Once the last dragon had arrived, Anora came out of her dark musings and called the Parliament to order, and still Draconas did not come.

Lysira took her place among the assembled heads of the houses of Dragonkind and opened her mind to Anora’s thoughts.

“I am sorry to have brought you here on such short notice,” said Anora, her colors vibrant and trembling, as from some long-suppressed emotion. “But I have urgent news to impart to you, as well as a warning and ... a confession.”

“We cannot proceed. We are missing a member. Where is Draconas?” snapped Malfiesto.

Malfiesto was old and crotchety and bad-tempered, and Lysira usually found him intensely annoying. Now her heart warmed toward him. She cast the elder male a glance of gratitude that brought beautiful memories of youth to the old dragon’s mind, momentarily causing him to forget what he’d been talking about. He recalled soon enough, however.

“He is late again,” Malfiesto continued. “I say we issue a formal reprimand—”

“I am not sure where Draconas is,” said Anora, and this was true enough. “I did not inform him of the meeting. I do not want him here.”

The assembled dragons went silent, their colors quivering. Lysira felt her own colors go bounding off the walls of the cavern, and she had to seize them and keep fast hold of them, not to betray her feelings of fear and disappointment to the others.

“He hasn’t got himself killed, has he?” asked Litard, a male dragon, in casual tones.

“No,” Anora answered. “I do not believe he is dead.”

Lysira’s relief was heartfelt, if short-lived.

“I believe that he has gone rogue. Silence!” Anora blared, her colors red and blazing. “Silence, all of you, and listen to me. We don’t have much time and there is a great deal that needs to be decided. Not since the Dragon Wars have we faced such a crisis. Our lives and, what is more important, the lives of our young”—here she looked again at Lysira, with that inexplicable sadness—”are in the most dire peril.”

She had their attention, now. Their complete attention. Litard, for once, ceased grooming his flashy green scales and exclaimed loudly in astonishment. Mantas, his colors murky as always, was silent, unmoving, waiting for events to unfold. Jinat, who always seemed to bear some unknown sorrow, nodded gloomily as though he’d foreseen this all along. Arat grinned. He disliked humans and he disliked Draconas. Malfiesto’s eyes narrowed.

Draconas came from the noble house ruled by Malfiesto, though you could not have told it, given that the elder dragon was never pleased by anything Draconas did. Lysira saw that Malfiesto was more concerned by this news than he let on. He didn’t roar or rage, as she might have expected. He had gone extremely still and quiet.