Ancient magic is often depicted as being simpler than the modern variations, but that is a misconception. Modern spells are often streamlined and clarified versions of previous iterations, but that doesn’t mean the old ones are any less effective. Only more difficult to use.


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    The sky echoed with the scream emitting from Ryenzo''s volcano, augmented with a slapped-together sound enhancement construct. "Who dares attack the humans beneath my eye? You will answer to me! Mercurios? You defy me?"


    The first dragon to approach was small, barely big enough to fill one wall of Astralla Institute''s outer wall. It hissed at the tiny figures standing around the former-caldera, circled, and landed. "Who dares to lay claim to Mother''s throne?"


    "I am the consort of Emyxnar of the Crimson Flame, and you have transgressed on my rightfully inherited land." Qahrvirna stood defiant, Jair and Raina at her sides.


    Lilin had elected to stay behind, Uqiar was watching Eythron, and Eythron was trying to throw himself into the lava.


    The young mercurios huffed out a cloud of poison gas, not quite near enough to melt the flesh off their faces but near enough to make a point. Jair traced his Storm Runner imprint while they waited. He''d started carrying the measuring tools with him at all times just so he didn''t have to waste potential imprinting time.


    "You do not belong here, Consort of the Crimson Flame."


    Qahrvirna chuckled arrogantly. "Who is it who trespasses upon land not his own, young drakling?"


    The mercurios dragon reared back, affronted by her intentionally provocative tone and terminology. "I should eat you where you stand."


    "Try it and it will be your last act." Qahrvirna waved a hand, and Jair stepped forward. He held up Maelstrom between them as though to challenge the drakling to a duel.


    The mercurios tried to feign indifference. He sat back on his haunches, only looking at them sideways through one green eye. "You no longer amuse me."


    "You were not summoned for your amusement," Qahrvirna said, though Jair detected the slightest quaver in her voice. They''d need to practice that a bit more for the next one. She was used to fawning over dragons, or sneaking around them, not defying them to their faces. Gonna need to get used to that, traveling with me.


    Qahrvirna coughed, cleared her throat, then continued. "I asked you a question and I expect an answer. Why have you attacked the humans under my protection?"


    "You hold no claim over these lands. They have belonged to Mercurios for centuries untold! They belong to Mercurios still."


    "And I have taken them by right of conquest." Qahrvirna''s eyes gleamed brilliant red. "Ryenzo Draconis is no more and I take ownership of this land in the name of Emyxnar the Magnificent. Lord of the Crimson Flame. You may submit yourselves to our rule and continue to abide in your homes, or you may defy us and die. The choice is yours."


    The dragon crouched, raised its wings, and tensed to attack. "I see no Lord of the Crimson Flame here. Only a handful of defiant humans about to be a morning snack."


    Qahrvirna made a severing motion with one hand. "Sir Goldenflame, you may dispose of this insolent child. Perhaps his parents will be more open to reasonable discussion."


    Jair was in the air the moment she said it, Maelstrom leading as he threw a Bladewalk straight at the dragon''s eye. It reared back, opened its mouth, and lunged forward to snap him out of the air.


    The blade nicked its tongue, and black-green flame poured out to engulf it.


    Jair remembered a particularly nice spot of empty ocean for it to die in, far far from any shore, and the dragon vanished into green fire and black ash.


    "Ack, that was not fun." Qahrvirna had spat out her dragoncube and massaged her throat. "You do not want to know about the month I''ve just had..."


    "Let me guess... Cyrendenth went off on another of her mad nonsense crusades, prevented anyone from getting food to Emyxnar, and they both blamed you somehow? And then Muegvygh subjected you to an entire day of increasingly inane riddles before letting you go?"


    Qahrvirna narrowed her eyes at him. "I thought you were a future seer."


    "I have seen futures that will no longer be for many many years," Jair said, in a tone of ancient wisdom and utmost patience. He held out his hand. "Now, I want to try that."


    He suppressed the reflex to gag or throw up the pointy dragoncube as he crammed down his throat, took slow hissing breaths, and began feeding mana into the cube at various angles and strengths.


    He''d gotten some practice with it in a previous timeline, but most of that had been basic technique. Now he knew how to do it, he needed to learn what to do. He found himself surprisingly impressed even more than the first time around. It was one thing to hear Qahrvirna using natural sounding sentences, and another to recognize the sheer flexibility the dragoncube offered. There wasn''t a single word he could think of that it didn''t cover. It wasn''t just better than a lizardbox, it was flawlessly effective.


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    "I don''t understand how you escape having a constant flood of people at your doorstep demanding these," Jair said in perfect draconic.


    Qahrvirna raised an eyebrow. "All it takes you is three hours of random grunting and screeching and you become fully proficient?"


