The babble of human voices increased markedly as Draconas walked the corridors of Grald’s “palace.” To judge by the sound, the humans were engaging in some sort of celebration, for the voices would often rise in unison, making what humans termed music, something that was, for Draconas, a cacophony of ear-jarring screechings and wails. The music was followed by bursts of applause or laughter that thundered through the cavern chambers. If the noise they were making was any indication, Draconas guessed that, like the bats, there must be hundreds of humans inside the cavern.

Yet no one crossed the bridge.

He continued to advance, his wonder—and his concern— growing. He saw no sign of the dragon anywhere. He came upon no traps. He did not wander into any illusory passages designed to lead an intruder to grief. The lair might have belonged to an enterprising bear. And Draconas suddenly understood the reason why. As a mother with a toddler will remove all sharp objects from the child’s reach, the dragon had been forced to make his lair safe for human occupants.

Draconas calculated that he must be drawing near the base of the mountain by now. The tunnel he walked twisted and turned, yet always sloped steadily downward. Rounding a corner, he saw a glow of warm, yellow-orange light. The voices were close. The human smell overpowering. He halted where he was to re-form the illusion, to become human once more.

He did not choose the monk’s form. He had the impression, from what he’d seen and heard on the bridge, that few of the Blessed were allowed in the cavern. Hearing among the voices raised in song the high-pitched cries and giggles of children, he went back to being Draca.

As always, he let go of his dragon form with deep reluctance, sighing his way back inside the fragile, frail human skin. The corridor that had seemed small and narrow to the dragon was suddenly enormous to the human girl. His eyes could see better than those of most humans, but not as well as a dragon, and his hearing was so reduced that it seemed his ears were stuffed with wax. He had to allow himself several moments to adjust to the change. Then, keeping near the wall, he edged his way forward.

He very nearly stepped off the edge of a cliff.

His human stomach gave a lurch and he took a hasty step backward, painfully mindful of the fact that in this body he had no wings to save himself from what would have been a hundred-foot plunge straight down.