Calling upon his considerable magic, his primordial beast, and all his courage, Prince Dante Dragona scattered his essence to the four winds, rendering his body invisible to escape the fatal clutches of his father. His gut burned like he’d swallowed hot coals, his consciousness was slipping, and he didn’t know which way was up, let alone how to focus his energy for the necessary transformation.

And that’s when he saw the apparition—somewhere between the dead and the living—hovering in the space between worlds: a dragon prince with identical black eyes, Dante Dragona’s build, and a fierceness of purpose, radiating above him like a spectral halo. “You are stronger than our father, Prince Dante. Your dragon is a god! Fight through the haze—do it now—I am with you.”

Prince Desmond?

Whether in his mind, in a dream, or in the space between worlds, a white owl hooted three times, and Dante’s heart exploded in his chest.

As his father’s talons slipped from his throat—now grasping air instead—Dante’s sapphire beast emerged from the ether with a roar, his tail spiraling like a twister, his talons swiping through the air, his slightly curved, razor-sharp horns pointing north toward the corporeal dragon above him. Dante charged like a bull, thrust the center horn forward, and gouged out King Demitri’s right eye, even as he sent the banquet table flying over the balustrade and spun about in the air like a nimble tiger.

He soared toward the heavens to gain momentum, then dove toward the stunned beast beneath him, banking left to swipe the pale green dragon on its blindside with the full force of a massive wing, sending the maimed serpent tumbling.

But he didn’t stop there.

He continued to zoom above the castle grounds, his mighty wings flapping so furiously that the burning fires, the blazes still scorching the soldiers of Umbras, went out like an extinguished candle. A terrible cry, a thunderous howl, a rumble like a roll of thunder crackled through the air as the sapphire dragon made a second pass over the chaotic gardens beneath him. This time, he glided low to the ground, saturating Prince Azor, Prince Teague, and the fallen soldiers in a great blue flame, cauterizing their injuries and reversing the damage, even as he sought the Castle Guard in his peripheral vision.

The dragon’s flames turned from blue to yellow, from yellow to orange, and from orange to red, as one by one the sapphire serpent scorched the Castle Guard to ash. Dante’s fire, his tail, and his talons worked in tandem as he severed limbs, detached heads, and tossed giants of men about the castle grounds like insignificant pawns on a chessboard: small, weightless, and expendable.

The king was right on his tail.

Good.

Let him come.

Dante whirled through the air in dizzying circles, spinning too quickly for a human eye to track, zigzagging this way and that in order to lure the pale-green dragon away from the gardens, away from Dante’s family, and away from his faithful servants.

Up, up, up into the air…

He spiraled, and King Demitri’s dragon followed unerringly.

Flames assailed Prince Dante from the rear—sweltering, crackling, exploding in the atmosphere—but the sapphire dragon dipped and dodged, plummeted and climbed, rolled out of the way and reversed directions. And then, once again, the sapphire beast dove toward the ground, and like a fish chasing the perfect lure, the pale-green dragon followed suit. A second before Prince Dante struck the earth with a clap, the sapphire dragon spun in a summersault, landed on his back, and extended his tail like a javelin. He braced and held the spear steady as the king’s momentum drove him forward into the attack. His massive jaw open, his jowls frothing with spittle, his jagged, uneven teeth gleaming like daggers in the sunlight, the pale-green dragon lunged at the sapphire dragon’s throat and impaled himself on the tail.

The king immediately jerked backward in a feverish attempt to break free, but the sapphire dragon would not relent. Dante curled the tip of his tail inward, hooked it around the green dragon’s spine, and wrenched at the uneven backbone, snapping several vertebrae in two.

The king shrieked in fury and pain.

He thrust his lethal horns into the sapphire dragon’s chest and beat his claws against the soil, tossing up dust and causing the field beneath them to tremble.