    "I have been fluent in draconic for longer than you''ve been alive," he told her. "This is merely a new instrument to adapt to." He was used to performing invasive surgery any time he desperately needed to talk to a dragon, implanting constructs, and doing some minor rearranging of his vocal functions, but that whole process took several weeks even with a team of healers on hand, and couldn''t be reversed. He''d always speak with a hissing growl to his voice thereafter, and human words became mildly painful to form afterwards. It wasn''t a practice he engaged in often any more these days, once he''d reached the limits of what any dragon was willing to say to him.


    But the dragoncube was a complete game-changer. It let him speak draconic one moment, standard the next, and do so with only the minor discomfort of having a pointy object cutting into his throat for the duration. He swallowed another of Qahrvirna''s orange potions to mitigate the damage.


    "You going to give that back?" she asked.


    "Never. It is mine now."


    "You''re going to keep that in indefinitely?"


    "You will need to act as translator."


    Qahrvirna''s eyes flashed. "I''m not here to be your petty flunky."


    Jair snatched the sound amplification construct from her with a grin. "Yo! Mercurios! I have slain your matriarch and her idiot child who dared challenge me! Who will come give an accounting for your behavior?"


    Qahrvirna winced and took several steps away from Jair.


    "What did he say?" Raina whispered to the vampire.


    "He said ''I killed your queen, get over here.''"


    He stepped up onto Maelstrom''s blade and rose into the air, green fire blazing beneath his feet. It was dramatically visible in the dawn dimness, burning against the sky like dragonfire.


    Growls and roars rose up as the Mercurios roused.


    There were seventeen dragons living in the direct environs of Mount Ryenzo, and another thirty one who were too young to be out on their own but could be brought to the fight if necessary.


    There was no particular reason for them to stay home when a threat came to their doorstep, so the full forty-six dragon complement of the Mercurios clan survivors rose into the air in a rather impressive cloud of green and flickering aura.


    "Intruder, you challenge us?"


    Jair flew straight at him, unflinching.


    He got a blast of extremely potent acid to the face as a response.


    "You will serve as an example to your kin," Jair growled, and dove into the dragon''s mouth.


    The rest of the clan hovered, waiting, and then their spokesdragon burned apart from the inside out, shrieking and clawing at himself as though he thought he could stop the destruction by grabbing the pieces and holding them together.


    Jair laughed at him, and immolated himself in a brief flash. He promptly reappeared without the injuries he''d so recently sustained.


    To an outside observer, it would merely look like he''d dived into the dragon, impervious to his acidic breath, and in a flash of green and black fire burned it alive before emerging unscathed.


    "I have killed your matriarch, and two of her idiot children who dared defy me. Who will stand and give an account for yourselves?"


    The hovering dragons didn''t move. No one stepped forward, no one retreated.


    "I will give you one chance to speak to me willingly or I will begin killing you one by one until you answer me. If I need to depopulate this entire continent, it will not bother me."


    "What accounting do you demand?" a voice called out from the back of the pack. A younger female, one Jair didn''t know the name of. "Who are you?"


    "I am the Brother of the Ignis, Dragonslayer, Kingmaker, Breath of the Storm, Lord of Time. Your people have damaged the cities I lay claim to. Who has done this and for what reason?"


    One smaller female dragon off to the left side of the hovering group hissed and spun on the cluster of draklings she escorted. They puffed up their tiny chests, stuck out their tiny chins, and hovered a bit higher in absolute defiance.


    "It seems some of our young decided it would be an amusing game," she growled. "They will be confined and reprimanded for their insolence."


    "No. They will be brought before me one at a time and I will determine their fates."


    One of the larger males flew forward, swooping down to be on a level with Jair. "You have taken our history," he growled, "and now you would demand our future? No. You can kill one of us, but you cannot kill all of us."


    "Then I''ll save you for last," Jair said coldly, "so you can witness the whole thing."


    He dove at the cluster of young draklings, switching from riding atop Maelstrom to flying with it extended in front of him in a single blink of a flash.


    Dragonbreath burned the sky around him. At one point, someone bit one of his legs off. He found himself engulfed in a dragon''s oversized mouth.


    He burned himself, and he burned them, and he didn''t stop moving.


    The first few dragons were surprised when he caught them. The next few were angry, violently defiant. The second half broke and fled. He had to chase them down.


    To his credit, the male who''d called him out—likely the one who considered himself patriarch now that Ryenzo was gone—continued trying to destroy Jair the entire time, despite evidence of its uselessness.


    When Jair held the last struggling drakling by the throat—that is, hovered in front of it with Maelstrom stabbed through, since even a drakling of this age was easily ten times Jair''s size—he hovered in front of the final member of the Mercurios clan and stared him down.


    "You have lost your bet," he said calmly. "Now choose. Will you be the last casualty, or will this child stand to account for his deeds?"


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