Chaos broke out and in an instant all of Valkari's plans began to unravel. For all her cunning and ruthless ingenuity, for all the precision with which she had orchestrated her vengeance, the tide of battle was turning against her.

Lukas had always known this moment would come, though that belief had not come from confidence in his own abilities. He could never deny the brilliance of Valkari's schemes but one thing had remained constant: Lukas had never once doubted Katrina Drakos. After the attack of the Flameborn, who Lukas now knew had been under the control of Valkari's Crown, it was during that hour of despair where Lukas had asked his brother's daughter a single question, a question that bound them together stronger than any bond Valkari thought she had with Katrina.

"Do you trust me?"

Her answer had come without pause.

"Yes."

That trust, unshaken and absolute, was the foundation of all that followed.

No matter what venom Valkari wished to spread, no matter what the Dragonborn of the Flames tried to do, nothing could turn Katrina against her father's brother.

Lukas watched as the monster Valkari had become claw desperately through the wreckage toward the pulsing Heart of Kaeryth. She dragged herself forward with ragged breaths, her fingernails clawing grooves into the soil as though sheer will alone might bridge the distance. Her intention was clear—if the Earthborn could not bring an end to the Heart that once belonged to their own Lord, she would hurl herself into the gaping abyss, offering her life up to still the eternal beat of Kaeryth's heart.

But Lukas would not allow it.

He seized her ankle with a grip like iron, dragging her back across the earth. Valkari thrashed and spat, clawing at the ground, but Lukas pulled her farther from the abyss with every desperate kick she lashed against him. Her shrieks rang with madness, a sound that was equal parts rage and despair.

Yet the battlefield was not theirs alone.

Though the Kraken's magical control over the mind still kept the Earthborn in frozen silence, one among them still moved freely.

Kaela Telaryon, Erandyl's own granddaughter and one of those who had inherited the Crown of the Dragon Lords, was immune to whatever magic the Kraken could conjure. She had sworn allegiance to the Dragonborn of the Flames, she believed so strongly in Valkari's vision that she would stop at nothing to see it become reality.

If Valkari could not see it through, Kaela would.

With a roar that shook the stone beneath her feet, Kaela raised her hands, calling forth the broken earth. The spikes she had fashioned earlier now surged forward, jagged titans of rock hurled with deadly intent toward the radiant core of Kaeryth. The air quaked under their momentum.

But the strike never landed.

A shield, vast and gleaming, appeared in their path and the stone shattered upon it in a storm of dust and fragments.

Standing before the Heart was Rysenth, transformed into the hybrid form that was a mix between the draconic and humanoid—scaled and towering, acting like a pillar as all the Lords of Linemall should be. His arm braced the shield he himself had conjured, its surface unyielding even beneath Kaela's might.

Kaela roared again, preparing to summon the Divinity of the Earth to do her bidding, but this time she was not given the chance.

Katrina Drakos rushed into her path, her movements sharp, the blade of negation gleaming in her grip. With every step she carried not hesitation but resolve, the trust she bore for Lukas blazing brighter than doubt. She met Kaela head-on, steel striking against the older dragonborn's strength and their clash ringing out throughout the peaks of Mount Ashendir like the drums of war.

At the same time, Valkari's focus on her own magic of the mind slipped just for a second and that was all it took.

Rosalia Elarion's eyes cleared, her mind finally freed from Valkari's domination. The princess of Easthaven staggered once, regaining her breath, and then her gaze sharpened with fury. Rosalia would not stand aside like some helpless little girl. She did not fully understand the situation but what she did know was that she could fight. So she leapt into the fray, her mind once more the princess' own, and Lukas felt the pure magical energy all around them responding to her call as she began to fight alongside Katrina.

Valkari continued to fight like a cornered beast, the Divinity of the Flames roaring to life around her. Fire surged from her palms and poured across the ground in violent waves, the air itself shimmering with heat. She lashed out with desperation, sending the inferno to consume Lukas, to consume him and at the very least buy herself even a second of respite. Yet the flames licked harmlessly across Lukas' scales, unable to burn through the protection that the Robes of the Lord granted him.

Irony was a cruel thing.

In wanting Katrina to prove her loyalty, the dragonborn now bore Rysenth's blade, a weapon Valkari once commanded with fearsome purpose. Even if it had remained in Valkari's hands, it would have changed nothing. That sword, with its power to erase magic, had no hold over Lukas. The Rite of Talons where he faced off against Rysenth and his titanic struggle against the creature history would come to know as the Hydra, all of it had drained him of all the magical energy within his Pool of Mana. There were no spells left for the blade to undo, no sorcery left to strip away.

But Lukas did not need magic.

Every step he took forward carried the weight of inevitability, every swing of his arm driven by sheer force of will. Valkari hurled fire at him, streams of molten brilliance meant to scorch and sear, but he advanced through it as though moving through mist.

Perhaps she still clung to hope—that Kaela Telaryon somehow emerge victorious from her duel against Katrina and Rosalia, that one of the Earthborn would break free of the Kraken's control of the mind and come to her aid.

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But Kaela was locked in desperate combat, pressed on all sides.

The blade that Katrina had wielded against her enemy continued to unravel every spell that Kaela tried to cast, and Rosalia Elarion, her bond with Mana as strong as ever made her a force to be reckoned with; even against one of the most powerful spellcasters throughout Linemall. Kaela fought with ferocious intensity but it was not a fair fight—two against one, and each second cutting closer toward her defeat.

