A Terrible Thing to Behold

Up in the highest room of the tallest tower, Lavender buried her head into her pillow.

The adventure she’d promised her sister was for nothing. Reuniting the Dezerin Empire? What was the point if it was all to serve a loathsome ancestor! One who would claim her sister’s body if given the chance, no less.

She was imprisoned here not in the name of true love, but to further that parasite’s generations of rule.

Lavender was twenty years old, had wasted half that time on a lie, and wasted even more time on an even worse one. For the second time in her life, Lavender had no idea what to do with herself.

The bed began to violently shudder, enough to force Lavender to roll off of it. Everything in the room was shaking. Piles of books toppled over and spread across the floor. And it didn’t stop. Whatever was happening was intense enough that she was struggling to get onto her feet.

“Whelp!” Lavender saw Balerifon holding onto the window and leaning in. It wasn’t that he hadn’t done this before. But when he did it, he was in his natural dragon state and only his snout was sticking in. “Whelp, your instincts were correct about the Lord-Prince. He has stolen the power of a dragon, and his power has activated this volcano! I need your help!”

The power of a dragon? Lavender gasped. “What? How?!”

“There’s no time to explain!” He grabbed Lavender by the arm and out the window, their fall slowed through the use of magic. “Your sister is focusing on getting everyone else out. I need you to help me preserve the castle before the volcano erupts. …I have so many romance books in my library left to reaaaaaaaad!”

-----

Hazel dashed out of Drake’s Peak with everyone else following right behind.

It dawned on her as she stumbled outside just short of the path’s edge that they would never make it down the mountain in time. The way the path wound up the mountainside meant it could take hours for them to get back down. There was no telling how much time they had before the volcano went off.

The earth shook under her feet, knocking a rock down the side of the mountain.

That was when Hazel got an idea. It was a terrible idea and one that her sister certainly would’ve come up with. But terrible was better than none. “Everyone, get close!”

On reflex, everyone did so.

“When I jump, you jump too! Ready? Go!”

When everyone was in the air, Hazel twirled her magic staff in her hand. A green sphere of arcane denial appeared around everyone, interposing itself between them and the ground.

Hazel inspected her handiwork before turning to everyone else. “Alright. Here’s what we’re going to do –”

“I got it!” Robert gave her a thumbs’ up and immediately ran towards the far end of the spell, shoulder first.

Hazel couldn’t even start to tell Robert to stop before his shoulder struck the side of the green arcane sphere. All she could get out was, “Aw fu-”

The sphere began to roll down the mountainside, with everyone but Robert tumbling around and screaming. Robert for his part, stayed on his feet and kept running.

He understood the assignment. Why was everyone else making him do all the work?

----

Lavender was doing her best not to stare at the being of pure fire standing at what remained of the table everyone had been meeting at. Every bit of the wood was burning to a fine crisp as she mimicked whatever Balerifon was doing.

He called it an ‘old magic’. One that the dragons never taught to others. His hands roamed around an imaginary orb. With each rotation of his hands and Lavender’s, the castle seemed to become constrained against some imaginary boundary. One that compressed further and further. With each push inward, every piece of the castle shrank in size.

Lava began spurting through the holes on the sides of the platform. Parts of the floor began to distend and expand and explode under pressure. And in the center before them, the castle now floated in a marble-like sphere the size of Balerifon’s head.

The marble landed in Balerifon’s hand and he was notably relieved.

But Lavender looked back to that being of pure fire. The pressure and smoke stopped for a brief moment – and then, an explosion of shouting and fire. She felt an arm swung around her and saw Balerifon put himself between her and Vallois. A wand in Balerifon’s hand was catching fire but still had enough juice to cast a water denial shield around them.

The eruption was too much. Both of them were knocked off their feet and blasted out of the tunnel in a blaze of fire, the two sent flying into the distance.

----

Hazel’s denial spell collapsed in a mess of dizzied victims and her own vomit.

Everyone was lying still on the ground in a desperate bid to stop the world from spinning. They could see the eruption of Drake’s Peak on the horizon, the clear day quickly darkening from the fury of the thrown lava and ash. Its entire top was gone. Exploded from the fury that was unleashed.

Everyone was lying still, that was, except for Robert. He was more than a little winded and stretching his legs, but he was standing on them regardless. “What’s got your goats,” he asked everyone. “Ya’ll should’ve realized what needed ta’ be done once we were in a ball and lookin’ downhill. Honestly, this is kinda on ya’ll.”

If Hazel’s stomach didn’t eject itself from her body, she was going to kill Robert.

Or maybe she wouldn’t have to. Someone else collided with Robert from a high angle, sending him falling to the ground in an instant and that someone else skipping off the grass and dirt face-first.

A second someone then landed headfirst where Robert had been standing moments before, the woman’s legs twitching as they stuck out of the ground.

Lavender pushed herself out of the ground and shook debris clear from her hair. “Ugh…”

Balerifon rolled onto his back and stifled a cry of pain. “I forgot how fragile this form could be.” He pushed himself to sit up and stared up. “Whelp? You’re going to have to handle this one.”

“Why?” Lavender washed her eyes clear with some magic water.

“Because I swore an Oath not to raise a hand against my brother. And while the Lord-Prince is not my brother by birth…”

Lavender looked up into the sky. Lord-Prince Vallois was gently descending through the air, a wave of heat washing over everyone. His hands had doubled in size and become covered with red scales, with claws topping each finger. His boots had split open and their scraps fell to reveal clawed feet with the same scales and claws for toes. Dragon’s eyes shone from Vallois’ face with glee, and his smile was inhuman with those pointed teeth.

“…T’was my brother’s blood he stole. And thus, by Oath am I still bound.”