The Widejaws grinned, their cheeks split to the ears, revealing shark-like maws. One man thrust his spear. Jeid knocked the weapon aside, ducked under another spear, and kicked. He hit one man in the shin, swung his sword, and cut into another man's arm. A spear thrust and scratched along Jeid's shoulder, and he roared. Silhouetted by the sunlight at the entrance, several sphinxes hissed and took human form; they too entered the cave and advanced toward him.

"Jeid!" rose a voice behind him.

An instant later, Koren raced forward and thrust his spear. The gaunt man—once a fisherman of the River Ranin—screamed in rage, and his flint-tipped weapon drove into a Widejaw's neck. Jeid stabbed another Widejaw in the chest; his bronze sword crashed through the man's mail, scattering metal rings across the floor.

Jeid sneered and drove forward, sword waving madly, relying on his size to shove the enemy back. Another spear drove into his thigh, and he howled but kept shoving the enemy back.

"Stand back, Koren!" Jeid cried and shifted.

He ballooned into a dragon. An instant before he could be crushed, Koren leaped backwards. A copper dragon, Jeid slammed against the walls, filling the cave like a lemon stuck in a man's throat.

He blasted out his flames.

The Widejaws burned and fell.

Jeid shoved himself forward, clawing at the fallen bodies. Sphinxes still flew outside; one reached the entrance and blasted in a cloud of demon smoke. Jeid roared his fire, roasting the small demons floating in the cloud and the sphinx behind them. With a few more steps, Jeid reached the entrance and roared out dragonfire in a great fountain. Hundreds of sphinxes still flew outside, shrieking and fluttering away from the inferno.

We can't keep doing this much longer. The flames roared and the fear twisted inside him. Danger lurks outside and within. Too many lost.

Fewer than a hundred Vir Requis now hid in the tunnels, and more were falling every day—to the sphinxes outside and the creature within. As Jeid blasted his fire, he knew that the fallen had been the lucky ones. Their deaths had been quick.

When his flames ran low, he pulled back into the cave, and Koren replaced him at the entrance, taking the form of a blue dragon.

Leaving Koren to guard the cave, Jeid walked back toward the tunnels, bleeding, dizzy. His wounds left a red trail behind him. He wanted to collapse. Pain flared and he fell to his knees, lowered his head, and breathed raggedly

I can't do this anymore.

He wanted to join the dead, to see them again: little Requiem, his parents, his fallen wife—

Laira is my wife now.

He clenched his fists, and his chest heaved.

"Laira," he whispered.

So many years after losing Keyla, his first wife, he had met a new woman to love—a woman who brought him new light, new hope, new joy.