The air between Eni's paws grew hazy, an incredible warmth seeping into her fingers, and still she reached for more. The entire world was alive with music, strange harmonies filling her ears and her mind as she pushed herself harder. The clouds swirled and parted, the stars above appearing like motionless sentinels and dappling Neira with their thin light.
The dragon was watching intently, her face unconcerned, and Eni's fury bubbled over. Tendrils of her power were questing outward even as she focused on the energy she was marshaling, groping blindly for anything she could grasp. Her magic brushed the volcano beneath her feet, rumbling with life, and she pulled as hard as she could.
It was like a bolt of lightning.
Its strength washed over her, boiling heat surging up her legs and through her body as she concentrated her efforts. The fine fabric of her gloves vaporized almost instantly as the front of her robes began to smolder and flake apart. Eni could feel the force of it singing through her veins, the slow pulse of Mount Gwared giving way to her own heartbeat, and her fur began to glow like steel wire on a forge. Galvanic bolts crackled off her fingers as she pushed the volcano's energy into the space between her arms, the air itself beginning to burn.
Eni had no fear of being consumed herself even as her clothes caught fire, her certainty absolute as her vision throbbed. Dancing waves of color came forth from the invisible ball she was gathering, shifting and twisting, but there was no pain. The blazing light wrapped around her as she drew it together, her limbs trembling with exertion as she glared at Neira.
She could hear herself screaming as if from a great distance, a wordless cry of cold anger a counterpoint to the sweltering intensity consuming everything around her. The stone under her feet was melting, her toes sinking into the softening rock as it passed from red into a brilliant white-orange, and even as she breathed in the burning air her voice didn't stop. She was shouting with more than her lungs or her mouth, the cry seeming to come from some impossibly deep part of her very being, and she fixed the dragon in her sights as she let her power completely loose.
It came out of her like a river overflowing its banks, a raging flow of energy pouring forth as she channeled every last bit of it she could. She was aware of the temperature dropping precipitously as she heaved the volcano's fire up through her and into the torrent she aimed at Neira, her fingers numb and tingling as she strained. Eni could see her efforts as a beam even as she knew it wasn't there, all colors and no colors strobing in her vision and lighting up the night. Her mind could make no sense of it, her magic shifting and swarming like something alive as it slammed into the dragon.
Neira disappeared from Eni's senses as her own magic overwhelmed them, the feeling like standing too close to a waterfall. The sound in her ears was apocalyptic, like a continent being pulled apart, and even the furious beat of her own heart was drowned out as the crashing wave of power struck her opponent. Her eyes were too full to see, blinded by what she had unleashed, and the moment stretched into infinity.
It could have been seconds or hours, her entire being overwhelmed, but at last it ended. Eni panted for breath, barely able to stand upright as she blinked vivid spots away. A dull ringing filled her head and she staggered off-balance, collapsing heavily to the ground. It had solidified, the place where she had stood marked with indentations that perfectly captured each of her toes. A low and mournful breeze made what was left of Eni's robes swirl around her; she had barely more than a cloak, scorched pieces of silk still coming free. She greedily sucked in the chilly air, snowflakes falling gently once more, and with great effort brought her head up to look at where Neira had been.
The dragon was still there.
Her powerful body was still crisscrossed by ancient scars but there were no new ones, no sign of as much as a single drop of blood. She was completely unmarked, her iridescent scales glittering sinisterly in the starlight as her blazing eyes met Eni's. The dragon had her powerful fingers spread, as though she was holding something Eni couldn't see, and despair filled her as Neira spoke.
"You cannot best me, leveret," she said, her voice slow and even, “I hatched from a clutch of gods at the heart of the universe. I conquered my kin in a war that burned this world in countless cycles. I am the master of the first word ever spoken; my voice helped shape the very reality you stand in.”
The words sunk into Eni's head, their truth undeniable as she slowly slumped over and tears filled her eyes. "I had to try," Eni whispered, trying to hold onto some portion of the strength she had felt only moments ago.
It wasn't there anymore; her power was oddly stretched and thin, too weak to pull together. "No matter," Neira replied, "You understand the truth of it at last."
Eni did.
Her vision blurred as her gaze fell to the ground, the cold like a knife as it pressed through her cloak and against her. There was no possible way for her to win, her defiance leaking out of her like water from a cracked cup, but then she saw Tin's body. Her feeble attempt to injure Neira had melted the snow that covered him, exposing his face. His features were peaceful and still as his head pointed sightlessly skyward, one arm limply outstretched.
