Shalkar.

Novosibirsk Tower control room.

In the collected stratagems published by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Federation, the old Masters had this to say:

“In the advent of a territorial contest, the advantage of a Tower is almost insurmountable. A nation without a Tower cannot stand against one with one, much less two. To this end, even against the might of Demi-Humans and the Mageocracy alike, the old doctrine still stands, that territorial advancement accomplished with multiple Towers should be exercised if the Federation desired capitulation from its foes.”

For Boris Govorov, Tower Master of Novosibirsk, what he internalised during those lectures was that the foe was meant to capitulate.

That the young Magus administrator of Shalkar was now asking Novosibirsk to bend the knee, was as unthinkable as Nizhny disappearing in a puff of Conjuration.

“Tower Master, our spatial signal has been disrupted, we’re unable to Teleport… We are also unable to send out the Contingency Capsule without breaching Shalkar’s shields,” his Divination section reported with trembling voices, more afraid of Govorov than the Thunder Dragon wailing on the Force Panes shielding the Tower. After that delivery by Shalkar’s administrator, all knew that their lives were in the hands of their Tower Master, whose own livelihood was held by Moscow.

“You have some time to mull it over, Master Govorov. By which I mean, until your shields fail, or until her Paleness arrives to personally inspect your labour.” The grinning oriental’s final message had possessed the nonchalance of a hawker peddling questionable chebureki, then winked out like a spell flare.

Should Novosibirsk surrender? Govorov pondered an impossible outcome. Surrender was out of the question, but perhaps, an arrangement could be reached.

Meanwhile, every few seconds, Message Spells flared at Govorov’s peripheral vision.

From their Glyph patterns, he knew it to be the Triage Bay receiving Mages lucky enough to afford a Contingency Ring. With his own Mage Flights tucked behind the Tower Shielding, the arrivals would be the lost souls left behind by Nizhny.

“Tower Master, upper shielding is at forty-five per cent,” the Abjuration section reported with the same timidity as Divination. “The Mage Flights are asking for permission to engage the Thunder Dragon.”

“Denied. All Mage Flights are to remain on standby,” Govorov growled. There was no point in fighting the Thunder Dragon because they could no longer attack Shalkar’s Shielding Generators. Even if they chased off Golos, there was still Thomas Holland to get through before they could even think of throwing bodies against Shalkar’s Dwarven defences.

But it wasn’t as though they could stand still either.

If Govorov chose to burn the Tower’s mana reserves, they could hold out for another week–but then the Tower could crash down on Shalkar and become a permanent fixture to the “Profitess” and her shining city.

By that same measure, having a Thunder Dragon breach the Tower was just as dire for those in the Tower and for the survival of his career in Moscow.

Govorov felt his teeth clench, filling his mouth with a foul taste of bitter iron. He forced himself to relax, though any attempts at self-platitude were destroyed by an adult Thunder Dragon tearing, beating, wailing and breathing behind the iron curtain of Abjuration Mandalas, force panes, and sheet metal.

Suddenly, a bone-deep viciousness took hold of Govorov.

He had survived the Great Terror of `67 by giving up loyal subordinates and loved ones, and then again in the Great Purge of `84 by delivering his old mentor on a silver platter to Master Popov. He had seen no less than fourteen Undead Tides and fought in them all, and had personally oversaw the subjugation of Demi-human tribes at Yurga, Chemal and Altai.

A decade ago, he had led the great retreat of Khoridol Saridag in upper Mongolia, and had then led a triumphant re-conquest of the northern highlands with the might of Novosibirsk looming over the flaming yurts.

Capitulate to a city where children held the keys to the kingdom?

Govorov wondered if it was better to just set the Tower’s Core to explode.

“Tower Master, upper shielding is at forty-three per cent,” his Abjuration section delivered an update. “Engineering is requesting a rerouting of power to the upper Abjuration projectors. The mechanical stress on the control arms is exceeding the barrier’s dampening.”

The room shook.

The plated tiles making up the sleek control room’s interior walls groaned.

“Connect me to Administrator Huang,” Govorov informed his Diviners.

A second later, a youthful, oriental face no older than his youngest Apprentice greeted Govorov once more.