Dante retracted the tip of his tail from the green dragon’s spine. He brandished it like a whip, encircled the beast about the swell of his belly, and flipped Demitri over with ferocious power. He pounced like a lion, mounting the writhing beast, and this time, it was Prince Dante’s dragon who had the advantage of serrating teeth. Dante tore a sizeable chunk of flesh out of the green dragon’s breast and spit it out on the ground, while the king’s serpent bucked beneath the sapphire dragon, latched onto Dante’s shoulders with his talons, and dug in for all he was worth.

King Demitri tore and wrenched and clawed, trying to gain penetration beneath the sapphire dragon’s scales, and together, the mighty beasts rolled around on the ground, stabbing with their tails, scoring with their talons, taking turns eviscerating each other’s flesh.

Outbuildings were laid to waste in an instant.

Trees as old as the Realm itself snapped like twigs or were ground to dust beneath them.

Flourishing fields, peaceful pastures, meticulously planted gardens were set ablaze and demolished. And yet, the dragons fought on. Bloodthirsty. Feral. And determined.

They fought like dark lords from the Forgotten Realm.

At last, Prince Dante felt his power ebbing.

The pain was blinding, the struggle insurmountable, the strength of the beast he had provoked, impregnable. Great Nuri, Lord of Fire, King Demitri was second only to the Lord of Agony.

He would never—ever—give up!

As a savage snarl of torment and victory charged the air all around them, Dante knew his father could sense his weakness, smell his waning confidence, and detect his ebbing strength.

Aguilon! he shouted in his mind.

Willow! he called to the witch.

Desmond, he whispered in his soul.

And then he scrambled away from the pale-green dragon, lumbered to the side of an oak, and fell to his back, exposing his belly while panting thick wisps of smoke.

As expected, the king’s beast swelled with hubris.

He reared up on his hind limbs and stalked toward the fallen dragon.

He hovered above him, roared a cry of victory, and snapped his tail high in the air before winding the snakelike vertebrae around Dante’s torso and squeezing like an anaconda. As the sapphire dragon’s breath whooshed out of him, as his internal organs began to protest, King Demitri’s dragon lowered its massive bestial head, undulated to the side in a serpentine motion, and opened its jowls, preparing to snap Dante’s dragon’s neck.

The warlock, the witch, and the ghost sent a triad of supernatural power flooding into the sapphire dragon’s skull, and Dante’s joints gave way. His maxilla separated from his mandible, allowing his jaw to open five times wider than it should, and he struck like a viper, swallowing his enemy’s cranium whole, and clamping down with his canines. He wrenched his powerful jaw to the side and severed King Demitri’s head from his body; then he grinded the bony flesh into pulp with his molars and swallowed what little remained.

The sapphire dragon rolled from beneath the beheaded beast, lumbered five steps in reverse, and tossed back his head. As he roared to the heavens—a savage cry of victory, rage, and defiance—he channeled a fire so hot, so unforgiving, that the air around him erupted into clouds of gas; the clouds formed an arch over the grounds of Castle Dragon; and the statue of a serpent with a diamond eye, erected above the highest tower, melted into liquid ore.

Prince Dante incinerated what was left of the king and collapsed.

* * *

Mina Louvet approached the monster cautiously.

Her dress was torn and tattered, her hair reeked like smoke, and her delicate hands were trembling from the fear that would not let go.

By all that was sacred, she had almost lost Prince Dante.

For a moment, she had believed she would lose her sons.

The dragons had battled like demons, possessed—they had decimated half the gardens.

“Mistress, stay back!” It was Thomas the squire, calling to Mina from behind a charred tree trunk. “Dragons are not rational; they don’t reason or think. Prince Dante is likely still feral. Allow his beast to retreat.”

Mina licked her lips nervously, stared at the giant head of the sapphire dragon, and regarded his incisors, his canines, and his snout with great caution—he was still breathing smoke, snarling beneath his breath, and his eyes were still blazing red.

Prince Dante is likely still feral…

Thomas’s words echoed again.

And then it hit her.

King Dante is likely still feral…

This dragon was no longer a prince.