Eni considered it for a moment and swallowed hard. "The… The offer you made me," she said, her voice surprisingly steady as she slowly looked up into the dragon's face, "To never again taste disappointment… Did you make the same promise to Abraxas? To Wordermund? To Kurlan?"
She didn't wait for an answer, trying to push herself to her feet as she went on. "Because they did," Eni went on, "Following you didn't save them from failure. From loss."
"They had the same opportunity I offered you. They failed; they couldn’t become more," Neira said, the word carrying a mixture of contempt and pity.
"They were mortal," Eni acknowledged, "But you lied. I don't believe you."
Her head felt like it was clearing, as though the force of the dragon's will was no longer as overwhelming as it had been before she got the strength to stand again. "Your belief is irrelevant, leveret," Neira replied, her voice carrying a thin and dangerous edge, "Your denials lack the strength to change reality."
"You showed me possibilities, not reality," Eni said, and although she barely felt capable of standing upright there was a firmness to her voice that she clung to, "I'll make my own."
She took a step toward Tin's body and nearly fell over, her legs wobbling. Exhaustion permeated every part of her but she refused to give up, forcing her feet to move as she slowly approached the wolf. "Possibilities," Neira repeated ominously, seeming to roll the word around her mouth.
Eni didn't dare look at the dragon, her heart pounding wildly in her chest as she got closer to Tin. It didn't seem possible for her to have bought herself more than minutes of life but she refused to give in. "I've given you every reason to choose to join me," Neira said, the words searing themselves through Eni's mind.
"I won't be your tool, not like them," she replied, swallowing her fear as she brought her head up to meet Neira's gaze.
The dragon hung almost motionlessly in the sky, her vast wings spread but not beating as she floated above the small island at the center of the volcano's mouth. The fingers of Neira's outstretched arm moved almost idly, and Eni suddenly felt as though a massive hook had anchored itself in her belly. She gasped, her arms falling to clutch at her abdomen, but there was nothing there, her skin perfectly intact. She groped wildly, feeling for anything out of place, but even as a powerful jerk pulled her a step closer to Tin there was only the irresistible force.
"You reached out with no comprehension of what you were attempting," Neira said, one of her massive talons slowly moving as she spoke.
Eni tried to resist but couldn't, her stomach burning so painfully that her vision went momentarily gray until she took another step. "Bold," the dragon went on, her fearsome eyes boring into Eni's, "But foolish. Your instructor never taught you a simple truth. When you reach out to grasp something, you yourself may be grasped."
Neira's finger moved a fraction of an inch, and for the briefest of instants Eni could see a thread connecting her to the dragon, a filament of her magic that her adversary had taken a firm hold of. It was like an echo of the attack she had attempted, a shimmering strand of prismatic color, and Eni tried frantically to pull it free but couldn't. There was nothing tangible for her paws to find purchase on, and at Neira's words the idea of reaching out with her power was suddenly terrifying. She could imagine tangling herself in a trap of her own creation, struggling like a fly in a spider's web, and the dragon's face split in a chilly smile.
It's too late.
Eni’s own despairing words were repeated in her head by two other voices, a lion and a hare driving the inevitable home. Dread filled Eni as she perceived a dozen other strands of her own magic, each wrapped around one of Neira's fingers. The fine lines vibrated with the dragon's might, sending reverberations through where they emerged from Eni, and her throat went instantly dry. "And now you have only one possibility," Neira said, the final word heavy with condescension, "You would not accept my offer; now you must accept my intent."
A protest died on Eni's lips, the force of the dragon's speech undeniable. Her own magic felt as though it was betraying her, carrying every nuance of meaning straight into the very core of her being. "You will bear a son," Neira said, and a heat that rivaled that of the volcano's fury boiled through Eni, the relentless command igniting a blaze in her belly.
Her legs fell out from under her and Eni sprawled to the ground, the stone incredibly cold against her. Her entire body burned as she tried to focus, tried to resist, but she couldn't. Eni knew she was being prepared in some awful way, her own will meaningless against the oppressive force that pushed against her. Neira's other arm raised, and Eni saw more lines of power emerge, connecting the dragon to Tin's body. She pulled viciously and the wolf unraveled.
