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beast.
    Or­ange and red fire began to cir­cu­late around his body, ra­di­at­ing like a macabre halo, even as pulsat­ing tendrils, like mini­ature bolts of light­ning, shot forth from his fin­gers. His fangs ex­ten­ded even fur­ther, grow­ing per­il­ously sharp and long, and a prim­or­dial growl rose in the back of his throat, shak­ing the ground be­neath them. As his face began to harden with the emer­gence of prim­or­dial scales, and a pair of leath­ery wings punched through his back, he drew back his shoulders, bent both arms at his sides, and strained to arch his spine.
    And then he par­ted his lips and threw back his head, re­leas­ing a deaf­en­ing roar, as an un­broken stream of mys­tical flames shot forth from his mouth and scorched the second pris­oner, without mercy.
    The male cried out in agony.
    He yanked against his chains and thrashed against the post.
    He jerked in pain, writhed in misery, and spat curses, tinged in bloody, blackened mu­cous.
    And yet, the tor­ture per­sisted.
    Which was Dante’s in­ten­tion.
    He con­tin­ued to chan­nel the dragon’s fire, the in­fernal, never-end­ing blaze, un­til the screams of the war­lock were fi­nally si­lenced by melt­ing flesh and cal­ci­fy­ing bones. Un­til the crowd turned away in hor­ror and hid their re­vol­ted faces from the ghoul­ish spec­tacle be­fore them.
    Un­til the gathered War­lo­chi­ans cried out for mercy on be­half of the pris­oner, again and again…
    And again.
    Un­til, fi­nally, Dante re­len­ted.
    The flame turned white and the fire began to cool, un­til at last, there was noth­ing left but a charred stump and steam­ing ash where the post and the traitor had just been. Call­ing his dragon to heel, Dante fought to re­gain his cen­ter, to re­con­nect with his civ­il­ized core, and to ex­tin­guish the flame once and for all.
    Hav­ing fol­lowed Dante into the square, Damian stepped for­ward, be­side him, and waited, his sav­age ex­pres­sion dar­ing any­one in the crowd to speak, to even pre­sume to meet their eyes; while Drake took a stance on Dante’s other side, pro­ject­ing un­con­di­tional solid­ar­ity and con­vic­tion with his pres­ence. He may have been a lo­gical thinker, a calm­ing in­flu­ence—he may have stood in the eye of the storm—but he was still a Dragona at heart. And, to­gether, they wiel­ded enorm­ous power and in­flu­ence.
    When, at last, Dante’s wrath had cooled—his fangs and his wings had re­trac­ted—he searched the crowd for the sher­iff. The male was hov­er­ing be­hind the aged stone well at the back of the square, his face a mask of ter­ror, and the mo­ment their gazes met, the sher­iff quickly shuffled to the front of the crowd. He stood be­fore Dante and waited, his head dropped low in a deep, sub­ser­vi­ent bow.
    “We will take drinks and re­fresh­ments at the tav­ern while you tend to our horses,” Dante said. “And then we will be on our way.”
    Be­fore the sher­iff could an­swer, a young girl, per­haps ten or el­even years old, shot through the hor­ri­fied crowd. She ducked be­neath the war­lock’s legs and ran to­ward Dante, al­most as if she were fear­less. “Mi­lord!” she cried out. “Mi­lord! Please— please— hear my pe­ti­tion.”
    Dante looked down at the eager child and drew back in sur­prise. Great Winter Spir­its, she was hu­man! He could tell by the con­tour of her eyes. What was she do­ing here among the War­lo­chi­ans? “What is the mean­ing of this?” he asked the sher­iff, choos­ing to ig­nore the child.
    The sher­iff looked per­plexed.
    He shook his head back and forth; his eyes dar­ted this way and that; and he fi­nally shrugged his shoulders. “My prince, I…I do not know. Please—”
    “ Raylea! Raylea, come back!” An­other hu­man, a beau­ti­ful, middle-aged wo­man, dar­ted through the crowd, com­ing to an ab­rupt halt