She sank to her knees, oh so slowly, and crawled along the ground. He was bleeding, he was panting, and his eyes—those fiery red pupils—looked dazed, confused, and somehow lost. The king wasn’t feral; he was wasted, exhausted…spent. “My prince,” she whispered softly, using the familiar term one last time to remind him of who he was…of who she was. “My lord, my love, my king.”

The beast turned his head to the side; his ears flared back, and he angled his snout as if listening.

“It’s Mina, your Sklavos Ahavi.”

“Mother,” Prince Asher called out to her. He waved his fingers in a beckoning motion. “Mother, come back.”

She shook her head. “Your father would never hurt me. His soul hasn’t changed.” She rose onto her knees in front of the dragon’s snout and slowly reached out her hand. And then she set it gently—tentatively—on his hard, scaly nose and caressed him.

He grunted and reared back.

She tried it again.

“Dante…” she whispered softly. “It’s over. You did it. Come back. Ari, Azor, and Asher are fine—a bit tattered, but they will live. Prince Damian”—she paused, no longer needing to be quite as careful—“Matthias has already healed Azor’s arm. Your fire accelerated the process.” She glanced over her shoulder at the scattering of royals slowly approaching the dragon. “Princess Gaia, Mistress Cassidy, even Willow the witch—we’re all still here.” She frowned then. “Prince Dario was wounded as well, but Prince Drake saw to his full recovery. And as for your nephews, your loyal subjects…” She waved her hand in a wide arc, indicating the general of Warlochia, the general of Umbras, and several of Prince Drake’s sons, along with Aguilon, the high mage, Willow, the witch, and many others she had already named, as well as several she had not. “Let us see to your wounds, begin to bury the dead, and clean up these castle grounds. You still have a king across the restless sea to rescue.”

The dragon nuzzled his snout against her hand and snorted softly. Then he rocked back onto his hind legs, swept his tail along the ground, and his eyes receded to a deep, dark sapphire. His scales softened, his tail receded, and his horns began to retract. In an instant, Prince Dante Dragona—or at least the prince as Mina had always known him—stood before the gawking crowd, clothed once again in his royal finery: smooth black trousers, a knee-length black tunic, calf-high boots, and a heavy sword sheathed at his belt.

And just like that very first day in Castle Dragon, it was as if someone had thrown open a window in a dark, cryptic attic and a glacial mist swept across the land. Enigmatic eyes, a tall, imposing figure, hair as dark as midnight were suddenly encased in fog, and the emblem in the upper left corner of Dante’s tunic, the bloodred sigil of a dragon, embroidered in gold, no longer had a polished diamond in the place of the dragon’s eye. Whether Aguilon had done it, whether Willow had assisted, or whether Nuri, the Lord of Fire, had interceded on the Realm’s behalf, in the center of the serpent’s eye, just below its angry brow, there was a polished, inset sapphire.

As Dante Dragona stepped out of the fog, the sigil blazed with light. His hair whipped around in a preternatural wind, and his wounds began to heal on their own. As muscles cut from granite contracted and released in predatory waves, rising like the sea at high tide, descending like the ocean’s foam—as his proud, broad shoulders drew back in relief, and power radiated all around him—he nodded and regarded the crowd. “Thank you,” he said in a chilling, dark voice, allowing the words to settle around him. “Each male and female here risked everything, and I am grateful.” His posture, his demeanor, his very essence had transformed.

It was drenched in absolute authority.

It was steeped in supernatural power.

The male, the dragon, the monarch was positively magnificent in his post-transformational grace—in his utter supremacy.

And one by one, those who loved him, revered him, or served him fell to one knee before him, with the exception of Thomas the squire, who had managed to retrieve King Demitri’s crown shortly after the dragon had shifted. Thomas came from behind the trunk of the tree, padded quietly across the now-sacred ground, and laid the ancient golden diadem at Dante’s feet.

Turning to face the throng, he bellowed: “Long live the king of Dragon’s Realm!”

And then he fell to one knee, along with the other subjects.