ISSARI

She flew through the pulsing, veined tunnel, feeling like a babe sliding out of the womb. The others flew behind her: Jeid, a massive copper dragon; Laira, riding on his back in human form, her magic gone; Tanin, the man she loved, a red dragon; and a thousand others, dragons who had united for their final battle—the battle against her father.

The tunnel narrowed, forcing the dragons to fly in single file. Issari flew at their lead. She drew up her paws, keeping them pressed against her belly as her wings flapped. She could feel the shards embedded there—her mother's amulet and the gift from the stars.

Finally Issari saw the tunnel's end, a circle of white and red light. She shot forward and emerged into a towering chamber, feeling like her son must have felt when emerging from within her.

She reared and tilted her wings, forcing herself to hover in midair. Fire sparked between her teeth.

A network of fleshy strands stretched across the chamber from ceiling to floor, crisscrossing, gleaming, pulsing with internal blood. They seemed organic, like hanging entrails or umbilical cords, forming a great web. The spaces between the strands were too small for Issari to fly through. Between them, Issari saw a great throne rising ahead; it seemed constructed of many small flaps of flesh—tongues, she realized.

Upon the throne sat Raem, King of the Abyss.

"Hello, daughter!" he cried out to her.

Issari could barely breathe.

The man she saw looked nothing like the father she remembered. In the battle of Two Skull Mountain, he had lost all four limbs. Demonic limbs now grew from his torso: a great bird's talon, a horse's hoof, a wriggling tentacle lined with suckers, and a great lobster claw. Leathery, bat-like wings grew from his back. His face too had changed, shriveled away, the cheeks sunken and gray, the eyes bloodshot and mad.

As the other dragons emerged into the chamber behind her, Issari blasted forth her flames.

The dragonfire blazed through the network of fleshy strands. The demonic web was dozens of feet deep, strand after strand all woven together. The veins shook in the dragonfire but did not burn. The fiery pillar broke apart into a fountain, dispersing into a cloud of flame, fading to sparks by the time it reached Raem's throne.

Most of the dragons still flew in the tunnel, but a dozen others came to hover by Issari's side, too large to fly through the fleshy web. They too blasted forth their dragonfire. The jets slammed against the pulsing strands. The web shook madly, scattering the flames, dispersing the inferno before it could reach the throne.

"The Abyss itself protects me, dragons!" Raem shouted from his throne. He laughed. His tentacle writhed and his lobster claw clattered. "You will have to face me as humans. Come, step through my web and face me."