He didn't split apart like a corpse on the dissection table, the beautiful machinery of life reduced to a mess of gore. There wasn't any blood or viscera or bones; Eni knew that they were all there, but it was as though they had been shunted aside. She was seeing another aspect, a higher aspect, and the mundane meant nothing by contrast. Even in death he was beautiful, the exquisite strength and grace that had animated him not lost.
And at his heart…
The Dracryst that had given him life was not like any of the others. It looked similar, a glowing orb encased in a crystalline shroud of hardened light, but it was undeniably different. It was enormous, seemingly larger than Eni herself, and it pulsed slowly. With each beat reality distorted, rippling lightning bolts of absolute nothingness coming off of it. There was a coolness to it the others had lacked, a coldness, and Eni felt dimly aware of the Dracryst still tucked away in her satchel reacting, its own strength dimming as it hid from Vanargand's gaze.
Eni felt a terrible presence staring back at her as she gazed at it, something darker than any night and more frigid than any winter, and she shivered. "Sleep, All-King," Neira crooned, the Dracryst flaring more brightly before fading once more, "Dream of your abyssal terrors and slumber."
The dragon's mighty arms worked with the grace of a surgeon, the threads of Eni's magic she held weaving together at her command. Tin's mortal remains hung around or below the Dracryst, or perhaps it was levitating above him. Eni's perspective felt strangely off, her mind too full of a harsh and buzzing tone as Neira made her preparations. She could only watch dreamily as the dragon finished her work, gesturing at the glowing strands of power.
"Hopeless," Eni mumbled, her voice robbed of its strength.
There seemed to be a throbbing coming from behind her navel, not entirely unpleasant but impossible to ignore. Neira glanced at her as Eni's magic obeyed her commands, the reworked threads shimmering as they descended toward the All-King's Dracryst. "Don't… See Kidu in there," she went on, gesturing at it vaguely.
"He is here," Neira replied fiercely, "He must be," and even as the dragon's certainty washed over Eni she was filled with pity.
Neira's task felt completely futile, a project she could try for all of eternity without any success. Eni wanted to say it, to try reasoning with her captor, but no words would come to her as her magic reached out and touched the Dracryst. The sound in her ears became even more unpleasant, a discordant tone taking over, and she dimly wondered how Tin's mother had survived it.
The All-King was all-encompassing, impossibly powerful even without a body to call his own. His magic was wildly raw, a winter's storm that began reeling itself toward her. Its tendrils of nothingness reached out, lightning bolts with endless forks and branches closing the distance as it groped for her. Eni's head fell back, unable to bear seeing anything more, and the sky overhead was a roiling storm of theurgy, a maelstrom splitting the night. It was a void no less endless than the All-King himself, its stately motions almost in time with the pulse of the Dracryst.
And then the All-King's power touched Eni's own.
If her own assault on Neira had been a river, what she experienced was the entire ocean. His strength was beyond words, passing through her as though she was a fine mesh as it barreled toward her. His thoughts were dim and inchoate, his awareness muffled by his slumber, but Eni could feel their shape, strange and vast and twisted. Her body twitched and thrashed, the lines of her own magic feeling like the strings of a fiddle pulled too taut. Eni felt as though she was about to break, her mind no match for the casual force pressing against it, and she cried out.
"Tin, please!"
She couldn't hear her own words. She couldn't tell if her wolf was as absent as Kidu, entirely subsumed by an awful intellect. But she couldn't manage anything else, couldn't think of anything else, and she screamed for whoever could hear her. Eni begged for Tin to be there, trying to regain control of the fibers of her being connecting her to the All-King's Dracryst, and at last an answer came.
Zurathras.
The word was as strange and as alien as the voice that spoke it, pummeling Eni's thoughts with its might. The All-King was unquestionably male, his mental voice impossibly deep and husky as it shook her. The cadence wasn't Tin's; he was too smooth and arrogantly confident, utterly lacking the wolf's hesitation. The speaker's thoughts came slowly toward full awareness, like a diver surfacing from the bottom of the sea, and Eni caught only a glimpse of the Derkomai word's meaning before even that was overwhelmed.
