In front of his palm, the icy spike grew. He fueled essence into it. All of the essence he had churning through him. The very power of the Realm, funneled through his essence crucible and into the spell. The icicle grew and grew; from the size of a dog, to a horse, to a house, to a fortified tower.

  “Matriarch! To me!” Tristan shouted as loud as he could. His voice boomed far louder than he expected it to. Is it because I’m…one with the Realm? He asked himself in his thoughts. Maybe because the power of the realm is not just being sucked up but flowing through me? Regardless, his ploy worked, as The Matriarch wheeled about from her combat and dove towards Tristan.

  He saw her eyes and he knew that she knew the plan. She approached him as if going to divebomb him; and this Tarthorax chased her. With fifty feet left to go, she shifted from her enormous fairy-dragon form and into that of a small, her-children-sized fairy dragon.

  And that led Tarthorax right into range.

  Tristan let the spell fly, and the enormous tower-sized projectile streaked up and slammed into the creature with a terrifying crunch as the spike impaled it through the right shoulder. Damn, I missed the head, Tristan thought as the beast let out a gurgle and plummeted.

  Slam! It impacted the side of the frozen hill. Tristan heard the horrific snaps and cracking of the bones as it pancaked thanks to the speed it was flying at, and began to slide down the hill.

  The Matriarch landed on his head much like Felicity would. Her voice was ragged and came through in gasps as her blood dripped onto Tristan’s head. “He…regenerates…somehow.”

  “The collar,” Tristan said as he jumped down the hill’s curve and began sliding towards the now-settling on the jumpshrubs body. He saw the body begin to knit itself back together as limbs snapped back into place and the eyes refocused onto Tristan. “Go! Seal the rift! I have this handled!”

  “Are you su-”

  “That is an order, Matriarch! Leave the dragon to the dragonslayer!” Tristan felt the authority his voice carried and felt a pulse in his chest. Not just the power of the Realm’s essence flowing through his body, but something deeper. Something in his blood, singing a war cry. His grandfather’s bloodline, flowing through his veins, spurring him to kill this dragon. His prey. Something he could kill to consume for power. “It is mine!” he shouted. He felt a desire – no, a hunger. A need to kill this creature and take its strength for his own.

  The Matriarch lifted off and flapped her way up the hill, but Tristan had eyes only for the beast before him. He screamed out a war cry and poured the essence into his blade, feeling it elongate until it was easily seven feet long from tip to hilt as it surged with the silvery essence. Cascading crackles of gold and crimson sparks echoed around the flowing surge, and icy-blue plants wound their way from the hilt he held onto with both hands.

  He reached the flat ground as the dragon was beginning to get up. No you don’t! He jumped up – propelled by the jumpshrub – and got onto its back with the single leap. The creature seemed to know the danger it was in, as it poured more essence into the artifice collar on its neck and its wounds fully repaired. It bucked right as Tristan landed on it – sending a jarring shake through Tristan’s legs as he bent them to absorb the shock. He was off target from the weak spot.

  “Verschwinde, Insekt!” (Get off, insect!), the thing roared as it began to flap its wings.

  “Ich bin kein Insekt “ (I am no insect!), Tristan shouted as he used the elongated blade to slash gouges in the wings. First the left, then with a swift motion, the right. The dragon flapped but the gashes kept it from rising.

  “Du wirst sterben!” (You will die!), The thing dropped down onto its stomach and rolled.

  Tristan had prepared for this. He had trained for this. His grandfather’s lessons resonated through his mind, and he trusted his body’s muscle memory. Running along the torso as it rolled to try and crush him. Unlike before in his training against the puppets and inside of his inner world, he stabbed his blade down into the flesh and sliced as he ran – cutting a gash around the creature’s whole midsection.

  It roared out in pain and got upright before spinning in a tight, neat circle. Tristan grabbed one of the spines to hold on and saw its wounds regenerating. He slashed at the wing membranes once more, cutting gashes – but the central torso wound healed over.

  The spin ended and Tristan jumped forward, getting to the spot between the wings. The weak spot. As he began to lift his blade, the head reared up. Tristan grinned and slammed his fist down into the hide, just as he had done with the inner world encounter. “Ich beschw?re eine Wand aus Eis herauf!” (I summon forth a wall of ice).

  The wall sprouted up in front of him and he saw the torrent of flame gush out. It began melting the wall, and Tristan felt the heat all around him. But he had the power of an entire Realm at his command, and he sucked in more essence with his reverse-spinning top-half of his essence crucible to keep himself filled up with the empowering essence. That kept him cool as ice cascaded from all around him and coated his body as he knew the backlash would. More ice to keep me safe.

