Towering above them, ringed with black smoke, rose the King of the Abyss, and Issari could barely see any dragon in him anymore. Raem had become not a Vir Requis but fully demon, a twisted thing, lava pulsing between his scales. His horns stretched out longer and longer, scraping across the ceiling and curling downward. His eyes leaked fire. Parasites scuttled in and out of his nostrils, ears, mouth, eyes. The Abyss had infested him, changed him, turned him into the greatest demon underground. No dragonfire could hurt him, Issari knew, no swords, no claws, no fangs.

"Only starlight," Issari whispered.

The creature who had once been her father turned toward her. The demon's chest puffed out, its wings spread wide, and it blasted out its unholy fire.

Still in dragon form, Issari reared in the air and held out her left paw, the one with the shard of starlight.

Only pale light glowed.

The demonfire flowed across Issari, and she screamed, fell, and burned.

"Issari!" Tanin cried.

She cried out in the inferno, and when the black flames finally died, she crashed to the floor, panting, burnt. Several of her scales fell and clattered against the floor. Tanin tried to reach her, but more of the small demons spewed out from Raem and crashed against Tanin’s wings, holding him back.

Raem whipped his tail and tentacle, tossing dragons aside. He came clattering toward Issari, laughing. He loomed above, a hundred feet tall, and his eyes swirled like pits of molten rock.

"My daughter . . ." His smoke puffed down onto her, thick with flies. "Now finally I slay you. Now, in the pit of your despair, I will allow you to die."

Issari couldn't even rise. She was too hurt. Blood poured from her, and she tried to cling to her magic, but she was too weak. The dragon magic left her, and she knelt before the Demon King, a human again. The other dragons fell, cracked, burning; she faced her father alone. She stared up at him, a single woman, no larger than a mouse facing a wolf. She met the creature's gaze.

"I am not your daughter," she whispered. "You are no longer the man who was my father. You are nothing but an echo now, a shell of evil, emptied of all morality. You fought for Taal all your life, fought for the purity of humanity, but you let that humanity leave you." She struggled to her feet and opened her right palm. "But I still worship Taal. I still bear my mother's amulet, the woman you sent to exile and death."

She raised her palm, and Taal's amulet blazed out a pillar of white light. The beam slammed against Raem's eyes, and the demon bucked and squealed. Smoke rose from him. The light slammed Raem back against the wall.

Yet still Raem laughed. "I spit upon Taal. He has no power here. I am greater than Taal himself. I will kill the silver god."