“Jakoven managed to get the Bane to do something with my blood while he held me,” I said. “As soon as I left, he went after one of my half brothers—whom Garranon spirited here.”

“You’re claiming to be a dragon?” asked Orvidin incredulously, standing up again with such force that the bench he’d sat upon rocked back. “You don’t expect us to believe that. I tell you, Pup, I came here ready to throw my support behind Kellen—but I will not abide following a man stupid enough to try to make me swallow a story about a mythological artifact and then compound it by seriously declaring that he bears the blood of dragons.” He turned on his heel and gestured to his supporters, who rose noisily to follow him.

I’d hoped no one would draw attention to the reason my blood awakened the Bane. I had planned on spinning some connection between the Hurog name and the legend that the Bane drew its power from dragon’s blood. But Orvidin was too quick. He gave me a choice of lying outright or spinning them a truth that was unbelievable—and I would not lie to the Shavig Council.

The role I’d been assigned this night had been a deliberate attempt to remind those here of our Shavig heritage. I’d come before them as Hurogmeten and not wizard. Duraugh’s speech did not mention the Bane at all. As I talked, I’d come to believe that the Council had to know what it was they were facing. Too late I realized that the Hurog warrior I’d shown them was so prosaic it made it impossible for them to accept the Bane and dragons. Myths belong in the darkness, in wild woods, in mages dressed in fantastic garb—not to a too-large man dressed in plain clothes.

“I never claimed to be a dragon,” I said, my voice still audible even over the clatter. “Only a Hurog.”

But it wasn’t my voice that stopped Orvidin. Out of the flickering shadows left by the torchlights, a dragon coalesced in the large walkway that ran from the lord’s dais where I sat to the outside doors on the far side of the great hallway.

I glanced at the table where Oreg had been, and sure enough, he was gone.

The lavender scales looked purple in the dim light and the dark violet on his muzzle matched the black on his wings. He lifted onto his hind legs until his head rose to the braced vaulting in the ceiling: I winced a little, hoping he didn’t knock any of the stonework loose. His wings spread, knocking tables and their occupants carelessly aside. Slowly, he set his forefeet onto the ground. He sat motionless for a moment, then stretched his head forward until his muzzle was only inches from Orvidin’s face.