  But it was not needed. The flames had no chance to pierce the barrier that Tristan had manifested. Faster than it could melt, it built up further. “Ich bin Tristan Anorox! Drachent?ter! Du wirst hier sterben!” (I am Tristan Anorox! Dragonslayer! You will die here!).

  The dragon’s flame ended, and it looked at him. The eyes had a look that Tristan knew. He had seen it before. In Felicity’s eyes when he held her by the neck upon hunting her down. The look of despair just as when he saw it in the eyes of Steffany, whose mother he had saved at a tragic cost.

  Tarthorax was terrified.

  His collar glowed a bright orange and all of the wounds healed over. He tried to lift off, but the ice weighing him down – easily the size of a small house – kept him pinned. Tristan lifted his sword and stabbed down into the weak spot – right between the wings, down through the thick, muscle and flesh. And into the heart. He wrenched the blade back and forth, cutting open a deeper gash as the blood surged upward; thick and hot.

  The creature’s eyes widened and then dulled to nothing as the light left them. It collapsed onto the ground, and Tristan immediately withdrew his sword, let the essence cease flowing into it as he sheathed it, and made the spell gesture for his grandfather’s secret, family-only spell. He brought the heels of his palms together, putting the right hand on top of the left as he extended both out before him. The fingers, extended into the shape of a mouth with sharp teeth – pointing at each other.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  And lastly, he began to slowly close them as he pushed as much essence as possible into them…and said the words he never thought he would get to say. Words that his father had told him he would never get to say, because he was the useless half-breed.

  “Mighty beast which now lays slain, I take from you what you can no longer use and is mine by right of conquest.”

  From his hands, the icy-blue and silver essence flowed out and covered the whole form of the creature. Tristan saw the dragon corpse fully…saturated, for lack of a better word, with his essence. Gold and crimson sparks were stripped from the body and glimmered within the silvery light. Then, as he fully closed his fingers together, clasping them like a dragon’s maw closing on food; the essence surged back up into him.

  He saw all of it rapidly pull back into his closed hands before shooting down his essence channels and into his essence crucible. He felt full; as if he had just eaten a huge meal. And he felt hot. Very hot. He was gasping for air as he collapsed to his knees. It felt like he was choking, and he put his hands to his neck as he let out a scream of pain.

  His eyes shut; he could see his essence crucible. It was still silver and icy-blue, but those gold and crimson sparkles were no longer sparkles. The silvery essence flowed back into it, and he had to stop spinning it as he felt ill. He felt sick to his stomach and wanted to puke. Essence sickness? He thought. I need to get rid of it.

  He spun his crucible fully in a single direction – trying to expel essence as fast as he could. Vent it, just as he had done a few times before.

  The feeling of sickness and choking faded, but the heat was still there. He writhed on the deceased dragon’s back as he saw his essence crucible become…infused. The icy-blue crevices were joined by another, singular crevice that was a perfect line – filled with gold and crimson, flowing liquid. The icy blue one also straightened out and the two lines intersected. It was a beautiful sight, and as the heat faded, Tristan saw a large X across his essence crucible. The silver hue was dominant, but the stripe of gold and crimson, and the stripe of icy blue, were solid and stable. Where they intersected was pure white.

  Is it as if my crucible is more stable now? He thought. Because I’m not just Winterbloom? I bet if I was just Winterbloom, it would be silver with the blue more dominant. But it’s almost like…there’s room to add more stripes? For more dragons? Elements? Then, it struck him. I should be able to use fire elementalism now! I need to get a spell primer for it!

  And, another thought struck him as he jolted upright. Crap! The blood! He went over to the hole where the heart was still leaking its vital fluid. He gulped and swallowed down the revulsion at what he was about to do…as he shoved his face into the sword-hole and began sucking up the blood and swallowing it down.

  It was hot, goopy, and peppery. Very spicy. He pushed through the pain of eating something far spicier than he was used to eating.

  His grandfather’s words echoed in his mind, pushing him on in the grotesque action. And, he also regretted not doing this before the spell.

  “Remember, when you slay a dragon, you first want to drink the blood. Each size and type carry a different level of protection. Wyrm sized is the best you can hope for, as it is the most protective, but there is no harm in drinking more. You have to drink as much as you can. To the point of bursting. Every chance you get. It will strengthen your resilience against their element.”

  Tristan came up for air and took several sucking breaths before going in again and sucking up as much of the vital fluid as he could. Only when it felt like his stomach would burst did he stop and pull back entirely, wiping his face clean as best he could. “Gah! It’s in my eyes!” he shouted; mostly in anger at himself. It was as if someone had put pepper into water and thrown it into his face.

