Deebee thought she should've been a little more tolerant, but there were few powers in Hell or the Ethereum she could imagine stopping her from grousing. It might've been due to the tumultuous cocktail of hormones that accompanied nesting, but Deebee was feeling especially irritable at the moment. Of all the situations that could blunder into her evening, this one had to rate the most problematic.

"A demon god, indeed," she muttered as her claws worked through a series of somatics over Shaia's egg. She'd already seen to the girls. "Of all the... Blustering annoying, is what it is. As if all this wasn't too much already, now we have the god of death himself joining the line of fools we have to kill. Can you even kill Death? You have any idea of how much time I'm going to have to spend in my library to find an answer to that idiotic riddle?"

Behind her, leaning his shoulder against the wall at the mouth of the rookery, Varn made a sound hanging between a sigh and a groan.

Deebee finished up her ward. It was an especially complex weaving of spellcraft, meant to regulate temperature in her absence. Deebee wouldn't trust a spell to do a mother's job for an extended period, but it should serve well-enough for an hour or so. Deebee doubted it would take longer than that to assist Varn to the healers of the legion.

Once her somatics went still, she turned from her nest to find Varn staring at the eggs. His single, remaining eye had an odd cast to it. Not quite vacant. Closer to solemn.

"They deserve better than a dying world," Varn murmured.

"Oh hush that nonsense," Deebee scolded. She crossed the rookery to him on all fours. "I have it from the finest expert on the subject I know of. No glooming and dooming around the sick or expectant mothers."

Varn frowned as his enormous head turned to face her. "Have you not heard what I've said, my Storyteller? The Lord of Bones is one of the old masters. He has made his move to claim the web of Fate from Kumo. All is lost."

Deebee came to stop in front of him. Her granduncle was so ancient, so blustering huge in his age, that even in her truest form, the top of her head didn't reach his chest. The Librarian could carry a crew of a hundred if he wanted.

"Lost?" Deebee asked. "Well then, in that case, I suppose we all ought throw ourselves to the ground right now and be done with it. Will you smash my eggs, or shall I?"

"Do not make light of this, child," Varn warned. "All you prove is that you have no comprehension of what we face."

"I don't need to comprehend," Deebee snapped, and perhaps it was more petulant than she wanted. "I just need to face it. Clearly, that's something you've never been able to do."

Varn pushed off from the wall to stand on his own power. "You do not know of what you speak," he growled. "When did you become so naive? You make a grand show of having no fear, but that has always been the most powerful weapon in the demons' arsenal. They have long taken advantage of their prey's ignorance."

Deebee's claws dug furrows into the stone. Her voice went cold. "No fear?"

This doddering, old coot...

Deebee rose up on her hind legs and jabbed a claw to the center of Varn's chest. She stretched her neck out as far as she could, but it still only managed to make it halfway to his head. Even so, she invaded his personal space as much as she was able.

"You listen to me, Librarian, and you'll hear me this time. I've been afraid... all... my... life! And if you think for one moment that it was ever for my own well-being, you couldn't be more blind if I poked you in that eye.

"From the moment I hatched, I was taught the best years of the mighty were behind us. More times than I can count, I was told that my generation was to be the last. I learned the lies you told me, and I repeated them to every dragon I could find, because I was terrified of our people fading away and being forgotten. And then... you left me, telling me we deserved to be forgotten but not telling me why!" She stabbed a clawed finger behind her to point at her nest. "I am not the last generation! Neither will Shaia be told he must fear oblivion. I'll give my Gambler a world where he doesn't have to be afraid, because the greatest years of the mighty don't belong to the past. They belong to him. They're his to make, and his dragonets will make still greater ones. Winds and flames take the old masters, because no matter how powerful they are, they'll never be strong enough to take that from him!"

Varn's head drew back. "Hope and defiance," he growled, derisive. "These are not enough."

"No, they aren't," Deebee said, "but we have to start somewhere. That's why you failed, Varn. You never believed."

"I know too much to believe."

Deebee dropped back to all fours. "Try learning a little more. You call me naive, but where has your cynicism taken us? The mighty were never meant to crawl under the mud and lurk in shadows. Dragons were made to fly in the sun."

