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name Mercy dared not utter, not even think of. And for that
name, millions had died.
    Throughout history, the
weredragons had attracted the wrath of demons, of griffins, of phoenixes.
Throughout history, endless wars had been fought for that magic of reptiles.
    Until the Cured Temple.
    A hundred years ago,
Mercy's great-grandmother, a pious woman, had heard the words of the Spirit,
the wise god, creator of all. The priestess had raised the Cured Temple, a
small but ancient religion, to dominion. It was a religion to cure all
weredragons, to remove the illness that had brought so much death. The first
High Priestess had begun to cleanse the land of dragon magic. She had burned
all scrolls and books bearing the kingdom's old name, had outlawed uttering
that name, and had called her new realm the Commonwealth—a realm for the cured.
A realm without weredragons.
    For a hundred years,
Mercy's elders had worked to make this dream a reality, to finally rid the
world of the last weredragon. The Spirit taught that when the last weredragon
fell, the ancient King's Column—a relic of marble in the capital—would fall
too. The world would be cured. The ancient disease would be cleansed away. The
Spirit himself would descend to the earth, ushering in an era of peace and
holiness.
    The Falling, Mercy thought, sucking in breath. The day the column would fall. The day all
adherents of the Cured Temple craved.
    Perhaps Cade himself was
the last weredragon. Perhaps she, Lady Mercy Deus, would be the one to bring
about the Falling.
    She spurred her
firedrake again, racing across forests and hills. The parti-colored beast blew
fire again, and Cade kept flying, but she saw him wobbling in the sky. He was
weakening. He would not be able to keep flying for much longer.
    Mercy tightened her
grip around her lance's shaft.
    Yes, she craved the
Falling. She craved the holiness that would come from cleansing the world. But
even more, she craved revenge.
    "The weredragons killed
him, killed my—"
    Pain bolted through Mercy.
No, she would not summon that memory now, the memory of a day of fire, of
screams, of loss. A day of a soul torn from her.
    "Weredragons are
murderers," she whispered, and her eyes stung with tears. "And now I will
murder you, Cade. Slowly. Savoring every drop of your blood."
    Cade dipped lower in
the sky. Smoke streamed from his nostrils in two trails. He was slowing down.
The firedrakes, meanwhile, only flew faster at the sight. The great beasts
tossed back their heads and screeched, the sounds beautiful—the sounds of
ripping flesh and snapping bones.
    "Burn him!" Mercy
shouted.
    The firedrakes blasted
out their flames.
    The inferno shot toward
Cade and washed across him.
    The golden dragon
screamed.
    It was a human scream,
the cry of a boy, pained, beautiful. Mercy grinned and licked her lips to hear
it. Scales heated, expanded, and cracked across Cade, but still he flew.
    "We take him alive!"
Mercy shouted. She rose in her stirrups and raised her lance. "Barely alive."
    She aimed the lance,
prepared to thrust it into Cade's wing to cripple him, then drag him back to
the capital in chains.
    Before her, Cade turned
in the sky.
    "What's the damn fool
doing?" she growled.
    With a roar, the golden
dragon came charging toward the dozen firedrakes.
    "He's taking us head
on!" said Sir Castus, a tall man who flew a firedrake at Mercy's right side.
    She stared in
disbelief. "Burn him!"
    Beneath her, her
firedrake thrummed, its scales of many colors clattering, as it blasted out
flames. Its eleven comrades blew fire too. The jets coalesced into a single
strand, an inferno like a dying sun, a great pillar—wider than a city boulevard—that
streamed toward the charging gold dragon.
    Instants before Cade
could hit the fire, he soared higher, dodging the flames. The gold dragon rose
toward the sun, then spun and swooped.
    His dragonfire rained
down.
    Mercy screamed and
raised her shield.
    Cade's inferno rained
upon her.
    The