The former queen opened her mouth again, perhaps to beg, perhaps to lie, but Leroy did not grant her the dignity of his attention. Instead, his gaze drifted past her, toward the massive shadow coiled beyond the grand arches.
Vaeronyx watched him with slit-gold eyes that glowed like smoldering suns.
"Here they are," Leroy said softly, almost reverently. "The ones with the blood of the Bear. The blood that once killed your descendant; my ancestor. The same blood still trying to annihilate ours."
A deep rumble rolled through the hall: ancient, hungry, inevitable.
And then the fire came.
It wasn't a plume. It wasn't a breath. It was a canal of burning judgment, ripping through the throne room. Heat snapped the air. Marble blistered. The banners of Kaltharion curled like dying leaves. People screamed and ducked, feeling only the edge of the dragon's wrath.
But the inferno had a will.