  Something cold was splashed onto him, and it helped ameliorate the heat on his eyes. “You look a mess, Lord Tristan,” The Matriarch’s voice said.

  Tristan squinted through his still-inflamed eyes and saw her in her elfanoid form – injured. Other fairy dragons were around her-flapping with large, scoop-style claws that doused him with clearcool over and over again. Tristan was thankful for the cool deluge. He wanted to drink the cool liquid, but he was too full. Standing up, he let out a belch unintentionally. “Excuse me,” he said with a chuckle.

  The fairy dragons looked aghast at him as they flapped in place, and The Matriarch winced, “You…you don’t look so good, Lord Tristan. All covered in boiling blood.”

  “Boiling?” Tristan looked back to the heart-hole and saw that steam was escaping. “Oh, wow. That vial of blood was no joke.”

  “You…you drank its blood?”

  Tristan nodded, “Grandfather’s bloodline is called the dragonslayer bloodline.” He hiked a thumb back at his chest, and grinned, proudly. “And I just killed my first dragon.”

  As the fairy dragons flew back – carrying Tristan and the exhausted Matriarch – he explained how his family’s bloodline worked. “Grandfather made it by killing the Arch Dragon of the Elemental Realm of Fire. In his group of adventurers that went into that Realm, they had a Wizard who could use protective spells.”

  “The term for an Eighth through Tenth Order-capable essence-weaver, yes?” The Matriarch asked to clarify.

  “Correct. So, grandfather got a protection spell cast on him, and then chose to eat the heart of the Arch Dragon, drank its blood in the process, and for good measure tried to eat the meat.”

  “Why?” The Matriarch asked, revulsion written on her face.

  “Superstition. Eating a dragon’s heart supposedly brought great wealth and luck.” Tristan sighed with relief as the cooling breeze blew against his face. “Later, he paid a diviner to find out what happened. They couldn’t help, so instead they paid a rejuvenation specialist to examine his body. Turns out, eating an Arch Dragon’s heart and drinking its blood gave him a bloodline; unique to the actions he took to get it.”

  “What about that spell you used?”

  “Anorox family only,” Tristan stated. “The only dragonbane spell I know of – I mean aside from the artificed ones in my armor and weapon. Anyways, grandfather learned about his bloodline. And he also learned that the creation of a bloodline comes along with making an essence crucible. So, he developed a spell to fully ‘eat’ a dragon’s essence.” Tristan grinned, “I should be able to use fire elementalism now! Plus, I am very resistant to fire and heat – hence why I could shove my head into its boiling blood.”

  Tristan retreated into his thoughts for a moment as The Matriarch pondered his words. I also have that vial of the fledgling dragon that Felicity got. Elemental Realm of Wind, I think? I didn’t know you could be resistant to wind. What would that even mean? That you can’t feel the breeze? That would be weird. Something to investigate.

  The Matriarch nodded and looked up at him, “That is an…interesting development. What does your crucible look like?” Tristan described it, and she shook her head, “I’ve never heard of a crucible like that. Zeltana – your progenitor and furthest ancestor – described her crucible as pure silver with growing, blue plant growth cascading up from the base.”

  “The blue line looked kind of like that,” Tristan stated. “Before I did the whole dragon consuming thing.”

  “I believe…I had said that your crucible may have the potential to surpass even her essence capacity. I think this confirms it. You can actually bypass your heritage restrictions which I have never heard of happening. Granted, I am limited to my experiences here in the Fey Realm.” She looked at him quizzically as they landed atop the Queen’s Wood. “How did you create that enormous ice wall at the rift?”

  Tristan described his method as he went over to the alchemy station and grabbed two of the healing elixirs, handing both to her. She quaffed them and then smiled as her wounds were partially healed. Not fully, but well on the mend. He ended with, “It felt incredible! Like I had the entire Realm flowing through me.”

  “Humor me. Let us go to the vault and test something. You may have found a workaround to the conundrum of the locked doors.” She frowned, “And do not funnel the ambient essence of the Realm through yourself during your training going forward. You won’t have access to it in the Mortal Realm, or any other Realms you happen to go into.”

  Tristan nodded, “I know. I won’t be able to do what I did with spells back there outside of the Fey Realm.” But, he thought, knowing that I can do that means that I could do some remarkable essence-weaving here when it comes to imbuing and artifice. I think. First…let’s see if I can get into that vault with this method.

  Whew! What a fight! Finally, the dragon slaying you've all been waiting for.

  There is another dragon to go in Book 1, but it is a bit later on (around Chapter 45), so just be patient!

  And if this dragon fight did not live up to your expectations - please leave some feedback in the comments!