Date unknown, 20 miles beneath English Channel

  KWALLINDAURIA HAD LOST all sense of the passage of time in the watery cavern. It could have been days, years, or centuries since she’d given up her efforts to escape.

  After the failure with the vents, the two wyrms had eventually gone back and tried again. But as ever, the boulder covering the entrance had refused to budge. Both entrance and exit vents had been of the same design, and had proved impervious to everything they attempted.

  After hundreds of cycles of working every possibility they could imagine until well beyond exhaustion, resting, and working at them again, they had given up and directed their minds toward trying to find another way out.

  For a time, they had maintained their hope that they might eventually find something that had been overlooked in the lair’s construction.

  But all to no avail.

  Whoever sealed this prison is thorough, she thought. And more inventive than I. Though in truth, much of the blame fell on Graayyya and herself, as they had designed the lair itself.

  “Dauria?” the garnet asked.

  “Yes?”

  “How did we meet? I mean, how did we become friends? Aren’t metallics and stones usually antagonistic?”

  Dauria shifted to face the larger dragon and stared.

  “Not just antagonistic, most would say. In my experience, direct rivals, if not enemies— and often mortal ones —is the usual situation.” Why is this coming up now? she added silently.

  I wonder, she thought with a touch of apprehension. Could telling her spark some deep-rooted memory and bring it all back, or is it only going to reignite all the pain and anger it sparked the first time?

  “Please,” Graayyya said softly.

  Without meaning to, Dauria nodded. “Okay.”

  She breathed a deep sigh and began. “It was only, perhaps six or seven centuries before the Long Sleep. I received a request from a human of the west. His village had been terrorized by dragons for years and he begged for help. I rarely took on such requests, but his plea was… eloquent.”

  Graayyya nodded, but kept silent.

  “I flew him back to his village and began my search for the offending dragons. Oh, if only I had known then what I know now!”

  Dauria sighed again. “I looked for a misguided young dragon, one with whom I could reason and perhaps even educate. Or so I thought.”

  Graayyya leaned back, resting her spine against the low wall that served as barrier to the magma river.

  “By the time I found the lair, your sire knew I was coming. Even through his madness, he saw the danger and prepared for me. I never have heard a satisfactory answer to how he kept your growth stunted for so many years. You should have been a fully mature adult, but were scarcely past the stage of a helpless wyrmling.”

  Golden eyes widened, but still her friend kept silent.

  “Your sire prepared traps, some of which I did not wholly avoid. When I entered the lair chamber, you were insensate on the floor and your clutch-mate was held in your sire’s grip. His tail coiled about you, its spikes at your throat, while his talons were at your clutch-mate’s.”

  Graayyya furrowed her crimson brow ridges, a glimmer of crimson moisture shining in her golden eyes.

  “We spoke. He warned me to leave, to forget I’d been there and return home. But I saw the shine of madness in his eyes. I knew that if I left, not only would he kill you both, but he would likely destroy the village and any others he found within ten-thousand wingspans of his lair. I couldn’t allow that. I could never have lived with myself.”

  “What did you do?” Graayyya breathed.

  Dauria chuckled darkly. “I did what any young, overconfident, self-righteous dragon would. I attacked. I believed I was quick enough to save you both before he could cause serious damage.”

  “And judging by the fact that I’m still here…” Graayyya whispered.

  Closing her eyes, Dauria nodded. “I disabled his tail, but I was not fast enough to rescue your clutch-mate from his grip before the damage was done. I will save you the details, let us say only that he was far from gentle. And in the end, your sire’s heart stopped before your clutch-mate’s did, if only by moments.”

  Rivulets of moisture tore deep furrows through the dirt and ash coating Graayyyavalllia’s face.

  “After the battle, the Council of Elders sent out the call to your surviving kin, but none came to claim you. So I fostered you myself.”

  “That was generous.”

  Dauria resisted the urge to sigh and fought to keep the bitterness from her voice. “It was far less than I owed you.”

  “Not true,” Graayyya said with a violent shake of her head.

  “Let’s not debate semantics, my friend. I felt I owed you, and no one else was willing to take you in. So I did. I knew you hated me for killing your sire and letting your clutch-mate die at his hands, but it was the least I could do for you. I believe that now as I did then.”

  Graayyya smiled through her crimson tears, but remained silent.

  “I raised you the way any metallic is raised, with kindness, compassion, patience, and love.”

  “And before long I was reflecting those qualities back to you.”

  “Well, it took more than a century, but yes.”

  Graayyya smiled warmly, all trace of tears gone from her eyes now. When she spoke, her voice matched the expression. “And shortly thereafter our relationship underwent drastic change. Almost overnight we became as clutch-mates and your position as teacher was forever left behind.”

  “Exactl–” Dauria paused. “Wait a moment. You remember!”

  Graayyya’s smile transformed into a broad, toothy grin. “I do now, my old friend. Thank you for reminding me.”

  Dauria stared, astonished. “Do you remember… everything?”

