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a
withering glance. “I should think you would be much more concerned about the
fact that this precious body of yours is bleeding to death.”
    The dire reminder
had the desired effect. Grald hastened off in alarm, leaving Anora alone. Once
he was gone, she spoke to the third dragon of their triumvirate, Maristara, the
dragon of Seth, who had started it all.
    “I have to face
facts,” Anora said reluctantly. She hated admitting to her mistakes. “Draconas
has escaped me.”
    “You know what he
will do,” Maristara returned. “He will summon the Parliament and he will tell
them everything. He will tell them about Dragonkeep, about the children. He
will tell them about you, Anora, and how you have betrayed them.”
    “I’m not betraying
them,” Anora retorted. “I’m trying to save them! If they could only see that!”
    “Now is the time
for them to see. Pull the viper’s fangs.”
    Anora pondered,
thoughtful. “You’re right. Once they know the truth, have seen what we have
seen—”
    “—then Draconas is
no longer a concern.”
    “And while
Parliament is in an uproar, ranting and raving and flapping their wings—”
    “—we will prepare
to strike. And once the first human kingdom is conquered and held firmly under
our claws, our people will come to see that we are right. That our way is the
only way.”
    “And what of
Draconas?” Anora still wasn’t convinced.
    “It would be a
shame if he were to fly into the side of a mountain and break his neck . . .”
replied Maristara.
     

4
    ANORA SHOULD HAVE
BEEN PAYING MORE ATTENTION TO THE DESPISED humans. She would have found
Draconas. He was carried out of the ruins right under her nose and she never
noticed.
    Anora made the
mistake of searching for Draconas in the human form he was most fond of
adopting—that of a human male of undetermined years, strong and lean, with long
black hair and dark eyes. It never occurred to either her or Grald that, as
Draconas saw death crackling before him, he would use his last fleeing seconds
to do two things: first, as Anora had postulated, Draconas cast a defensive
spell that acted as a shield, causing Anora’s magic to bounce off him like a
thrown spear bounces off steel. Second, as the lightning flared and sizzled around
him, Draconas shifted form, choosing an illusion that he had found to be useful
to him in the past.
    He had just
managed to take on this form when the power of Anora’s magic clashed with
Draconas’s magic, erupting in a blast that destroyed the building and brought
it down on top of both of them.
    Anton Hammerfall
and his wife, Rosa, were workers in the city of Dragonkeep. As his name
implied, Anton was a blacksmith. His wife Rosa worked as a weaver. Despite the
fact that they lived in the city that had been founded as a haven for children
with dragon-magic in them, Anton had nary a drop. His was the third generation
to grow up in Dragonkeep, and if the men in his family had ever had the magic,
it had long since dwindled out of them. Anton gave secret thanks daily that
such was the case. He felt nothing but pity for those wretched monks whose
blood burned with the magical fire that drove them insane.
    Rosa had some
dragon-magic in her, as did all the women of Dragonkeep, though not enough to
make her valuable to the dragon, and thus she was a lowly weaver and not one of
the holy sisters. The blood bane, as the magic was known, was not so bad in
women as in men. It did not drive them insane. And thus Anton and Rosa had been
proud to discover that their only daughter, Magda, was strong in the
dragon-magic. She had been summoned by the dragon to live in his palace, and
though they missed her, they were pleased for her.
    Anton and Rosa
resided in a small, one-room house in the city of Dragonkeep, not far from the
site of the terrifying blast that had shaken the ground and knocked all the
crockery off the shelves. The time was early morning. Anton had just fired up
the forge when the blast hit. He