Varn turned his head to look away. "I am sorry, my Storyteller," he whispered. "Those days are long gone, and they will never come back. Not for you, not for me, and not for your children. The doom has come."

Deebee clucked her tongue and growled. She stormed past Varn and out of the rookery, clipping his foreleg with her shoulder as she went by. "You can cram that foolishness back under your tail where it belongs. Don't you dare repeat it where I can hear." She stopped a dragon-length behind Varn and turned back around. "I'll show you. Whatever it takes, I'll make you see exactly how wrong you are."

Varn remained where he was, staring at Deebee and Kimpo's eggs.

"You hear me, Librarian?" Deebee shouted. "My naive hope and defiance are just the start. My beloved and I will do all in our power to prove you wrong!"

Varn wilted. His shoulders hung low, and his head drooped. "I am old, Deebee," he said. "I'm already centuries past when I was meant to withdraw. I lingered far beyond my time because that was the price we were willing to pay to keep you and your generation safe for a little while longer. All for nothing, because we paid our price to a demon. All we did was remove ourselves from the game board."

Deebee scoffed. "And what's that tell you?"

He had no answer for her.

"Sounds to me like the Lord of Bones is afraid of you."

Varn looked over his shoulder, his brow furrowed.

"Why take you all away from your children?" Deebee asked. "Why bind you as his wardens? The Lord of Bones wanted to keep you where he could watch you, and even then, you managed to confound his schemes. You've been keeping feylings hidden, even from the demon you unwittingly served. You guarded the prize they wanted, even from your own patron. Imagine, Varn, what more you could have done had you been fighting alongside us." She stood with her head held high. "Cynicism's been your failing for far too long. Try being a little naive for once, and maybe you'll yet get to see the best years of the mighty."

Varn looked back into the rookery. "You say it so easily," he said. His voice had a tremor within it. "What if you're wrong?"

"Then we fade away and get forgotten. It's the same place we've always been. Now, what if I'm right?"

Silence filled the lair for a long moment before Varn spoke again. His voice was so soft that it was almost too low to be heard. "How? How, my Storyteller? How can you be so strong?"

"I'm a mother," Deebee said. "and I've been blessed with a daughter who's taught me more than I could ever teach her. Now, enough wallowing, my Librarian. Come with me, and maybe she'll remind you why you started fighting in the first place."

"Is it truly as simple as that? Take up the mantle once more and bear it for all time?"

Deebee sighed. "Who ever said any of this was easy? It's the hardest thing I can imagine. The way I see it, that's proof that it's worth doing. All of us who follow Enfri, we reaffirm it each time we leap into the sky. Her First Knight was the first to say it, and since knowing him, I've marveled at the things that boy spouts as if it's second nature. Just as Ban said, we remind ourselves that anything worth doing is worth doing again, and again, until it's done. Then do it again, so it remains done."

"Again and forever," Varn whispered. He turned his enormous body around to look at Deebee. He took a step towards her, then took another. His ponderous movements were slow, but he kept moving. As he passed near to Deebee, he paused and looked down on her. He nodded once before continuing on.

Falling into step alongside him, Deebee watched him from underneath her eyelids. Despite his extensive injuries, Varn managed to walk with his head held high. For the first time since he'd returned into Deebee's life, even battered and torn as he was, she saw a little of the great, elder silver she remembered from her youth. There was something else on his face, however. Something entirely new. Deebee was almost tempted to think it was something perhaps a little naive.

"Are you ready, then?" Deebee asked. "Once the Citrine Knights mend those injuries, will you be ready to go a second round with the demon god that beat you bloody?"

Varn scoffed. "The Lord of Bones is a god. Had he taken the field against me and the other elders, I would have fallen alongside the rest. There would have been no battle."

Deebee frowned. "You didn't get injured fighting Hasanvor?"

"Antares," Varn corrected. "That is the demon's true name."

"Whatever. If not him, who were you fighting? Winds, who could do that to a dragon your size?"

Varn shook his head. "Not who. What."

Deebee would've thumped him upside the head if she could reach or thought it wouldn't knock the last gasp of life out of him. "Stop being cryptic and spit it out!"

Ahead of them, near the entrance to the lair, the night's second crash of crumbling stone echoed. It was followed by a pained howl that sent a ripple of unease down Deebee's scales. The sound was inhuman, a high-pitched shriek like a sheet of metal being torn in half.

