"The Dragon was dreaming. And I had a feeling its alarm clock was set sooner than I thought."
I kept that thought to myself as we pushed open the heavy whalebone doors of The Leviathan's Rest. The sun had fully set, and the Guildhall was roaring with the evening crowd. Smoke from pipeweed hung in a thick blue haze near the rafters, and the noise level was somewhere between "riot" and "festival."
When we walked in, the noise didn't stop, but it definitely stuttered.
We looked like a disaster. I was covered in soot. Lysandra's silver armor was dull with volcanic ash. Kaelen looked like he'd wrestled a chimney sweep, and Red was still picking stone chips out of her hair. But we were walking with a rhythm that hadn't been there yesterday. We weren't fugitives sneaking in; we were victors walking to the podium.
