Tendrils of fire spilled out from all sides of the Temple of the Dragon as if squashed out from the top down. Flames licked white stone pillars and the dragon figurines that stood guard before them, staining them black in fresh soot. Smoke billowed softly behind the flames as a backdrop over which pillars of steam hissed and squelched. The great shallow pool of clear water that made up the floor fizzled out, the remaining moisture there on the floor gurgling patches evaporating like water of a mirage one nears. Those inside wailed in fear, their screams escaping hoarse from scorched throats. Still, they fought, naked and burning, their feet blistering from the boiling.

  Theirs was a nameless terror whose sight brought a horror upon them so that they fell to their knees as if in worship before it. There, they wailed until flames overtook them or they erupted in an explosion of blood from the inside out.

  It was not a monstrosity, but rather a beautiful thing to behold. Its skin shone brightly pearl white, its hair a flowing silver like the glow about the smallest moon. It hung all about its head and face in long strands as if submerged. And perhaps it was submerged, not in water but in the resonant power that hung about the tall figure—the figure of a man.

  Of all its horrible-beautiful features, what most brought terror were its eyes. Green lights on a face smeared featureless due to the aforementioned aura of its energy, a bright light like emeralds placed before the sun if the sun shone white and the emeralds swallowed all the light that poured out of it. Streams of green hung for a moment in the air as it moved. They pierced through stone as round, cold and dead things locked onto its next victim, a victim one only knew as its victim by the shrill cry before a sudden burst of blood and scattering limbs.

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  There was no escaping it. Frem’s father had tried to do so with the Stones of Yore but had been ensnared by a patch of waviness in the air that seemed to have caught his foot, stopping his flight. The being appeared beneath him and stood still without gazing upon him as he exploded, limbs flying, organs melting into blood, skeletal remains plummeting to the ground all around with a sopping clatter. His eyes had found another, and he who they found could no longer move.

  It was Frem. The poor boy was caught like a rabbit in a snare, only he was unable to even cry as the being moved toward him.

  He stood there frozen, utterly still, as the being lifted its hand and revealed to him what it held. The Stones of Yore, neatly set in an open brown satchel stuffed with shavings of the Ether Tree.

  Frem, without any doing of his own, lifted his hand and accepted the offering. The very instant he held the stones, the terror faded, the shroud of darkness it brought was lifted, the fire died, the smoke dissipated, and the boy fell to his hands and knees on smooth stone heaving in and out. Nothing that had lived where the dragoons once dwelt lived there anymore—not a man, woman, child, or animal. Only Frem. Only Frem lived. He was the only one. And in his state of maddening shock he took that as a sign.

  He coughed and spit blood he’d bitten from his tongue, looked up through the clouds of a clear sunny day that had been locked away behind pure blackness moments before. He would not cry. He would not fear. And he would not mourn. Not yet. He was alive. And he had, for the first time, a purpose.