“Master Govorov!” The voice sounded delighted. “Have you made your choice?”

“Release your shields and the spatial disruption, and we will withdraw peacefully,” Govorov spoke with the finality of a man facing a Moscovite promotion. “That’s my offer, Master Huang. The Federation cannot yield, as you know, but I am not so inflexible. Our nations shall remain allies, and it benefits neither of us for this unpleasantness to continue.”

The look from the young man staring back at Govorov was enough to set his teeth on edge.

“Perhaps I wasn’t clear,” the administrator of Shalkar sighed. “I can’t make any decision other than preventing damage and loss to your beautiful Tower. Our Paleness is still on her way, you see, and until she gets here, no one else has the authority to strike deals with anyone.”

“Then I am wasting my time?” Govorov’s surroundings crackled as his Lightning Mana leaked forth. “You dare to–”

“Tower Master!” the vice-Regent put up both hands. “Look, I am merely asking that you put down your shields, sit there with your men and their lives intact, and simply wait. Is that so difficult? How is that an insult to the Federation?”

“The Federation has never capitulated to anything, or anyone!” Govorov stopped himself from swearing. “Look around you, vice-Regent. If our Tower truly wishes to break free, not even half of your city will remain! We have strategic spells, vice-Regent, you know this.”

“Is asking you to PARK a loitering vehicle on the sidewalk a capitulation?” The vice-Regent looked scandalised. “I am not even issuing a fine! Are our Translation Iouns malfunctioning? I mean, I understand your threat, Tower Master, but you’re barking up the wrong tree here. I can offer you one outcome, and one outcome only. That’s the limit of my power. Hollering at me isn’t going to sweeten the deal, send Lord Holland home, or stop Lord Golos.”

The floors thrummed as Engineering routed the mana from the engine core to the upper shielding. On the central screen, the Thunder Dragon circled back, tore off a chunk of the Force scales making up the Tower’s barriers, then scampered its way toward the top, leaving behind a trail of bruised mana.

Govorov felt his head throb. Was this Richard a fool or a genius?

DING–! Just as Govorov sought to relay his ultimatum less subtly, a different Message Glyph chimed, displaying a Sigil familiar to Govorov.

“Point of contact from the Mageocracy’s Foreign Office, Tower Master,” the Diviners delivered the missive. “It’s Lady Maxine Loftus of Ely, requesting to speak on behalf of the Regent of Shalkar.”

Govorov paused.

Maxine Loftus, “Lady Grey” to those who knew her as a socialite, was a senior politician and one of the named nobles Moscow Tower had marked as important to the affairs of the Federation. She was a working Middle Faction Magister, a patron to Peterhouse of Cambridge, and most importantly, a well-known pacifist.

Speaking to an adult… would be infinitely more pleasing than speaking to the novice mayor of a city who wouldn't commit to his responsibilities.

“Have her join us,” Govorov forced down the twitching in his jowls.

A split-second later, the svelte, aristocratic face of the grey-eyed noblewoman appeared between himself and the wide-eyed vice-Regent of Shalkar.

“Zdrahstuiteh, Master Govorov,” the Lady rounded off her greeting with a nod in perfect Russian. “The Foreign Office has just been notified that a great misunderstanding has occurred between one of our semi-autonomous protectorates and our friend the Federation. Is this true?”

“Great lady,” Govorov breathed a sigh of relief, noting the usual diplomacy the British Mageocracy used in dealing with the Federation. “I am afraid this is both the case, and not the case. We are here to answer a call of distress from the citizens of the Federation. Our right to exercise our nation’s power is no mistake.”

“Citizens in distress?” The face of Maxine Loftus seemed surprised. “Richard, is this true?”

“I have records of our communication with the refugees, dear Lady,” Govorov stated, glad at least that the Sparrows had laid the groundwork for Moscow’s casus belli. “There are thousands of them, yearning for the Federation’s protection from the Regent’s exploitation of their labour. Both Lord Ravenport and yourself may review our conversation at your leisure as soon as we are able to resolve our present quandary.”

“I am afraid any recordings the Tower Master may provide are merely excuses or fabrications,” the vice-Regent interjected. “He—”

“Magus Huang,” Govorov growled, his face growing red. “You would doubt the words of a Federation Tower Master? Do you accuse us of fabricating this evidence? Do you dare to answer to our suffering people?”