Around them, the rest of the Earthborn stood as statues, the Kraken's grip upon their minds unyielding.

There was no one coming to save the Dragonborn of the Flames.

Valkari was alone. And alone, she stood no chance against Lukas Drakos, the Dragon Lord of the Seas.

His vengeance was as merciless as the one Valkari wished upon all of humanity.

He struck her with fists like crashing waves, each blow landing with a force that rattled the bones beneath her flesh. She staggered under the weight of each blow, fire sputtering with every impact. Again and again he hammered her down, the ground quaking beneath their struggle.

Blood marked her face, her arms, soaking into the soil as her body began to fail her.

Still she screamed and she fought, her flames flaring in defiance even as she was pummelled into a bloody mess.

But Lukas did not stop.

He fought as though every strike was a sentence carried out for the crimes she had committed, every blow a reckoning for the pain she had unleashed.

At last, Valkari collapsed.

Her limbs refused to bear her weight, her body broken beneath his wrath; the wrath of the very Seas.

She lay crumpled on the earth, struggling for breath, her chest heaving as though each inhale might be her last. And yet her eyes—those eyes still burned. Fiercer now than before, as though she dared him to finish what he had begun. Fire danced within them, not of power, but of defiance, a final refusal to surrender even in the face of death itself.

Lukas stood over her, his chest heaving, every muscle trembling with exertion. He looked down at her and he saw the girl he had once saved from the House of Fortunes, the Dragonborn of the Flames who had pledged her loyalty to him once.

He did not want this.

He had never wanted to see her broken before him, never wished for her blood to stain his hands. He felt the burden of duty sit heavy atop his shoulders, knowing must be done.

Valkari coughed, a harsh, wet sound that rattled through her chest as she sank to her knees. Her strength was gone. The flames that had once burned through so many now sputtered into nothing more than faint embers clinging to her skin.

Blood painted her split lips, dripping as she spat onto the ground between them.

Her gaze, still defiant even in defeat, rose to meet Lukas'. "Finish it then," she murmured.

For a heartbeat, silence hung between them.

Lukas' broad frame loomed over her as her eyes met his own.

He did not move. He did not raise his hand to deliver the final blow. His chest rose and fell, steadying itself as he stared back at her.

And then Lukas shook his head.

For the briefest moment, it almost seemed as though mercy had found its way into him once more. That perhaps the same dragon who had rescued her from the yoke of slavery, the Lord who had believed in the possibility of redemption, still lingered. Maybe…just maybe Lukas might grant her yet another chance to turn back from the path she had carved in blood and betrayal.

But Valkari knew that there was no going back and she had said it herself, Lukas was no saint. He never had been.

Mercy had no place here. Not now. Not after all the Dragonborn of the Flames had done.

He lowered his gaze, the truth clear in his eyes.

Valkari Ishtar had to pay for all that she had done, for every life ruined and every flame extinguished in her pursuit of vengeance. But her life was not his to take.

That justice belonged to another.

The wind stirred then, rushing in sudden currents across the battlefield. Shadows fell as a white-scaled dragon rose into view, his wings spanning wide as he ascended to the peak of Mount Ashendir. His form was lithe and elegant, his movement as fluid as the wind itself given flesh.

Jesse Sterling had returned and he had not come alone.

Upon his back sat two figures whose presence drew every gaze to them at once.

One was Selene of Dawn, the Head of the Royal Guard, her bearing sharp as a drawn blade, the legend of her feats as one of Linemall's greatest generals etched into every line of her stance.

Beside her, however, was the figure who struck Valkari harder than any blow Lukas could have given her.

A dragonborn draped in grace and regality, her very presence radiating command and strength as she always.

There stood the Lady Kaitlyn Drakos, Royal Consort of the Seas, alive and well.

Rosalia's lips curved into a bright grin as she bowed her head in reverence, her eyes filled with pure joy when she saw Jesse. Katrina, her blade pressed to Kaela Telaryon's throat, allowed herself a fierce, triumphant smile when she saw them.

Valkari could not believe her eyes.

For it had been the Dragonborn of the Flames herself who orchestrated the attack that ended the Lady Kaitlyn's life. It was the Royal Consort's death that had set everything into motion; all of this never could have happened if not for her assassination.

But the Lady Kaitlyn had never died.

The Royal Consort of the Seas rose gracefully from Jesse's back, borne upward on a platform of water that lifted her as though the ocean itself carried her to the ground. Each step she took radiated the quiet power of inevitability. And in her hand gleamed a knife—the knife, the very blade meant to end her life, a knife that Valkari had used to frame her brother as the one responsible for an attack she herself had orchestrated.

Lukas stepped aside and the Lady Kaitlyn came to stand before Valkari.

The Dragonborn of the Flames could do nothing but stare, her body ruined, her fire spent and her mind reeling at the sight of the woman she thought dead.

The Royal Consort struck without hesitation. The blade drove forward with brutal precision, sinking deep into Valkari's chest. The Dragonborn of the Flames gasped, eyes wide, her body convulsing as blood began to spill from the wound.

Leaning close, her voice cold and intimate, the Lady Kaitlyn whispered words meant only for her to hear.

"Know this, Valkari Ishtar. House Drakos sends their regards. May the tides claim you, and the depths keep you for all of eternity."

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