For Sena it was too much.

She freed herself from the embrace, made her way across the grass, and knelt by his fallen body. She touched her brother's cheek and gazed into his dead eyes. Even in death, he was a handsome boy, his features noble, his hair soft. She pulled his lifeless body into an embrace.

"I'm so sorry, Sena." Her tears dampened his tunic. "Goodbye. I love you."

Before she could say more, a shriek rose above.

Laira raised her head, stared between the trees, and saw it there. For the second time that morning, she lost her breath.

Around her, the others gasped and sneered.

"A demon," Laira whispered.

She had never seen one of these creatures, the unholy things her father had freed from the underworld to hunt dragons. But she had heard the tales, and she recognized it at once. The creature flew down toward them, large as a dragon and shaped as an octopus. Instead of suckers, its tentacles bore many round mouths, each containing a ring of teeth. A central mouth, large as a dragon's maw and full of fangs, opened in the creature's head. It emitted a cry so loud the trees shook, shedding their last patches of snow.

"Stars damn it!" Maev said. "The bastards found their way here."

The gruff wrestler spat, leaped into the air, and shifted. Green scales clattered across her, wings burst out from her back, and Maev soared, a dragon blasting fire. An instant later, the others shifted too. Tanin soared as a red dragon, Jeid as a copper beast. They crashed through the treetops, heading toward the demonic octopus.

Laira hesitated for a moment longer. Her brother needed her. Sweet Sena lay dead at her feet; how could she leave him to the crows?

Above the trees, the demon stretched out three tentacles, wrapping each one around a dragon. Scales cracked and Laira's friends cried out above. Their fire crashed into the octopus, only to slide off its slick, wet body. The blood of dragons spilled.

Today the living need me more.

Laira leaped into the air and shifted.

She beat her wings, her golden scales chinked, and she crashed between the treetops before soaring toward the battle.

The deformed mollusk shrieked ahead, wreathed in flames that did not burn it. Its tentacles were squeezing the three dragons, and the mouths upon them—round and toothy like lamprey jaws—tore into flesh. Maev roared and slammed her tail against the creature, but it was like trying to cut a pile of jelly; the octopus's body kept reforming. Jeid and Tanin were beating their wings uselessly; the demon was flailing them around like a man swinging cats by the tails.

Laira growled and streamed toward the fray.

"Requiem!" she cried. "Our wings will forever find your sky!"

She drove toward the demon, opening her maw wide to bite, to tear into its flesh.

A tentacle snapped toward her.