“Master Govorov!” the vice-Regent addressed him with a face as red as his own. “Come on, there’s a limit to bending the truth. Those refugees you are purportedly helping number in the hundreds at best, and besides, where are they now?”

“Where—” Govorov furrowed his brow, then realised something. This Richard Huang wasn’t so innocent after all! He was one of them! He was as cruel and crude as the rest of the jackals in Moscow. “—you killed them? By St Peter, Master Huang! Are you telling me the Regent has murdered our citizens to prevent the Federation from entering Shalkar? This cannot stand! Shalkar’s gross immorality against the proletariat WILL NOT STAND!”

Govorov felt his heart pound.

This was the cause! They had cause now, to intervene, and to retreat! With Grey here, Shalkar has no reason to hold his Tower hostage for what was arguably a valiant effort at defending the Federation’s citizens!

There was silence as Govorov waited for the young administrator to fold.

“Richard, did Gwen do this?” Lady Grey appeared shocked. “If so, that’s going to be a very… international problem, dear, even for someone of Gwen’s standing.”

“Er… actually,” the vice-Regent’s face, unperturbed, summoned a quizzical expression. “Master Govorov killed those refugees. With extreme prejudice, I might add.”

“What—?! Preposterous!” Govorov spat. “You jest in excess, Magus Huang!”

“No jest,” the oriental’s smile was enough to make Govorov’s blood chill. “I mean, you’re sitting on them now. Novosibirsk landed exactly where they were holding their protest. I mean… I was as shocked as anyone can be, but I remained silent out of politeness. I mean, not even Lady Grey can deny that er… Moscow has a… reputation. You tore them to shreds. The men, the women, the children too…”

We landed on our own men?! Govorov felt his world perform a double parallel bar somersault. We landed on Magister Ivanov’s son? THOSE were the citizens that his Tower bodied?

“... to shreds, you say?” Lady Grey appeared concerned.

Govorov could barely process this new information before the Lady’s facial expression transformed from genteel pacifism to that of a grim-face judge.

“This is… tragic,” Lady Grey's tone grew as steely as her famously striking eyes. “If that’s the case, Master Govorov, the Mageocracy must ask some very serious questions as to why you are here, what you mean to do about it, and how long you must stay…”

Above Shalkar, a sliver of time and space shattered.

First appearing as a mere spider-web fracture, the cracking of the Prime Material grew dramatically more sinister as Elemental Fire poured through the tear, heating up the surrounding air to a dizzying degree.

However, the being to emerge from the Planar Jaunt was not the Prince of Fire, but another princeling of flames.

Alexander Slylth Morden, Scion to Sythinthimryr, mistress of Carrauntoohil and volunteer errand boy to the Pale Priestess of Shalkar, emerged from the rent to observe her glimmering city.

From his vantage, his new home was a jewel beyond mortal comprehension. What had begun as a small oasis was now a vast sprawling city of greenery, cemented by the existence of an unimaginably large Bodhi tree with heart-shaped leaves, some as large as a man was tall. From its emerald peak, the hue of the leaves descended toward a gentle autumn, forming a bed of flames at its rooted base, beneath which lay the Dwarven Citadel.

His mother’s abode, with its rolling hills and rising bluffs that met at the Red Dragons’ lair, was already a marvel to the lesser Dragons around their domain. Yet, here beside the Fire Sea, the female at the heart of his interest had established a lair that made Dragons dream.

Presently, however, an eyesore marred the beauty of his future partner’s naturalist colony. An ugly, jagged shape, something between a perpendicular ship and a Brutalist shard, was stabbed into the inner circle, kept in place by layers of shielding projected from the city’s Strategic Mandalas.

Taking a pleasant breath of superheated air, Slylth uttered the arcane syllables of Morden’s teachings, zipping the rent in space as a hiker would with a loosened pouch. A snap of his wrist was enough to summon a Dwarven Communication device made with highly secure Resonance Crystals, which the Red Dragon activated by merely willing the internal Glyphs into life.

“Richard,” Slylth spoke to the device. “The Regent wishes to know the situation here. I am her proxy while she deals with complications down below.”

