Blood threaded across the Black Dragon's scales, darkening them from obsidian to a wet, bruised red.
Electric currents crawled from its mouth and eyes, a cracked blue at first, then shading toward a smoldering crimson that salted the air with the faint iron taste of blood.
"This is not enough." Sevrak lifted both hands.
The chamber answered with thin, ghostly cries that rose from the stone like steam. He spoke again, his voice coming like a rite. "Without destruction, there is no rebirth." The cries deepened into a single, ragged scream that swelled until it pushed through the palace walls and fled into the night.
Between the 2 mountains, where the palace hung like a bridge, the scream ran along the cliffs and spilled down their flanks. It slid through the sleeping streets at the foothills, crossed doors that had been bolted for the night, and seeped into Umbraen homes like a cold draft that could not be stopped.
