The executioner had performed thirty-seven executions in his career. He had never had an opinion about the person kneeling at the block.

He had an opinion about this one. She had critiqued his hood.

Guinevere’s lips curled in a last, defiant sneer.

The axe began its final arc, whistling in the air.

CRACK.

Half a second away from death, fate decided it wasn’t finished with her and had opinions. A portal ripped open in the middle of the sky and a dragon was flung out of it at terminal velocity. It happened so quickly, the executioner didn’t have a chance to look up before a juvenile dragon with zero landing skills hit the platform, knocking him off.

The axe went flying.

A column of green fire intercepted it midair, turning it into ash and charred metal. The dragon roared, almost daring someone to take a step.

Hyran, who had been standing on a balcony in the back because watching executions was not something he attended willingly, gripped the railing in front of him.

“Fae fire,” he said to no one. To himself. To the impossible thing he was watching. “That dragon is burning Fae fire.”

Beside him, Maelor, who had arrived twelve minutes ago through a portal he had opened because he didn’t believe that Serena wouldn’t be here and wanted to check her cloak personally, looked at the green flame with mismatched eyes that were wider than anyone had ever seen them.

“That was a fae portal,” he said. “And fae dragon fire is a myth.”

“I know. I also believe that and I grew up with dragons,” Hyran agreed, eyes not leaving the green flame.

Across the square, Tiberon’s eyes found Hyran’s. The eye contact between them held a full conversation: Did you see it. Yes. Fae fire. Yes. From a dragon. Yes. Is that possible? No. Agreed. None of the dragons that attacked us from Orosia used Fae fire. I know. My study after this? Already planning to be there.

The next thing happened so quickly, no one was prepared for it.

The juvenile dragon with all its coordination, tried to turn. Its massive tail whipped around like an excited wrecking ball. Chunks of brick and glass exploded outward from the building behind the platform, pelting Guinevere in a dusty shower. She let out a blood-curdling scream in response.

The dragon immediately yelped at the sound of the scream. The dragon lifted its head, checking for a threat, blissfully unaware it was the threat, and its wrecking ball tail went for round two with another swing, sending bricks and glass everywhere and turning someone’s probably very expensive office into modern art.

Somewhere in the rubble, the executioner was lying face-down on cobblestone, alive, confused, and professionally offended. Thirty-seven clean executions. An unblemished record. And a dragon with the landing skills of a drunk pelican had just ended his streak.

It tried to nudge Guinevere with its face, only for Guinevere to scramble away from it before it could touch her, screaming louder.

The dragon tried again. The dragon won.

The second they made contact, her eyes ignited.

Green. Bright, burning, impossible fae-magic green that erupted from her irises.

A shockwave detonated outward from the point of contact: a wall of green energy that expanded in a perfect circle from Guinevere’s body, washing across the platform, the gallery, the crowd, the walls, carrying a frequency that every wolf in the square felt in their marrow. The wave passed through bodies without harm but left a resonance behind, a vibration in the chest, a hum in the teeth, the particular sensation of ancient magic announcing itself and demanding acknowledgment.

Chaos erupted.

Two officers charged at the dragon with weapons drawn. Three wolves shifted without authorization, their bodies exploding into fur and teeth. Spectators fell over each other trying to run. The dust cloud from the dragon’s impact mixed with the green residue of the shockwave and turned the air into something that tasted like ozone and old magic and the specific metallic tang of a world rearranging itself around a single, impossible event.

The dragon moved its head away from Guinevere. Its gaze locked onto the three wolves with the predatory focus of a creature deciding whether they were a threat or a snack.

Dexmon Drakenfell shook his head once, picking his jaw up off the floor.

His voice split the square.

“HALT.”

Alpha command. Full register. Delivered with the authority of a Crown Prince whose bloodline predated every stone in this square and every throne in Skardos, and the weight of it dropped across hundreds of wolves with the force of a physical impact.

Every body in the square stopped moving.

The wolves who had shifted locked mid-stride. The officers froze mid-charge. The civilians stopped running. Even the dust seemed to hang suspended, as though the air itself had received the command and was complying.

Three hundred wolves, pinned by a single voice, held in place by an authority that brooked zero exception and carried zero negotiation.

The silence that followed was absolute.

Tiberon looked at his son.

The look lasted two seconds. In those two seconds, the King of Drakenfell saw the man his son had become, saw the commander his bloodline had produced, saw the particular fusion of instinct and authority that separated men who wore crowns from men who deserved them. The assessment was complete, thorough, and carried an approval so rare that Tiberon had delivered it fewer times in his life than he had delivered execution orders.

Pride—sharp, rare, almost painful—lanced through his chest.

Dex would never know about the look, because Tiberon’s face gave nothing away and the moment was already over.

Then Dex’s eyes ignited gold.

The transformation was immediate and total. His irises blazed with a light that had nothing to do with his wolf and everything to do with the Dragon King Incarnate waking inside his chest, called to the surface by the bonding he had just witnessed, summoned by a frequency that his blood recognized before his mind could process it.

Beside Garrett, Fin’s eyes lit gold at the same moment.

Identical timing. Identical register. Two men, standing three feet apart, both consumed by the same ancient power at the same second, their bodies responding to a signal that predated every kingdom on this continent.

Garrett looked at Fin. Then at Dex. Then back at Fin.

“Your eyes are glowing,” he said to Fin.

Fin didn’t answer. His attention was locked on the juvenile dragon with bad coordination and the woman next to it.

Garrett looked at Dex. “His eyes are also glowing.”

Dex didn’t answer either.

“What the hell is happening?” he asked.