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

It took a moment for the devices to sync.

“...I am glad she didn’t come herself,” the voice of the mortal Magus, cousin to the female, replied with a sense of mirth. “The situation is good. Her Paleness chose to trust us, and we have not betrayed her faith. Moscow is at the table, and we’re hashing out an agreement with the remaining Tower as we speak.”

Slylth considered the Mage’s words, feeling his Creature Core relax its built-up mana. “You won’t need my assistance? No… Meteors in the foreseeable future?”

“Far from it, we’re wrapping up, haha…” Richard’s reply was as truthful as it was delightful. “Let me give you a run down, boss. After that, if you could give us the goss on what’s happening below, that would be, as Whetu likes to say, ‘sweet-ass’.”

Deepholm.

Vrithr avor Il-Jrogo, the Iron Orbit.

From the first to the twenty-second gate, the Dwarves were stretched to their utter limits pushing back the Lizard-kin fodder belonging to Dhànthárian.

If their penetration to the Earthen Dragon’s lair had stirred the hornet’s nest, then flooding the entirety of Deepholm had brought every crawling, howling, enraged Lizard out of the metal works into the caverns.

The reason, Gwen saw from the intricate sand-sculpted real-time map made by Hilda and Axelhoff, was because the water was permeating far faster and more readily than any of them had anticipated.

The city was old, older than human civilization, and its layered expansion meant that only the first few “gate” layers were truly sealed and in good repair. As with any civil project, the lack of maintenance was the ultimate reason for failure, and the layers of the globe-like city left to be venerated as structural support turned out to be as waterproof as a sieve.

A second reason for the rapid ingress of sea water from the Fifth Vel was because of the Singularity. For reasons not even the Dwarves could fully calculate, the anomalous gravitational formation that spawned Dwarven civilisation was dead-keen on neutralising itself, and it was attracting Elemental Water with the passion of neodymium alloy charged with electricity.

The result, Gwen was stunned to observe, was an eruption of Lizard-kin bodies from every hidden nook and cranny of Deepholm that had been colonised and inhabited by these subterranean humanoids in their homage to their reptilian “All Father”.

“C–47-22 falling back to D-22-34!”

“E–47-02 advance to F-44-12!”

“Shielding Golem Squad, move to reinforce I–11-87!”

“Requesting aid from Exterminators, Tyrant Lizard at FX–12-33! Sending the reserve Thunder Guards”

Despite the carnage in chambers to her left, right, above and below, the Pale Priestess of Shalkar could only provide vitality to her Rat-kin’s fervent struggles against the monstrous regenerative capabilities of Dhànthárian’s kin.

Her role wasn’t in the inner ring, suppressing the incoming Beast Tide of Draconic Lizard men, but here beside her precious Leviathan Canon, ensuring that the tendrils of the World Tree remained unmolested as they fed eye-watering volumes of mana into the Leviathan’s heart, transporting thundering white water from the Elemental Plane of Water into the Elemental Plane of Earth.

“Ee-EE–!” Her haloed creature of divinity, that hovering, holy being known as The Lion of God, sang in a sing-song voice that Dhànthárian’s troops had reached the final barrier. These, Gwen was told by the Deepdowners, were the Hearth Guards that defended Dhànthárian’s domain, usually used as final fodder against ambitious kinfolk.

“It’s alright, Ariel, let them come.” Gwen felt the stirring of Elemental Mana in her veins filling her with a genuine sense of demi-divinity. Since their descent, she had barely used her Lightning abilities, and the feeling of its familiar Mana in her conduits was near lifting her from the earth.

“Force Shields at half strength—they’ll be at the wall supports in less than twenty meters. We’re pulling the Fabricators back.” Hilda’s Vox Message vibrated her earlobe. “Regent, we’re in your hands once more.”

There was an unmistakable confidence in the Deepdowner’s voice, mixed with a sliver of shame.

To the Dwarves’ merit, the expedition hardly represented the total might their race could bring to bear, as it consisted only of old-timers with a dream, and those who had volunteered time, resources and bodies for an Ancestral home they had never seen.

Gwen caressed her creature, feeling her Kirin purr under her claw-clad gauntlet.

