Silence descended. The room was dim and cool, with stark white walls and no windows to the outside world. A long table surrounded by black leather chairs sat in the center of the carpet, and a single rectangular box had been placed atop it.

For a moment, I didn’t move, staring at the box sitting inconspicuously on the tabletop. It was unmarked and unremarkable. The first of several boxes that would stop here before continuing their journey to the Vault. I knew it had been packaged with utmost care, so that no sloppy mistake would reveal their contents. No one from the human world could guess what lay inside.

My stomach churned, and I shook myself angrily. Stop it, Dante, I told myself. You’re being ridiculous. There is nothing to fear.

Setting my jaw, I walked across the room to the table. A box cutter lay on one of the packages; I snatched it up and, without hesitation, slashed the blade down the center of the cardboard. Within the box was another, even smaller box, and I cut that one open, too.

As I pulled back the flaps, the smell of smoke and charred things wafted up, making my stomach turn again. The container was filled with clothes, sealed in plastic and neatly labeled, but the stench of smoke still clung to everything. The fabric was burned, singed and in tatters, but I knew that wasn’t enough reason for it to have been taken from the scene. Setting the bags on the table, I examined them carefully and finally saw why these pieces of clothing had been removed.

Not only were they singed, but several of them had been ripped apart. A few had puncture holes left from pointed fangs and talons, the fabric around the holes stained dark with blood. Evidence that not only had these clothes, and whoever had been wearing them, been burned, they had been savaged, as well.

Torn apart by dragons. My dragons. The vessels I sent to destroy the town.

I stared at the ravaged piles of fabric, forcing myself to acknowledge what had happened. Massive death and destruction, blood and pain and fear, by my hand. I hadn’t set the fires or torn into those humans myself, but I had given the order. The vessels were my tools, as surely as a gun or a blade, and I had used them for slaughter.

Sacrifice is necessary.