Ven stood in a dark room. In back of him was a tomb—Ven’s tomb. Marcus could hear Ven’s heart beating, and it was a thrilling sound to the dragon, for that beating heart was the key to the magical spell that would allow him to take over Ven’s body and make it his own.

Grald opened the tomb, and there inside lay the human Grald, a look of horror on his face, his mouth gaping wide in screams of agony that had long gone unheard. The dragon held a golden locket in his hand. He opened the lock, dumped the heart into the bloody cavity of the human’s chest. When the heart fell, the human gave a last, shuddering cry and died. The body lay in the tomb, eyes wide, mouth still open.

Grald discarded the human body he had worn, crawling out of it, leaving it on the floor like a snake leaves its shed skin. The dragon advanced on the new body he had chosen.

“Fight!” Marcus cried. “You have to fight!”

Ven turned to flee, but the dragon seized hold of him.

“Fight, Ven!” Marcus shouted. “Stand and fight him! The magic! Use the magic!”

Ven struggled valiantly, but he had never learned how to use the magic, and he was no match for the dragon. Grald dug his claws into Ven’s breast, ripping through skin and flesh and tissue, cracking ribs. Ven screamed in agony and Marcus shuddered and tried frantically to break free of the bars of the dragon’s mind. The dragon forced Marcus to watch.

“You wanted to see our dreams,” said Grald. “Now you see them.”

A clawed hand tossed aside broken fragments of Ven’s ribcage, as he writhed in excruciating torment in the dragon’s grip. The dragon wound Ven up in strands of magic, enchantment that bound his life to the dragon’s and the dragon’s life to Ven’s. Then the dragon seized hold of the beating heart and tore it from Ven’s chest, leaving behind a gaping, bloody hole in the shattered breast.

Grald held the heart in his hand and bent his will upon it, and the heart began to shrink until it was a doll’s heart or that of a bird, rapidly beating. Grald tucked the heart carefully inside the golden locket that he held suspended by a golden chain on a single claw.

Then the dragon carried Ven into the sarcophagus and dumped him into stone-bound darkness. Grald lifted up the heavy lid and slid it in place, sealing Ven—bound by enchantment to a horrible life—inside the tomb.

The last image Marcus saw was his brother’s face as he came to realize that he would be trapped in darkness and unceasing pain, with no escape but death, and that would come only when the human body the dragon had taken over had aged past the point of usefulness.