Then I woke in the light of the Starlight Palace.
Alone.
On a catafalque.
For a moment, I thought death had finally managed to be tasteful. White stone beneath me. Radiance above. Silence so absolute it felt curated. The palace had always loved its own sanctity, its impossible polish, its cold grandeur pretending to be peace.
Then I heard a voice.
Low.
Grieving.
Praying.
I turned my head.
Bahamut knelt beside the slab, head bowed, hands clasped before him as if he had any damn idea who might be listening.
A god praying.
The irony was almost enough to make me laugh.
Almost.
He was speaking rites for me. Wishing me passage into whatever waits beyond divinity, as if gods had shepherds, as if there were some higher hand ready to receive us when even worship failed. I knew better. I had seen the edge of it. The quiet after the last thought. The blankness beyond all the pretty lies mortals and immortals tell themselves so endings feel less obscene.
Nothing waited.
Not mercy.
Not judgment.
Not even darkness.
Bahamut looked up.
The prayer died in his throat.
For several seconds, he only stared.
I sat up.
His eyes widened, awe and fear tangling across his face so quickly it might have been funny under different circumstances. I slid my legs over the side of the catafalque and stood in front of him, naked in the same human-like form I had worn when the hunt first began.
No armor. No robes. No blood.
Nothing.
I felt more exposed than the lack of clothing should have allowed.
Instinctively, both hands went to my throat.
Whole.
My chest.
Whole.
No hole from Liliana’s beam. No torn flesh. No death clinging to my lungs.
I pulsed power through my body, and scales rose beneath my skin with effortless obedience, surfacing along my neck, shoulders, arms, and spine. The half-dragon shell I had clawed together through desperation answered like it had always belonged to me.
Effortless.
That meant only one thing.
My power had returned in full.
I looked down at Bahamut.
“Why are you here?”
He swallowed.
For a creature revered across worlds, he looked painfully young in that moment. Not small. Never that. But shaken. Caught between relief and dread.
“I was paying my respects,” he said, stumbling over the words. “And wishing you passage to whatever lies beyond us.”
A smile touched my mouth.
If he knew what waited there, would he still kneel so prettily?
I stepped closer and laid one hand on his shoulder.
Not gently.
“Where is she, Bahamut?”
His eyes sharpened with recognition.
There.
He knew.
He knew enough.
Maybe not all of it. Maybe not the campfire, or Caedrel’s small body in my arms, or Darian dying with Liliana’s leg in his claw. But he knew Tamara had involved herself. He knew the shape of her mercy. He knew the warning tokens, the interference, the way she had spent years putting distance between my hand and Liliana’s throat.
And my face must have told him exactly how livid I was.
He said nothing.
The silence stretched.
My grip tightened.
“Where is she?”
“Lendys—”
“Now.”
The word cracked through the chamber.
Bahamut buckled under the pressure of my hand, one knee striking the floor harder than before. Pain crossed his face, and for the first time in a very long while, I saw my son afraid of me.
Good.
He should have been.
“Stop,” he gasped. “Please.”
Two of the old silver dragons from his council rushed into the chamber, robes half-fastened, faces drawn with panic.
“My lord?” one called. “What is happening?”
Then he saw me.
His steps faltered.
Recognition moved through him like a blade sliding between ribs. His gaze dropped at once. A heartbeat later, both silver dragons were on their knees.
“Lord Lendys,” one whispered, forehead nearly touching the floor. “You’re back.”
I turned toward him.
The hunger in me leapt at the title.
Not pride.
Not exactly.
Recognition. Restoration. The old world remembering its proper shape for one dangerous, intoxicating instant.
I crossed the room in two strides and crouched before him.
Only then did the absurdity of the situation catch up with me.
I was still naked.
Completely.
My cock was out, my scales were half-raised, Bahamut was gasping behind me, and two ancient silver dragons were groveling at my feet like the palace had decided to resurrect me without the basic courtesy of pants.
A cold little awareness passed through my body.
For one second, I almost laughed again.
Instead, I grabbed the front of the silver dragon’s mortal shell and hauled him close.