  “There still seem to be a few gaps in my memory, but mostly, yes.”

  If only I’d known that was all it would take. Aloud, she said, “Welcome back. I missed you.”

  Graayyya’s smile widened further.

  “Do those memories tell you anything new about our situation?”

  “Yes.”

  Dauria clicked her claws on the stone in mock impatience.

  “Two things.”

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Dauria waited. Graayyya had always had a flair for the dramatic.

  Graayyya held her silence for another minute, during which she shrugged and flexed her wings, appearing to collect her thoughts. “First, the magical skill and raw power needed to induce such mind-numbing rage in me is immense. That fact alone is staggering to consider. And second,” she smiled slyly, “Let’s get the Infernalis out of here.”

  “Graayyya, we’ve been over this. Our only way out is blocked.”

  “Not so.”

  “How?”

  “The magma river.”

  “What?” Dauria felt certain she’d heard incorrectly.

  Graayyya sighed in mock exasperation. “Kwallindauria, the magma flows downward, ‘tis true. But once you go down far enough, it levels to horizontal movement and a few thousand wingspans out it comes up to the bottom of one of the ocean trenches to vent pressure, not unlike the hydrothermal vents farther down that keep the water below the silt layer warmer than it should be. We can swim the distance to that vent and escape the magma into the ocean.”

  “But we’re both much too large to leave the cavern through the tiny openings of the magma river.”

  “And?”

  Dauria reached up and smacked the space between her brow ridges with an open claw. “How could I have been so stupid?” she groaned.

  “Calm,” Graayyya said. “It is not natural for your kind to think of swimming enclosed tunnels of magma. We garnets do this for pleasure, but you platinums revel in wide open spaces and the thin air of the mountains.”

  Dauria nodded.

  “Follow my lead. I will show you where to go. Assuming,” Graayyya added with a twinkle in her eyes, “You can tolerate the heat and pressure of swimming through liquid magma.”

  “Anything you can do,” Dauria said, making no effort whatsoever to keep the mischief from her voice.

  Graayyya spat a globule of liquid fire against the stone wall and turned toward the magma river.

  Without the slightest hesitation, the garnet wyrm climbed over the wall and dropped over its edge into the flowing river of magma. The river was several wingspans in width, but less than a single wingspan deep. Graayyya had to drop to her belly for the flowing magma to cover her back.

  After a few moments in the glowing molten rock, the garnet form began to shrink.

  Dauria watched in fascination as the garnet form shrunk to half her normal size, then a third, then a fourth, until she appeared less than one tenth of her usual size. Only scarcely larger than a crocodile, she swam with the current of the magma toward the far wall where the flow exited the chamber.

  Taking a deep breath with a whispered prayer that she could survive this, that the confines of a magma tunnel would not be the death of her after all she had survived thus far, she touched her own shining Apex and began shrinking herself down as she leaped over the wall into the flowing river of magma.

  Her entrance into the liquid rock made only a slight splash as she sunk down into the flowing river. Her form continued to shrink as she swam with the flow toward the exit.

  She reduced herself to a bit smaller than Graayyya by the time she reached the far wall where a low tunnel led beneath it. She dove beneath the surface of the magma as she passed under the wall and her heart seemed to stop. Despite the glowing heat of the magma, she felt cold and her vision was obliterated by utter blackness.

  She thrashed about, her terror of being lost down here in a river of magma getting the better of her.

  Relax, Dauria, came Graayyya’s voice. Calm yourself. You have the strength to get through this. Remember your power. You can see through the lava if you wish. Just follow me. I will lead you out to the ocean. Trust me.

  And Dauria did. She trusted the garnet more than anyone else on Earth.

  With a slight nod to herself, she touched her Apex once more to initiate a variation on arcane sight, a power that would allow her to see where she was going. The world lit up around her in an array of greens, reds, golds, and blues that showed her plainly where the borders of the tunnel were, how fast the magma was flowing— the speed was incredible —and how far ahead of her Graayyya was.

  Paddling with her claws felt like pushing her limbs through solid rock, yet it was not nearly as exhausting as she had expected it to be. She swished her tail behind her to gain a little more momentum.

  Before long she caught up with Graayyya, who smiled at her through the magma.

  How long did you say this is going to take? she asked.

  Graayyya shrugged. An hour. Perhaps less.

  Dauria was simultaneously relieved and felt her anxiety reach new heights. The crushing pressure against her body was maddening.

  Had Graayyya said that garnets did this for fun? What madness possessed them to actually seek out this experience? How could they enjoy such a thing? It felt to her as though a mountain had been dropped on top of her and she was trying to swim out from under it with nothing but her raw physical strength to aid her.

  And yet, she also recognized that an hour of this madness was a small price to pay. After all, how long had they been trapped within that underwater cavern?

  Even now, she truly did not know. At a guess, she would say decades. But trapped in a lightless environment with no way to tell the passage of time had left her internal clock a bit muddled.