Somewhere behind her, acting as the final barrier to the Dwarven command centre, was a salvering Caliban keen for more lizard flesh. Unlike Garp who had to return to the surface for fear of elemental poisoning by water, Caliban’s “Worm” form was entirely resistant, though far smaller and less nimble. It was also a shame that, working together with her flesh and blood allies, she had yet to utilise Caliban’s Night Walker form—though she should be glad that thus far, there was no need to poke the paper-thin, hypocritical veil of legal Necromancy.

“Ee-EE–!” Her Kirin was the first to warn her.

The Lizard’s men's reproach came with a cacophonic blare of rending metal. Three Land Sharks, the largest Gwen had ever seen, pushed their pointed heads through the melded gates welded into place by the Fabricator Engines.

If Lei-bup and the sisters were here, they could simply redirect a portion of the massive water stream to pound the Earthen Dragons into submission or at least extreme existential discomfort—but there was no such convenience here.

With her bedraggled Da-peng armour, and the tunnel sodden and knee-deep in sea water, she watched the Land Sharks splash as they landed in the enormous space excavated for a Low-Way station—

“You lizards are strangers here,” she spoke words that would appease her patron as her Essence and Mana entwined, flooding both herself and her Familiar. “Begone–!”

A long-fomented Chain Lightning, maximised, empowered and extended to the utmost limit of her mental and physical Affinity for Lightning, triplicated by her Draconic Familiar, transformed the Low-way into a conduit of pure plasma.

With an open mouth half-way delivering a petrifying breath, a Land Shark’s world turned pure white as emerald lightning swept its entire surroundings, passed through its armoured body, electrified every mote of water clinging to it and its kin, then continued its way down the tunnel for a hundred meters before branching out into the surrounding metal.

The attack was instant–but the duration wasn’t.

Without end, Gwen pumped her mana reserves into the spell so that it appeared as if she was channeling a torrent of plasma.

Elemental water danced and evaporated, the metal struts of the walls glowed red-hot, and the fabricated stone of the Low-way, made to warp space itself, peeled and cracked from the immensity of the energies eating away its protective Mandalas.

At the eternity of the seventh second, the Pale Priestess stopped to rest.

Her chest rose and fell as her hollowed mana reserves rapidly replenished from her connection to the World Tree, her mind suddenly fraught with spell fatigue.

“Ee–ee!” Ariel licked her hand, restoring her mental fortitude with both its cuteness and the special constitution of Celestial Kirins.

The space in front of her once more began to rapidly accumulate beads of water. The walls were now molten slag, and the gate itself was wholly absent, as were the Lizard Men who had sought to breach the final choke point. In the far distance, her enhanced hearing could discern the panic, the horror, and the regrouping of their foe, driven not only by instinct, but the will of a higher being who cared nothing for their lives.

The elephants fight and the grass gets trampled.

Never before had Gwen gained such an appreciation of the old aphorism with such clarity, not even in the Fifth Vel. She grew acutely aware that, elsewhere in Deepholm, in the dark and without their Priestess, her Rat-kin and Dwarves were dying by the dozens, halting the Dragon-kin with flesh and metal. To think that in the primodial days before the Age of Mortals, such battles would be a daily occurrence across all of Terra, with giants trodding upon the ant-like existences of the mortal races with less thought than a wisp of vague annoyance. That, according to the Bloom in White, was what the Accord had banished into history.

In the darkness, Ariel’s glowing horns smouldered as moisture re-inundated the empty space. The Pale Priestess took a long, deep breath, then purged her mind of guilt, of paranoia, and of her woes in the city above.

The Lizard men would formulate a new stratagem. But she was ready for that as well.

With choked gurgles, from tiny rents in space that would drive a trypophobic Mage mad, Void-tinged Hydras slithered into being, first by the dozen, then by the hundreds, until they wove a roving carpet of liquid hunger, leaving only the space around Ariel unmolested.

Go, my pretties. Gwen gave the mental command.

With surprising agility, her creatures slithered forth, slick as racing salmon, creeping into crevasses and crannies, pining for the wet wounds and warm orifices of any Lizard-kin they would discover.