"No..." Varn hissed. "They found me. They must have followed me here. Prepare yourself!"

Deebee felt her blood run cold. The sound of her lair's defenses, both arcane and mechanical, continued. More shrieks came from unseen, monstrous throats. "Varn, what are they? Tell me!"

"The warriors of the ancient empires," Varn said. "These creatures took the world from the mighty long ago. They are the race the old masters created to invade our ancestors' aeries, kill any dragon who resisted, and smash their eggs to shards. The proteurim that remain in the world have answered their masters' call."

Deebee's claws wove spells around herself, wards and enchantments. She breathed deep, stoking the embers that burned deep within her chest. Smoke curled from her nostrils, the prelude to dragon fire.

Her clutch. Whatever happened, Deebee couldn't let them reach the rookery.

They came through the halls, erupting like a swarm of rats. Their clawed hands clung to the walls and the ceiling, skittering like vermin as they charged. Their dark bodies were hairless and lanky with lean muscles. Broad heads sat on their grotesque shoulders, long limbs with hands and feet that appeared too broad and ended in scything claws. Orb-like eyes burned with red light, their noses were simple openings into the nasal cavities of their skulls, and their pointed ears were broad enough to make their heads seem twice as big. Bat-like faces held wide mouths filled with sharp fangs, and they screeched with feral, discordant voices.

"Vampires," Deebee snarled. "I prefer the shifter variety."

"These have already tasted dragon blood," Varn said. He began working a few somatics of his own. "I will not let them have more."

"Will you fight with me, Varn?" Deebee asked. "Will you help me give my children the world they deserve?"

Varn snarled and bared his fangs. Flames lapped out from between them, and his remaining eye began to glow with silver light.

"Again and forever, my Storyteller."

Side by side, silver dragons unleashed their fire.

oOo

The Mountain City of Drok Moran was afraid.

The legion of the Dragon Empress was gone, but new problems arrived to take her place. The populace had chafed under King Fen's rule since his installment, but they enjoyed fealty to Althandor even less. The rumors of Princess Manon being taken into the Highest King's custody were met with dark mutters and unfamiliar solidarity with the local branch of House Algara. King Fen was enjoying an unprecedented swell of support from the Nadian people.

As planned, Kai thought. The bleeding hearts will sympathize with Fen, and the hardliners will double down on their unrest. When the Teranor arrives, the powder keg of Drok Moran will explode, and Cathis will receive no aid from Fen when it's called for.

It was a plot that had taken the better part of the last two decades, but in the eyes of the old masters, it was nothing more than shifting a pawn while the more powerful pieces moved into place. Kai had no illusions of his part in it all. All he'd done was deliver messages between the former commander of the Courtesans and the last head of House Krayson. Cathis' need to avenge his son began a war, and the rest was history.

Ever since, Kai did as he was commanded. He was no pureblooded proteurim able to hear the call of the old masters in his heart. Instead, he relied upon the orders of the blessed saint. In Prince Vintus' service, Kai found his true purpose. He imitated assassins and kings to further the saint's will. Criminals and noblemen, Kai became them all.

No longer. Kai had taken a form he was never meant to take, and he was stuck in it for the rest of his life. At the very least, it was a potent body. If he were to choose his last form, Kai liked to think it would've been this one.

Strong. Fast. A wealth of arcane power and a lifetime of honed skill to draw upon. Kai loved this body, and he loved the damaged soul it gave him even more.

Thanks to Dashar's sin of blood magic, Kai's grief was gone.

He could still remember Hak, could still smell the scent of char when she died by Cathis' spellfire. In the guise of Elise of Eastrun, Hak gave everything to further the saint's will. In the eight years since her sacrifice, Kai suffered in his mate's absence. He never knew the mercy of a single moment's respite from grieving her. Until Dashar. Until Kai became Dashar. Now, the memories remained, but all else was gone. Kai could continue without the pain.

The grief was taken by blood magic, and Kai felt nothing but the most sincere gratitude towards his new brother. He thanked Dashar Algara in his prayers every day and swore to return this kindness. As he walked the confining streets of Drok Moran between looming tenements and alehouses, Kai wished for nothing more than to repay his brother in the best way he knew how.