There was a comfortingly familiar being of pure radiance, a lance raised in one arm as her face twisted in a battle cry, and—
The image vanished as rapidly as it had appeared, the Dracryst coming awake as its power surged to new heights. It suddenly let go of almost all the parts of Eni's power it had grasped, unraveling all the connections but one as it drew itself together. Tin's body collapsed in on itself, the disparate mass that had both been a wolf and a shell reforming as the Dracryst sealed itself back inside. He sat up suddenly, his jaw falling open as he let forth a mighty roar that Eni felt more than she heard.
"Nergorath!"
It was the same awful voice that had called out in her mind, and when Tin's eyes snapped open his gaze was just as unfamiliar. The sclera had gone completely black, the blues of his irises eerily intense against the void of color, and as Eni watched in stupefied amazement and horror he stood. He didn't get up as a mammal would; his legs bent unnaturally as he reared up, his arms outstretched and every finger spread wide. The ground under their feet rumbled, shaking violently, but his balance was unperturbed as he glared hatefully at the dragon in the sky above them.
The wind howled around him, pushing against Neira so hard that she had to flap her wings to stay stationary, and her eyes widened as she looked down at the creature that had been Tin. She pulled in a mighty breath, the impossible fires that burned at her center glowing with a radiance that Eni sensed pressing against her, but Tin was still changing.
The patches of white in his fur vanished, his entire body becoming the pitch black of the night sky, and each strand smoothed down against his skin, flowing like wax as they reformed into glistening scales. His form was growing so quickly that it was like watching an explosion, powerful limbs stretching out and growing heavier with muscle. Within a matter of seconds he was the size of the entire platform they stood on, Eni scrambling over the mighty curve of his back and hanging on for dear life as he continued to grow.
The stone beneath him cracked and groaned alarmingly as his weight kept increasing, the island crumbling. His powerful tail and neck both thickened and lengthened, what had been his mane giving way to a viciously sharp-looking array of spines. His head grew wider and longer, as predatory and as triangular as a shark's, and his shoulders shifted and twisted beneath Eni's paws as something grew beneath the skin. She hurried backwards, closer to the middle of his expanding body, clutching the ruins of her robes tight as a foreboding sensation crept into her heart.
His body was textured like his tail had been as a wolf, feverishly warm to the touch and alive with a mighty heartbeat. Eni watched as wings sprouted forth and still he was not finished, expanding in all directions as his power flowed freely. He hadn't become the creature that had destroyed Idrun; he was something far worse.
He was a dragon.
Two mighty flaps had them airborne as he soared up to where Neira was waiting, the other dragon's eyes flared with loathing as she stared back at him. He was nearly one and a third times her size, his limbs mighty and unscarred, and he circled her effortlessly, utterly silent as he flew.
"So you have decided to grace us with your presence!" Neira cried, her voice booming with her scorn.
Eni clutched on tightly, barely daring to look down. They had risen so high that even Mount Gwared seemed insignificant, the glow of lava at its center like a distant campfire. Clouds of dust and ash blotted out Vornstrom, hiding whatever was there, and Neira swam in and out of the haze. "Even now, you are nothing more than the fraud wolf you became," she spat venomously, "It is time to sleep once more; I will draw Kidu from you."
The being that had been Tin didn't answer immediately, but Eni could feel the thunder of his thoughts against hers through the single thread of magic that still connected them, flashing past too quickly to distinguish. The sense of them was achingly close to Tin but not the same, and Eni felt a helpless tear roll down her cheek and freeze in the frigid air. She didn't know what he had become; the All-King was impossibly above her, as though she was nothing more than an ant, and the feeling of his smooth scales against her palms made her wish for it to be Tin.
"You will die."
The solemn words were perfectly formed in Derkomai, so intense that Neira's flight became momentarily unsteady. Even with the threat directed at the dragon, Eni could feel its pressure, her head split by searing pain at the cold promise. It was more than a promise; the All-King spoke as if saying the sun would rise the next morning, a simple truth enforced by the weight of reality itself.
Neira bellowed, her mouth gleaming with her sharp teeth, and the All-King threw himself into a sudden dive the instant before a gout of white flames emerged from her maw. The heat of it rushed past Eni as she struggled to maintain her grip, pressing herself flat against her mount.
You will help me.
His thoughts touched Eni's, slow and deliberate as he made certain she would understand. Eni's grief sharpened, the alien nature of the plea driving home that the All-King was not Tin. He was gone, she knew, but for his sake she would finish what they had started.
"Tell me how," Eni whispered, and the dragon's mind pressed against hers once more.
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