Behind the circular-mawed, tentacle-laced swarm, their mother hovered in the lotus pose, resting her mind as she sipped on a cup of Golden Mead, her back resting upon a Kirin-shaped divan.

Deepholm.

The Singularity.

Dhànthárian, Elder Dragon of the Elemental Plane of Earth, long-wandering vagabond of Dehurorhim, was wondering if he got scammed.

When he had been offered a chance to slither between the Elemental crevices of the Plane of Earth in Deepholm, he had assumed capitulation on part of the Ancestors he had hunted since the epoch of the city’s First Founding.

To great Dhànthárian, the Dwarf-home was a part of his property and domain, because he had bested his siblings and monstrous foes in the area, and it was he who had first uncovered the anomaly known as the Singularity.

The Dökkálfar and their Ancestors were the late comers, mortals who had decided to stake ownership of the Singularity while Dhànthárian slumbered for several centuries, waking to discover that rats had made a nest in his treasury.

This was an outrage to Dhànthárian, but powerful as he was, Dhànthárian was not the ancient creature he was now. He was old, which was the case of most Earthen Dragons who survived sibling rivalries over the eons, but his bloodline was far from pure.

Centuries came and went, and Dhànthárian returned stronger and more polished, only to find that the rats had built an entire civilisation around his prize. His only solace was that, perhaps in fear of himself, the rats had shielded the Singularity from others of his kind, leaving Dhànthárian free to reign in his particular ocean of the earthen sea.

More time passed, and each time Dhànthárian returned stronger and purer in his pursuit of the Unformed Land, the city grew larger and more advanced, until even he had to admit that there was little hope of penetrating its walls without the very real possibility of mutual destruction.

But then, a mere nap ago, something changed.

The Dökkálfar grew strange, corrupt, alien, their Essences no longer that of those Earthen beings born from the Plane’s energies, but something polluted and muddy. A part of Dhànthárian felt disgust—but the more cunning part of him understood implicitly that his time may have finally come. He wasn’t a worldly being like his celestial cousins, but he had lived long enough to understand that no mortal empires lasted forever.

Then, while he slumbered with one eye open, the opportunity arrived.

A being he could only discern as a Deepdowner had called his true name from within the Singularity. For a Dragon, their true names were shared only with mates and the rare heir, and sometimes, with foes who had fought them since their younger, more vulnerable years.

The Ancestors of the Dwarves were among those who had known Dhànthárian.

Whatever the threats the Dwarves posed, Dhànthárian was confident that nothing the Dwarves possessed could extinguish his Core, and thus he had obliged, diving into the heart of the rat warren.

Upon his arrival, he found a city entirely unprepared for the descent of great Dhànthárian.

For what must have felt like a lifetime, Dhànthárian vented five millennia of frustrations upon the city’s inhabitants, working his way in a spiral, destroying gate after gate, turning the hooting citizens into slag and stone.

When finally Dhànthárian’s rage was spent, he found himself a nesting place beside the Singularity, and settled down to enjoy the fruit of his labour, his final unity with the Plane’s blessing so that he, like his seniors, may dream of the Unformed Land.

Then two whelps arrived to challenge him.

He had chased them off.

And now, they were back with the filthy Core of an Old One from the Plane of Water.

Then, he felt the Singularity shiver.

Though he was still far from the torrential flood pouring into his home, Dhànthárian could feel the fluctuations in the Singularity as closely as his own heartbeat.

The Elements desire unity, even if the result was a large, cosmic implosion. The Prime Material was evidence of that.

Perhaps, Dhànthárian considered with some seriousness, I should murder those damned whelps.

There was no doubt now that they could not be chased away. The Dwarves wanted their home back, and the Vessel of the Old One was dead set on leading the mortal Àlfar to their doom. The Red whelp was obviously trying to impress the female to have a chance at seeding her, though the greatest threat to Dhànthárian was not his prowess with Elemental magic, but his celestial mother, the Red Queen of Summer Flames.

Dhànthárian closed all six of his eyes.

At the thought of Sythinthimryr’s glimmering, serpentine body sailing through the azure space of the higher Planes, even Dhànthárian felt his ancient loins stir. Dragons were instinctively drawn to beauty and power, and there were few beings left in the Prime Material with as much majesty and grace as the Summer Queen.

