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Mayriel was the last Wyrm to arrive, and she marched into her place with obvious pride.
Petrarchyan was last to arrive. He alighted right before the steps. The crowd parted for him.
The Wyrms arched their necks and raised their wings.
Petrarchyan set one claw on the first step, then the next. He summoned his magic into his scales, coiling it over and over and over again, all of it, until he burned so bright and intense against my senses it almost hurt to perceive him.
He stepped into the center of the Wyrm Seat. Magic streamed off his scales and extended wings, poured around his horns, collected at his feet in a pool.
Lemuel spoke in draconic—I couldn’t understand more than a few words. They were inquiries and answers, then vows. His magic formed the words, creating an intensely powerful spell, and the other Wyrms shone with magic, pushing on Petrarchyan, like they were trying to wring his words into dry dust.
Then Petrarchyan arched his neck and lowered his head, baring the back of his skull.
Lemuel approached. In his mouth was a small item: Jahlim’s Wyrm Token.
He placed it on Petrarchyan’s head.
Petrarchyan’s collected magic and the spell he’d woven and carried in his scales and wings and hornssnappedinward, into some infinitesimal, impossibly small point.
He yanked his head back and screamed as the magic drove him to the ground.
The shape of Lemuria’s order collapsed in on him, and the chaos where I dwelled surged forward, and we both fell into the way the veil got wet, and I sensed his tethers with Mayriel, the thing that crossedeverything, stretched taut. He fell through all of it, tethered only to Mayriel,mydomain, bright and burning and agonized, twisting through my reach like shining gossamer, but for a brief second, we passed face-to-face.
In this smeared state between, Petrarchyan looked at me, and I looked at him.
Neither of us had expected to see the other here.
The two forces separated again.
Auryn and Keon snaked their necks in front of me to catch me as I stumbled.
Petrarchyan smoldered with singed magic as he got to his four feet. He carefully folded one wing against his side, then the other. Then he raised his head to the rest of the Seat.
“I am here,”he said in draconic, his magic flowing and affirming his ascent to power.
He took his place on the Seat in Jahlim’s old spot. He settled his wings.
Lemuria waited.
He cocked his head slightly, blue/green gaze focusing on mejustlong enough to confirm it was intentional, then he said, “It is customary that I say words about my predecessor. As the reservoir of his last words has chosen not to speak them, I, being the beginning, choose to keep things in balance and offer nothing.”
Dekka slicked her scales down.
Lemuel waited another few breaths for someone to saysomething, before he was obliged to call it a day.
As Petrarchyan filed past me, he whispered, “It seems you and I are not as unknown to each other as we thought.”
Thirteen
“Somehow I have lived down here a year and I’ve never been to a Movie Night,” I told Kira as we walked over to where the screening was going to be.
“I know! I’m sorry, I should have invited you sooner, I didn’t realize you didn’t know you could just show up.”
“I had no idea it was even happening. I try to stay out of a lot of the chats and boards.” Lemurian social media was spicy enough, and I had to focus on other things, like magic and shape shifting. “Not that I’d ever have invited myself, or asked for an invitation.”
Kira shook her head. “But if it’sin public, where anyone can see it, then it means it’s a public invitation.”
I stopped walking as the meaning of what she said sank in. “Oh.”