  Had anyone suggested it, she would have believed anything from a month to several centuries. She had gone through so many sleep/wake cycles that she couldn’t begin to count them.

  With her mind focused on the amount of time spent in the cavern rather than the pressure of the magma and how long the journey was taking, the time passed quickly.

  Before she knew it, Graayyya led her to the side of the tunnel and, with the garnet’s tail wrapped firmly around Dauria’s body, slipped out a vent in the side of the tunnel.

  A mad swirl of molten rock, bubbles, and blackness surrounded her and the temperature shifted almost instantly from supremely hot to icy cold. The shock of it drew Dauria out of her thoughts and back into the real world.

  She reversed the power she’d used to shrink her body and was almost immediately back in her usual size and shape as she floated up from the sandy bottom of the sea.

  Spreading her wings, she propelled herself after Graayyya along the sea floor.

  Oddly, the water appeared devoid of any form of life. They weren’t that deep. Where was all the sea-life?

  Where are we? she asked

  We are still in the Mare Gallicum, her friend said. Not too far from the silt layer that leads down into the deep realm.

  Dauria nodded. That was good. They wouldn’t have far to go, though it raised even more questions about the lack of aquatic life around them.

  With no further comment, however, she began the steep ascent back toward the surface.

  The two great dragons broke the surface of the Mare Gallicum moments after Ryujin’s Blaze rose above the eastern mountains. Its bloody rays showered the glassy water with fiery light reflected in glossy garnet and metallic silver.

  The combination of freedom, sunlight, and cool ocean spray was a heady brew that left Dauria giddy with exultation.

  Scarcely a moment into her enjoyment, however, her heart sank to her tail.

  Thin tendrils of acrid smoke twisted upward into the sky from every land-bound direction. Where once had been villages and castles, now only smoking ruins remained.

  She turned to Graayyya and her heart shattered. The garnet wyrm wept openly, her sobs wracking her body with spasms while streams of thick, fiery tears dripped down her snout into the glassy water below.

  “They did it,” Dauria whispered miserably. “Those infernal bastards actually did it. They convinced The Council to go to war. And we missed the whole bloody thing.”

  The garnet did not react. It was as though she hadn’t heard.

  “Graayyyavalllia,” she said forcefully.

  Graayyya blinked away her tears and the sobs abruptly ceased. She looked into Dauria’s eyes, her expression clear. She clenched her jaw, the thick mandibular muscles bulging, and her golden eyes shone. “Yes?”

  Angling her wings to keep herself aloft and upright, Dauria held out her claws toward Graayyya and said, “Join your power to mine. We must know what has happened.”

  The larger wyrm scoffed. “Isn’t it appallingly clear at this point what happened? That agate bastard finally got his wish. He convinced the Council to go to war, and the combined might of the dragons decimated not just Humanity but the Earth as well, just as we always predicted.”

  Dauria couldn’t deny the truth of her words, but it wasn’t enough. She shook her head. “We need details, my friend. We need to know exactly what happened. There might yet be a way to come back from this.”

  The garnet adjusted her position, gave a weary nod, and took Dauria’s claws in her own.

  The rush of power that flooded into Dauria’s body almost overwhelmed her. The tingling energy stormed through her, fighting for release.

  It is remarkable how much she trusts me, Dauria thought as she thrust outward with the power. She scoured the Earth for information, past and present.

  Immediately, answers slammed into her mind as though she’d always known them. The flood-tide of raw data stunned her mind and carried it away from her body.

  Before she knew what was happening, she found herself looking down on her own body in confusion. Her eyes glowed bright silver. In amazement, she watched her mouth open and begin to speak in layered voices.

  “It is over, Graayyyavalllia. The war is over and Humankind has been vanquished. There may be a few pockets of futile resistance, but in every way that matters the humans are dead or subjugated.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “But there is another war coming. A war between dragons.”

  “By Ryujin, Tiamat, and the Astral Dragon! Why would dragons war amongst themselves?”

  “Many reasons, Graayyyavalllia. Many reasons, and none.”

  “What do we do?” Graayyya whispered.

  “The window will be narrow, the wait long, and the struggle great. But there will come a moment when you will have a chance to stop it. Not before it starts, nothing can stop that now. Yet when the time is right, when the death toll is so high, the destruction so great, the damage so far-reaching that even the most heartless can no longer deny it, then the remaining wyrms will be receptive to a message of peace.”

  “Will we even survive that long? How will we know the moment when it comes?”

  “You will know. The peace will never be what it once was, but it will be enough to stop the wanton destruction. You will know the time, Graayyyavalllia. And you will act to save the species and the Earth.”

  The glow in Dauria’s eyes faded and her mind slammed back into her body.

  She looked around, confused. “What happened?”

  The last thing she remembered was taking Graayyyavalllia’s claws in hers.

  The look of awed wonder in Graayyya’s eyes was almost painful to behold. “A gift from the gods. Come, we must prepare.”

  She turned and led Dauria toward her lair in the northern mountains of the large, once-Celtic island they knew as Prydein.