“Your king is back.”
His breath caught.
“So get my robes,” I said, voice low. “And pants.”
His eyes flicked up.
I tightened my grip.
“Now.”
The silver dragon ran.
Fast.
Fear made him graceless. His polished dignity vanished the moment I gave him an order, and he fled the chamber like a servant with a blade at his back. Robes first. Pants. Whatever scrap of modesty this divine farce demanded.
The other silver dragon remained.
Now that I had time to really look at him, his mortal form caught my attention in a way it should not have. The scale placement beneath the illusion of skin. The breadth of the shoulders. The musculature hidden under layered ceremonial cloth. Too dense. Too balanced. Too durable for an ordinary vessel.
My irritation cooled into something sharper.
Suspicion.
I lunged.
My hand closed around his throat, and I lifted him clean off the floor. His boots kicked uselessly beneath him as I pushed a thin thread of power into his body, searching through flesh, bone, blood, and divine tolerance.
There.
Unexpected.
And exactly what I feared.
This elder silver dragon—Rathir—was not wearing a simple mortal shell.
He was housed inside a fresh half-dragon body, aged and shaped to resemble a human male of perhaps fifty years. Distinguished. Strong. Handsome in that irritating, council-bred way. A perfect vessel.
A gifted vessel.
I tightened my grip.
“Where did you get this body, Rathir?”
He clawed at my wrist, dragging useless lines across my scales. Not because he could hurt me. He wanted Bahamut to react.
My son stood behind me, frozen.
I felt the impulse in him before he moved. The desperate instinct to save one of his own. Noble. Predictable. Weak.
I pushed my killing intent toward him without turning fully around.
The air thickened.
Bahamut’s breath caught.
“Take one step, son,” I said, glancing over my shoulder, “and I will kill you where you stand.”
He managed half a step anyway.
Then the pressure drove him back to his knees.
I stared at him for a moment longer than I should have.
When did he become so weak?
I turned back to Rathir.
“Speak or die.”
He swallowed against my grip. The motion dragged beneath my palm, small and pathetic.
“It was a gift,” he rasped.
I waited.
He tried to adjust himself, as if dignity mattered while dangling naked-throated in the hand of the god he had once called king.
“Lady Tamara gifted all members of the council bodies fit to handle our power.”
Gifted.
The word lodged inside me like a hook.
Tamara had given them half-dragon bodies.
Tamara had placed Liliana’s craft inside my palace, wrapped it in grace and handed it to the council like a sacrament.
The rage in my chest gathered like a nova in the black.
“Where did she get these gifts, Rathir?”
Bahamut answered for him.
He had always been too willing to bleed himself over subordinates who would never do the same for him.
“You already know,” Bahamut said quietly. “Liliana gave them to us. To show good faith. To prove she could still be redeemed.”
He knew the mistake as soon as the words left him.
I saw it in his face.
That was almost satisfying.
My hand closed.
Rathir’s throat collapsed beneath my fingers with a wet crunch, the same way Ishavelle’s had in Elturel. His body spasmed once. Twice.
Then I threw him at Bahamut.
My son caught him, but Rathir’s weight drove him back several feet. Bahamut dropped to one knee, hands already blazing with healing power as he poured light into the ruined silver bastard.
I crossed the distance in a leap.
Bahamut looked up too late.
I drew my right hand back and drove my fist into his face.
The impact slammed him into the floor hard enough to crater the white stone beneath his skull.
For one suspended second, he looked up at me with defiance.
And gods help me, it made me proud.
Then disgust followed.
Because that look was hers.
Tamara’s stubborn, wounded, insufferable face staring at me through my son’s eyes.
I raised my fist again.
The chamber doors burst open.
The silver dragon I had sent away sprinted in with my robes and trousers gathered in both arms, looking half-dead from terror and obedience. Behind him came seven golden female dragons in half-dragon form, all shouting over one another as they rushed to Bahamut’s side.
“Stop!”
“Get away from him!”
“My lord!”
“Bahamut!”
Their voices struck the marble, sharp and useless.
