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The inferno hit the canopy fifty paces from our shelter with the force of a fallen star. The petrified trees, centuries of stone, and needle-sharp iron-thorns didn’t just burn; they detonated. The impact sent a seismic shockwave through the volcanic rock that slammed us hard against the curved inner walls of the skull.

Screams erupted across the valley.

Horrific, wet shrieks of candidates who had taken cover in the surrounding thickets echoed through the dark. The fire swept over the iron-thorns, consuming flesh, armor, and bone in seconds. I heard the frantic shouts of a transfer cut short as his armor plates melted against his skin.

Two more. Three more.

The count dropped like stone. We were down to a fraction of the original twenty, and we hadn’t even reached the interior caldera.

“Out! Get out!” Caspian’s gravelly roar cut through the blinding glare. His broad hand clamped around the back of my leather collar, hauling me backward toward the rear fissure where the bone had fractured open.

“Dax! Move!” Mal shouted, broadsword drawn, eyes wide with adrenaline.

The dragon didn’t land. It didn’t need to. It circled in a tight, predatory arc, its massive wings fanning the emerald flames until the fire turned into a towering wall. The inferno crested the bank of the river, the glowing liquid boiling and spitting white steam into the night.

The wave of emerald flame surged directly toward the mouth of the skull.

The heat was overwhelming, blistering my face and charring the lapels of my gear. Sulfurous smoke flooded the bone cavern, blinding us.

Run. I needed to run.

I scrambled over a ridge of ancient molar bone, my boots skidding on hot ash. I looked back through the haze to make sure Mal was on my heels.

He was standing dead still.

The lethal warrior who had offered his blood to the altar without flinching was frozen at the threshold. His hazel eyes were dilated to pitch-black circles, locked onto the curtain of green fire framing the entrance. His broadsword hung uselessly at his side, his body locked in a catatonic stasis—a visceral reaction to the ancient beast’s magic pinning his mind.

And the fire was a second away from washing over him.

“Mal!” I screamed, the sound tearing my raw throat.

He didn’t move. He couldn’t.

I didn’t stop to think.

I threw myself backward off the bone ridge, launching my weight through the blistering air. I slammed shoulder-first into his chest, knocking his heavy frame sideways out of the jaw’s arch.

We crashed onto the jagged basalt outside the rear fissure, rolling through hot ash just as a river of flame poured through the skull behind us.

The ancient bone exploded into a shower of white-hot shards, the blast throwing us another ten feet down the slope.

I hit the ground hard, the wind knocked from my lungs, my right shoulder slamming against a boulder. The brand on my shoulder flared with a cold, blinding shock.

Coughing, I rolled onto my stomach, dragging air back into my lungs. Through the veil of smoke, a massive shadow dropped low.

The dragon had descended.

Fuck me. This is where I die. This is exactly what the lords wanted, and this damn dragon was about to give it to them.

It was a titan of dark, iridescent emerald scales, easily a hundred feet long, its serpentine neck curving as it hovered thirty feet above the burning rocks. Its wings beat with a thunderous cadence that flattened the iron-thorn thickets for a hundred yards around us.

My hand instinctively gripped my daggers, my knuckles white as I lay pinned against the ground, waiting for the killing stroke. Waiting for the stream of fire to turn my bones to ash.

It didn’t breathe fire.

The dragon tilted its massive head. Its eye, a vertical slit of burning gold set inside pitch-black death, locked directly onto me.

Not Mal. Not the burning wreckage of the skull.