Kai still wore the clothing given to him by Minister Reyn. His stolen priest robes caught some attention on his travels, but not for long. Most assumed him to be a wandering preacher or missionary of some god or another's dogma. Clergy were easy to ignore, and one who appeared to be blind was even easier. Kai kept his blindfold tied over his eyes, but not so tightly that he couldn't see through the cloth's threadbare weave.

Becoming Dashar had never been the plan. Kai's partner, the skindancer Dagra, was the one meant to wear this body. After hearing of a Dashar in the Spired City, Kai could only conclude that either Dagra succeeded or he was dead. Whether the Dashar in Althandor was genuine or an ally, Kai wasn't yet ready to return to the saint's service.

Shan Alee had been an interesting, if unexpected, diversion. When Kai first found the pilgrims in Leyrshore, his first instinct had been to send a message to Prince Vintus to inform him of their existence. Within a few days, the black hounds would have located them and eliminated the variable. However, Kai saw a more tempting possibility.

Vintus was very interested in Princess Jin, even more so after the failed attempt on her life. Bringing the Aleesh to the Dragon Empress would grant him a place near to her, a place from where he could observe this body's young cousin. If Jin could be used to steer the Dragon Empress onto the paths ordained by the old masters, her continued existence would be justified. As would Kai's, enough perhaps that he could be forgiven his failure in Ecclesia.

That had made it troubling when Kai learned that Jin's supply of oren was depleting too rapidly for her to sustain. A small amount of the Nadian ore left in Josenthorne Algara's tent helped alleviate the problem, though it was doubtful to be a lasting solution. To cover his tracks further and allay suspicions, Kai felt it necessary to secure promises from the minister and knight-marshal that his assumed identity be kept from the young assassins. He couldn't be certain of who they might've been in contact with inside the Palace of Towers, and Kai was unsure of the saint's current plans. Better to sidestep the issue until he returned to Vintus' side.

And so, Kai watched the workings within the empress' legion and discovered the most fascinating development. He learned of the traitor hiding right under Enfri the Yora's nose.

In all respects, the traitor was cunning. Had Kai not been there to see, he'd have never suspected who freed Garret the Merovech from his cage. The traitor's plan failed to account for the renegade dragons' assault on the empress, but it was otherwise flawlessly executed. Nearly a masterstroke that could very well have been an irrevocable setback for Enfri the Yora's ambitions. Proven unable to protect her people, she'd have had no claim to rule those within the Reach enclave. However, the old masters desired that Enfri's Shan Alee remain on the board and continue the Highest King's distraction. The Aleesh pilgrims couldn't be allowed to be taken from the Dragon Empress, not at that juncture, so Kai was obliged to interfere. Unfortunately, that caused a different problem when Garret was recaptured.

Kai was now a blood mage, with all the skills that implied. A simple wilt curse attuned to Garret speaking the traitor's name ensured his silence. Garret would naturally assume that Dashar and the traitor were working together, unsuspecting of either's true allegiance.

Problem solved. Chaos ensured. Kai only wished he could have stayed a little longer in Shan Alee. He was curious how that would all play out.

But, those were concerns for another time and for those greater than Kai. He had his own task to complete. A final gift remained to be given. Repayment. And also, perhaps an opportunity. It hadn't taken long for Kai to find her. He'd received the name and location from Minister Reyn and Lord Bannlyth.

Komali.

Kai slipped into the seedy tavern, pushing the worn door open and entering into a smoke-filled room crowded with degenerate scum and second-hand furnishings. A balding barman went through the motions of wiping down mugs, drunkards bellowed at one another, and crass men shouted dubious propositions towards the serving wenches. The Dancing Wildcat was a stinking dive and whorehouse, unsuited to the wife of a crown prince.

Dashar's anger was now Kai's anger. His shame was his shame. Since the moment Kai took Dashar's blood, every memory held in the prince's heart was seared into that of a doppler. They belonged to him now. Eternally his, because the cost demanded of a blood mage damaged Kai's mutable imprint and froze it in place. Forever bound to Dashar's form, Kai remembered those moments as if it truly had been him in Dashar's place.

And so Kai loved this woman. He loved her as Dashar loved her, as Dashar loved their son. They were as precious to Kai as if they were his own. For that, Kai would make this right as Dashar was never able to.

