Laira's wings beat, too weak to lift her back into the air. Her tail flailed. She managed to blow a spurt of fire, but it wasn't enough to stop her enemy. Raem hovered above her atop his demon. The creature's wings blasted Laira with air. Raem gave a sharp, shrill whistle, and with a flutter of insect wings, a dozen motley demons buzzed into the cavern to join him. All hovered above Laira, leering with red eyes, their tongues drooping. Some were furred, others feathered, and some inverted, their exposed organs pulsing. One among them looked like a beetle with human arms, and from each of its fingers grew a tool—scalpels, needles, spools with thread, bone saws, and other instruments. Laira yowled and tried to rise, but demons spat upon her, their globs of saliva hitting her like stones, knocking her back down onto the cave floor. Stars floated before her eyes.

"And now, Laira," Raem said, smiling down from his beast, "your pain begins."

Dragonfire blazed.

A roar echoed across the cavern.

With a clatter of copper scales, engulfed in smoke, Jeid flew across the chamber and barreled into the demons.

The creatures scattered. Some crashed down onto the cave floor. The copper dragon roared, a sound that shook the cave, and the walls undulated in the heat waves rising between the great king's teeth. Jeid Blacksmith—King Aeternum, Lord of Requiem—blasted his fire. The jet shrieked, blue in its center, washing over the demons and crashing onto the cave walls. The inferno blazed across the chamber, the sound deafening, the heat almost intolerable. Laira lay on the floor, gazing up at the holocaust, and for a moment she saw what the humans hunted, what Raem feared—a dragon in his full glory and might, a beast of sunfire and fury.

"Jeid!" Laira called out, tears in her eyes.

The demons crashed down, charred with dragonfire, cut with claws, leaking their innards.

All but Raem's mount. The demonic bat, too lanky to burn, rose from the blaze, skin peeling off her bones. The King of Eteer still sat upon her, the fire clutching at his cloak. His arms burned, wings of fire. But still Raem laughed as he soared, head tossed back, wreathed in the flame.

"So this is Aeternum, King of Reptiles!" Raem raised his sword. "You too will join Laira in the courts of the Abyss."

Jeid landed beside Laira, raised his head, and roared again. The cave shook at the sound. Cracks raced along the walls. Laira struggled to her feet, still in dragon form, half the size of the coppery beast. The two dragons raised their heads, staring up at the demon fluttering above.

"Requiem rises," Laira said.

Jeid smiled crookedly. "With a pillar of fire."

The stone pillar had fallen in the cave. Laira and Jeid roared their flames, the streams wreathing together, rising in a new pillar, a column of dragonfire. The shrieking fountain crashed into the demonic bat.