The silver dragon skidded to a halt before me and bowed so low he nearly dropped the clothes.
“Lord Lendys,” he gasped. “Your attire.”
Good servant.
I took the clothing from his shaking hands, then gave his shoulder a brief pat.
“Thank you, Mekait. Now go to the rest of the council and make them aware I have returned.”
His eyes widened.
I leaned closer.
“Now.”
He vanished in a spray of silver mist, reappeared at the doorway, then blinked away again down the hall without wasting another breath.
At least one of them remembered how to follow an order.
I dressed while Bahamut’s golden consorts gathered around him in a flutter of outrage and concern. They coddled him as he knelt over Rathir, forcing breath back into the old traitor’s crushed throat. When Rathir finally gasped, Bahamut exhaled in visible relief.
Pathetic.
I kept that thought behind my teeth.
Barely.
One of the golden women rose and faced me.
“Lendys,” she said, voice shaking but proud, “why have you done this?”
No title.
No respect.
Just my name, spoken like she had earned the right to weigh it in her mouth.
I turned on my heel, now decent in my robe, and looked at her properly.
Young. Golden. Beautiful in the curated way of those kept close to power. Her shoulders were squared, chin lifted, fear buried beneath arrogance that had not yet learned how quickly pride could become an autopsy.
I stepped toward her.
“I’m sorry,” I said softly. “I do not believe I heard you, youngling.”
She stiffened.
I leaned close enough for my breath to warm the shell of her ear.
“What did you say?”
Bahamut’s hand closed around my wrist.
Not forcefully.
Pleading.
His eyes shifted to the woman. “Velih,” he said, voice low. “Please don’t.”
So.
He knew her well.
That explained the boldness.
Velih swallowed, but the arrogance did not disappear. Not entirely. Even standing this close to me, even with Bahamut broken on the floor and Rathir choking on borrowed air, she still thought proximity to my son made her safe.
“L…Lord Lendys,” she said, forcing the title through clenched pride, “why are you going through such lengths to—”
I backhanded her.
Openly.
The blow cracked across the chamber and sent her staggering sideways into the arms of another gold.
The rest of them went silent.
Fear did what etiquette could not.
Bahamut tightened his grip on my wrist.
“Stop.”
I lifted an eyebrow at Bahamut’s defiance and knocked his hand off my wrist.
Then I looked over the cluster of golden consorts gathered around him, all wide eyes, trembling fury, and wounded devotion. A pretty little wall of women he had collected in my absence, each one certain proximity to him made her untouchable.
I almost admired it.
Almost.
“You really do take after me in that respect,” I said, stepping back. “Can’t handle your women either.”
Bahamut’s face tightened.
Good.
Let him be offended. It meant he was listening.
I turned away from him and made for the doors.
Beyond the chamber, the palace was waking into panic. I could feel it moving through the Starlight Palace like fire under silk. Servants fled down side corridors. Lesser dragons whispered prayers they had no business saying. Messengers vanished in bursts of silver, gold, and blue light. Somewhere ahead, the council was already rushing toward the inner chamber.
No one stopped for me.
No one bowed.
No one even looked at me for longer than a startled heartbeat before hurrying past as if I were some dangerous relic pulled from storage.
Forgotten.
The insult landed deeper than I expected.
With every stride, anger rose in me, volcanic and patient and molten beneath the ribs. I let them run. Let them gather. Let them frighten each other with half-truths and careful omissions.
Their time was coming.
By the time I reached the gilded doors of the council chamber, I could hear them inside.
“What did Mekait mean, returned?”
“He was dead.”
“Not dead. Missing. Exiled.”
“Do not say that word.”
“Bahamut should be here.”
“Bahamut is injured.”
That pleased me.
Then another voice, lower and older. “If Lendys has truly awakened, we need Tamara.”
Of course they did.
Always her name when consequences arrived.
Not one of them spoke of what they had done. Not Rathir’s treachery. Not Liliana’s bodies. Not the exile Tamara had placed on me with their quiet assent, their convenient silence, their polished hands folded neatly while I was cast out and left to rot in a century of blood.