A fine gift for his brother.

Kai moved like smoke through the tavern. He passed unhindered through the shuffling press of unwashed bodies. A gentle hand turned aside a stumbling drunk, allowing him to continue further in without notice. Ignored. Silent. Prepared.

Kai found her. She swayed upon a songstress' platform, singing a bawdy song of harlots and fools. Swaying to and fro, exposing just enough flesh to tantalize and inspire inebriated imagination, seductive and beautiful. Kai saw the woman who was once Princess Tarim Algara and felt Dashar's heart burn with passion.

Something else whispered deep within Kai's soul, something he hadn't felt since first taking this form. A ghost of grief.

Feeling that distant murmur of lost emotion awoke memories of Hak. Pain and sorrow. Muted, but still present. Not even a blood mage was immune to things so dreadful as humanity.

Kai fought against the ghosts and was aware of why Dashar felt them. The memories came to him, of Tarim upon her deathbed and Dashar's desperation to uncover a way to save her. He remembered the forbidden secrets of transmutational healing Dashar sought.

The joy. Dashar felt such joy once Tarim's cancer was eradicated and her life preserved.

The horror. What arose from the bed was not the woman who was laid within it. She was changed. Tarim became something else. Bitter. Violent. Insane. Murderous.

The fear. She tried to strangle their young son, claiming the child wasn't hers. He was the son of another woman, a dead woman. Dashar saved the boy, but the woman fled. Lost to him. No matter how far and how long he searched, Dashar never found her again. He failed his beloved princess and bore the mark of his sin as red eyes from that day on.

The shame. He not only failed Kiir's mother, he turned her into something horrible. Dashar couldn't face his son while the product of his sin roamed free. He was a beast, and so he wore the visage of what he knew himself to be. A wolf, a predator, undeserving of the son he failed.

As he watched Tarim dance to entice other men, Kai felt tears. His face remained a mask of stone while his tears soaked into his cloth blindfold.

Her eyes scanned the room. They weren't blue as they were long ago, nor the red they became. Silver eyes, disguised by her alchemy to appear Ilysian. But she couldn't hide her voice. Nor her smile. Tarim looked to the men calling for her favor, landing upon each of them in turn, until her eyes fell on Kai.

They passed, a moment went by, and they returned. Her voice faltered for an instant before her song resumed. Still, her eyes remained on Kai, uncertain. He reached towards his face and removed the blindfold. Their eyes met. The song ended.

The hate. Kai felt the hate. His heart was filled with such hate that Kai had never before thought possible. Complete and absolute hatred. Kai loved this damaged prince for hating himself so thoroughly.

"Dashar," Tarim whispered.

"My princess," Kai replied. "I found you."

Her silver eyes flashed with hatred of her own. She pointed at Kai and screamed. "Kill that thing!"

"Get ye gone, holy man." A thick hand fell on Kai's shoulder. "Can't ye see yer botherin' the en'ertainment? Sod off already."

Kai killed that one first.

He wasn't the last.

A fine gift, Brother, Kai thought while cutting men down. Isn't it? You think so, too, don't you?

Komali's Courtesan cell sent fighting men and arcanists to stop him, but they were nothing to a crown prince. Kai slaughtered everything that came within reach of his blades. They were the old master's pawns, but pawns were meant to be sacrificed. Kai would know. He'd been a pawn once, too. Only now, he'd reached the opposing side of the board and became something greater.

He killed. To make a statement. To salve the hatred. To give Dashar what Kai would never possess.

Absolution.

Once the blood ceased to flow, once Kai pursued Tarim into the back rooms of the tavern, he allowed himself to feel the joy he meant for Dashar to have. His beloved brother would soon be free. Kai stepped over the still corpse of the barman and loomed over Tarim.

She huddled in the corner of her little office among the blood-stained remnants of the rebel's life she forged for herself among the Courtesans. Did she truly hate her prince so much? Did she resent the extended life he bestowed on her so venomously that she'd devote it to destroying the royal house that once welcomed her?

Tarim's snarl granted Kai the answers to his questions. There was no love in her eyes. Only hatred and resentment. Kai approached and readied his blades.

A fine gift, indeed. I hope you like this.