I seized him by the neck before lifting his entire body off the ground. It would have been easy to snap his neck, but I didn’t want to kill any dragon I didn’t have to. Instead, I shook him until he finally went limp.

  Dropping him, I locked eyes with him. In response, the black lowered his head and exposed his neck. Internally, I sighed with relief.

  “Who else wishes to challenge me?” I growled.

  When none of the other dragons spoke, after a full minute of silence, I said, “This is your last chance.”

  A small white asked, “What do you mean by our last chance?”

  “Yes. This is your last chance to duel me for dominance and not lose your life. If any or all of you think you can defeat me, then come at me. I will do my best not to kill you… here and now. But if none of you take me up on this offer and attack me later, I will kill you without a second thought.”

  The small white ducked her head.

  “This is what it means to be a dragon,” I continued. “We can be wise and benevolent, but wisdom means nothing without the strength to back it up.”

  From where her head still pressed into the ground, the green said, “But you have a rider!”

  “Yes, I have a rider… and a freely formed bond.” I might have been stretching the truth a little, but they didn’t need to know the details. “I have freed you from bondage. Someday, hopefully soon, you will get to make more choices for yourself—but for now you are children and will obey. Together we shall form a nation in the south, and from there we will drive back the horrors before they can destroy all that is ours. Then, together, we shall have our vengeance for what was done. And finally, we shall let all of Ileria know that the age of dragons has come again.”

  Pushing out with my Dragon Fear, I cast Adoration of the Fearful.

  Such a tactic wouldn’t work against real dragons, but these little soulless lizards barely had a claim to the name. All the mattered was that it worked. They all bowed before me and I felt the reverence owed to a dragon monarch. Their homage was intoxicating, even if it was only from domesticated dragons.

  Cami stood on my back and yelled, “Swear. Swear allegiance to the one and only dragon monarch, Nicosandumas, the living storm!”

  I wasn’t sure how they’d respond, but one by one all dragons present began to croon.

  Vox stepped up and called out, “Repeat after me: I bow before you Dragon King, with the tips of my claws, the strength of my bite, and the power of my breath, I pledge my fealty.”

  It took more than one try, but they all eventually gave the oath—at least all those who could speak. I felt the weight of their oaths settle onto me.

  Your title Dragon Monarch has progressed by 4%.

  Your stats, draconic abilities, and control of the magic of Ileria are boosted by an additional 5%. You have progressed toward accessing the Horn Evolution. 5/100 dragons have pledged their fealty to you. Prismatic Evolution is still missing.

  I felt power surge through me. There was only one appropriate response, and I raised my head a roared my challenge to the heavens. I’d figure out later why the domesticated dragons only counted for roughly 1/10th of a dragon.

  I also had to determine what to do with Vox—she had clearly failed me. And then I needed to speak to the humans in the capital. Today’s rampage complicated things, but I still intended to make Forlay an ally… if only temporary allies.

  Interlude 5 - Oblivion

  Arjes Sillun, lich King and former emperor of Taleia, smashed the glass vial in front of him. Such an outburst was uncharacteristic for him. He normally had firm control over his emotions, but now he felt everything slipping away from him.

  No. He pounded his bony hand into the table. Being deceptively strong and durable despite his appearance, the wood of the table shattered. One by one, his tools had been undone.

  Castine, the usurper, was responsible for derailing most of his plans. He’d put decades of work into various pawns, only to have them summarily rounded up and destroyed. Not for the first time, he cursed that man’s ability to scry secrets.

  Despite his replacement’s scrying, knowledge, and armies, Castine was not the cause of today’s outburst. The title of he who bothered Arjes the most fell to another. Castine had been surpassed. That honor went to the dragon, Nicosandumas.

  Who would have imagined there existed such a dragon—one who cared about anything beyond gold and its next meal? They were brutish creatures bound to the world of Ileria, and Arjes had no respect for the beasts. The fools had supplied him with his power for centuries.

  Even as he drained the souls from their comrades, none had sought him out or tried to battle him. He laughed even now at the thought. But lately, that power was being cut off. All but a few of the collared dragons had been freed and he no longer had an endless supply of power to work with—not that he suffered for a lack of power.

  At level thirty-six, he was the greatest mortal wizard. With luck, one day he would become more than mortal. But the gods had turned their backs on him, forcing him to seek assistance… elsewhere.

  Men variously called them the shadow of oblivion or horrors, but if they only knew. Arjes couldn’t be certain, but he’d recognized a pattern when it was reversed. There was a connection between the horrors and the gods, and it revolved around Ileria.

  The Arch Lich stood and looked at the mess he’d made. Shaking his head with disgust for his momentary loss of control, it wasn’t long before Arjes smiled again. The problem was the solution.

  If he couldn’t reach out to his extra-planar allies for their power or counsel, he would just remove the obstacle. Perhaps in doing that he’d find the power he needed. After all, it’s the early lich who gets the wyrm.

  Chapter 27 - Travel

  Getting all of the dragons flying east towards the island which was my lair went much easier after that. Before we departed, Cami and Nagafen kept tabs on the freed dragons while I had words with Vox.

  As soon as I pulled the silver dragon aside, she bowed her head, “My King…”

  “You’ve lived too long with humans,” I grumbled. “Dragons don’t need special gestures or pointless words. We know what really matters—and right now that is your oath to me and my dissatisfaction with you. I left you here to keep the freed dragons under control. If you couldn’t manage that for one day, how can I trust you to be my royal advisor?”

  She tilted her head, exposing her neck.

  That was an appropriate gesture, if such things were necessary. She held it there for a full minute while I watched her intently. Eventually, when I didn’t attack, she straightened her neck.

  “I was uncertain what you would decide,” she admitted. “I don’t have your ability to impress my will upon the lesser dragons. All I could have done was kill them if they defied me, and I didn’t believe you wanted that.”