Not even Kereska said it.
The Wonderbringer, clever enough to unravel mysteries that would break lesser minds, and still too much of a coward to name the obvious.
Every sentence was another verdict.
Bahamut came up behind me, several paces back. Limping. Breathing hard. Still alive, because I had allowed it.
I placed both hands on the double doors.
Power moved through me, invigorated and whole.
Then I pushed.
The gilded doors blew off their hinges.
They crashed across the chamber and slammed into the council table, splitting carved starlight-wood down the middle. Silver goblets scattered. Scrolls burst into the air. The council members froze around the wreckage with their mouths open, staring at me as if judgment itself had walked in wearing fresh robes and a bad temper.
Which, to be fair, it had.
I stepped through the ruined threshold.
And saw them.
All of them dressed in half-dragon shells.
Not illusions. Not temporary vessels. Bodies. Engineered, modified, strengthened. Liliana’s craft hiding beneath council robes and sanctified jewelry. Silver, gold, bronze, brass, copper, sapphire—each ancient dragon wearing flesh shaped by the very monster I had spent a century cutting out of the world.
It was obscene.
It looked like ownership.
As if Liliana had reached into my palace, taken my council by the throat, and left her fingerprints beneath their skin.
“What?” I asked, looking from one face to the next. “No greeting?”
No one answered.
I smiled without warmth.
“Surely, in the time I’ve been gone—”
I stopped myself.
Gone.
Too soft a word.
“No,” I said. “Since I was exiled, you have all somehow managed to forget me.”
I stepped onto one of the fallen doors, its goldwork bent beneath my bare feet, then crossed the broken table toward the center of the chamber. Their gazes followed me. I took each one in and judged what they tried to hide.
Shock.
Panic.
Cowardice.
Unanimous.
How unbecoming.
These were dragons so old that mortal histories barely remembered they had ever been real. Names once carved into mountain temples. Voices that had advised gods. Wyrms who had watched kingdoms rise, fracture, and feed the worms.
And now they stared at me like frightened courtiers caught with stolen silver.
Aurelion opened his mouth first. “Lord Lendys, this can be explained.”
“Can it?”
Seryndra’s hands trembled against the table. “We sought peace.”
Vorrak looked away.
Thamior, to his credit, did not try to speak. His usual sharp little wit had deserted him completely.
Caelvorran took one step back. “Reason must prevail.”
“Reason,” I repeated.
The word tasted rotten.
Several of them drifted toward Kereska.
That was almost amusing.
The Wonderbringer stood near the far side of the chamber, luminous and severe, her eyes narrowed not in confusion but calculation. They were waiting for her to produce some clever solution. Some spell. Some bridge between catastrophe and survival. Some arcane miracle to save them from the king they had betrayed.
I knew exactly what they wanted from her.
Then I heard footsteps beyond the chamber.
Measured.
Confident.
Unhurried.
I knew that cadence. The softness of it. The smug tranquility. The authority worn so naturally it did not need to announce itself.
Tamara.
The sound drove a knife into the pit of my stomach.
Not fear.
Anticipation.
Kereska saw my face change.
For the first time since I entered, worry broke through her composure.
My eyes shifted from sky blue to bright, molten yellow. The scales along my neck darkened, spreading beneath the collar of my robe. Divine energy spiked through me, old and immense, filling the chamber until the air itself bent under the pressure.
One by one, the council dropped to their knees.
Not by choice.
Instinct dragged them down.
Ancient dragons. Councilors. Traitors.
Kneeling.
At the threshold, Tamara appeared.
Platinum hair. Silver eyes. Grace wrapped in white and ivory, luminous enough to make the chamber seem dirtier by comparison. She looked exactly as memory had preserved her and nothing like the woman I needed her to be.
For a moment, no one spoke.
Then I smiled.
“Ah,” I said. “My apparent lover finally shows herself.”
Her expression tightened.
I tilted my head.
“Have you come to beg forgiveness like some of these traitors, or do you stand with the ones behind me exuding the same killing intent I have for you, dear?”