Her mate had perished eons ago in a territorial dispute, meaning the Red Queen held very special sentimentalities for her youngest whelp, a creature that took centuries of nurturing to finally gather the necessary causality to hatch.

As for the female Vessel—what would be the Old One’s reaction? To his knowledge, the Old Ones were beyond diplomacy. As with the natural energies of the world itself, they were beings who operated purely on whim, no more malleable than the changing of the seasons.

To slay, or mortally injure the whelp and its virgin mate…

Dhànthárian licked his enormous mouth with a tongue that could scrape gemstones from a rich seam. Unfortunately, fantasising as he might, calculating as he should, the prospect of losing his lair remained real and present.

The decision, Dhànthárian felt, was either mutual destruction or forgoing his prize.

“Worthy Dhànthárian… “

Dhànthárian opened all six eyes, then realised the voice did not emanate from his surrounding space, but from a Plane far more mystical than the Prime Material. It was a familiar voice, and its source was impossible to ignore.

Quickly, Dhànthárian placed himself into the Draconic slumber all of its true blooded kind could conjure at a whim.

Within his mind’s eye, he saw a great and vast grove, a World Tree taller than Shalkar’s by a multitude of degrees. Beneath its great bowers, he saw the humanoid shape of a tall, elegant Hvítálfar standing in a grot of autumn foliage, both hands against his back as he paced leisurely across the liminal space of the Prime Material and the Unformed Land.

“Lord… Tyfanevius?” Dhànthárian felt his mind quake as he joined the liminal space. Here was one of their eldest, one of the pillars of the Council, and one who held unquestionable authority over the Accord. When he had last complained of the Red Whelp and his mate’s attack on his domain, Tyfanevius had watched impassively as his case was dismissed. Curiously, it was Quar-Tath, Matron of the Long Night, who had supported his petition, though that was later foiled by the siblings of the Frost.

“Senior, you desire something of me?” Dhànthárian asked, recalling that Tyfanevius was fond of the female Vessel.

His mind whirled.

His multiple hearts sank.

Was he going to be bullied out of his prize?

Perhaps, he should just kill the female in a fit of rage.

“Not I, worthy Dhànthárian,” the Green Dragon smiled a secret smile, then took a step back.

From the veil of secretive spaces, another figure materialised, his gleaming horns white and pearlescent, his body garbed in a tapestry of rare silks, adorned with what Dhànthárian recognised as delicious jadeite. The Dragon was young, but his aura was that of a pure Celestial, though his cultivation, as far as Dhànthárian could discern, was beyond his years. This creature, Dhànthárian recalled, had stood in for Yinglong at the council meeting.

“You?” Dhànthárian’s tone darkened, his heart stirring with jealousy. “A Thunder Whelp?”

“Prideful Dhànthárian,” the young Thunder Dragon bowed. “I am Ruxin, scion of the Yinglong, and uncle to the one they call the Regent.”

Dhànthárian raised both brows. He did not have a good feeling about the Thunder Dragon, though he had to hide his rage from offending wise Tyfanevius. “If you are here to threaten me, whelp…”

“Oh, I come not to offend,” the Thunder Dragon called Ruxin did not appear offended at all. “I come instead with an opportunity, Prideful Dhànthárian, a proposition.”

Before Dhànthárian could berate the whelp, the Green Dragon beside them gave a subtle, indicative cough.

Dhànthárian swallowed his anger. “I am listening.”

The Thunder Dragon appeared to relax, then danced his hands across the air to produce…

The strangest, most arcane-looking, intimidating set of square-shaped Mandalas the Earthen Dragon had ever beheld. Dhànthárian had no idea what he was looking at, but he knew it to be some kind of graphical information algorithm involving growths of some sort over time.

“Prideful Dhànthárian!” The fellow called Ruxin looked to be reading from a set of invisible notes. “Harken well this PowerPoint crafted from the blood and sweat of our Ruì! Fear not the loss of your Singularity, for there are no investment returns greater than what the Pale Profitess can offer if we are to put our prides aside. As the spheres have joined to create the richness that is the Prime Material, your needs, her wants, and the Dökkálfar’s desires, can just as easily conjoin so that all shall profit!”