“Every detail,” said Johan. “It will work. I have time.”

“Indeed, sire.” Flinn’s eyes were locked on the rolled-up rug in the corner. There was something familiar in the fat bulge at the center of the carpet, and even more so about the slipper extending from the bottom of it. He weighed his risks carefully and added, “And I’m sure Mr. Ortson’s plan will work as well.”

The king didn’t startle. He barely flinched as a shadow of doubt flickered over his sweating face. “Flinn followed every detail,” he reiterated.

Benny’s questions swirled in the recesses of his mind, but Flinn pushed them aside as he pulled together a plan.

It is distressing for anyone to discover that their boss has been secretly outsourcing part of their portfolio, but this is especially true for assassins. In murder and in marketing, if you’re not buying or selling, you’re the product. If Johan had someone else kill Ortson, or even if the king had bloodied his own gauntlets in the act, it was yet another sign that Garold Flinn was becoming less indispensable. Good assassins, or at least upright ones, never stick around long enough to become dispensable.

“And on top of that, I have a contingency plan, Majesty,” he said.

Johan’s eyes finally flicked to the Gnome. He said nothing, but sat breathing heavily as flecks of spittle gathered on his lip.

“To buy more time,” said Flinn smoothly. “Shall I set it in motion?”

“Yes. The contingency. Ha ha…” The king’s gaze slipped back to the space in front of him. “I have time. I planned it perfectly. We can stop… stop everything. This will work. It has to.”

“I’d bet my life on it, sire.” Flinn bowed as he backed away from the throne. It was unclear if the king even noticed his departure, but he still waited until he was out of the throne room before turning on his heel and fleeing down the hall.

“What was that?” Benny Hookhand asked as they ran. “I don’t even know what the king’s talking about!”

“Nor do I,” Flinn breathed, darting back into a servant’s hallway.

Benny scowled. “Then how is your plan going to buy him⁠—”

“I didn’t say I’d buy him time. I plan to buy us time,” said Flinn, turning his frown into a smile. “Primarily by being elsewhere.”

Elsewhere, water pooled in the dust.

This is very common and usually not worthy of note, except in stories of bad plumbing or mold infestations. Water pools in the dust of caves and caverns all the time, in accordance with several laws of physics and chemistry.

Except this water was treating the laws of physics and chemistry as general suggestions. For example, most water evaporates and disappears shortly after landing on a dusty surface, and all the more so if the cave it occupies is subjected to extreme heat. Yet the Elven tears that had fallen into the powdered remains of a recently deceased Troll endured despite the proximity to a raging dragon and its flaming breath.

If anything, the puddle of tears seemed to be slowly expanding. Its edges bled along the stone, lifting the gray-blue dust and swirling it around in faint patterns that did not glow, but held the edge of a glow, like the sky above the horizon at twilight.

The pool kept expanding, coursing from some unseen spring. Water and dust ran through grooves in the stone, tracing patterns carved by long-dead hands. And the more the water spread, casting faint echoes of sigils into the dark, the faster it poured from nowhere. Soon, the tears flowed like a river, tracing azure lines along the ancient pathways of the stone glade.

“That’s not normal, right?” said Laruna. “They don’t usually do that.”

“Don’t know,” said Gorm. “Ain’t fought a dragon before.”

“Legends say dragons lie on great hoards of treasure,” said Heraldin.

“Aye, but that’s before ye wake ’em up,” said Gorm. “They don’t keep lying down after ye make ’em mad. I think.” He peeked around the scarred and battered pillar that served as cover for the five remaining heroes. Beyond him the dragon lay with its back to the party on a large platform suspended over the deep pit of the Underheart. The creature’s hide had dulled to the flat black of a charred log, with amber traces of latent heat glowing in the grooves between its scales. “Besides, I don’t see any treasure.”

“It’s using its own body as a barricade,” said Jynn.

The stone platform certainly looked like an excellent site for an enterprising dungeon designer to store a massive hoard. It sat in the dustless, pristine space beyond the fallen magical prophetic vault, near the rear of the cavernous stone forest and yet somehow feeling like the center of it, if not the center of the whole mountain. The stone trunks and branching paths were arrayed around the dais in patterns that subtly drew the eye back to the center. This was where any hero would expect to see the golden monkey idol, or the weapon of destiny, or dunes of gold coins and gems punctuated by the occasional overflowing chest. They still might be there, Gorm thought hopefully, obscured by the dragon’s massive backside.

As he watched, the dragon’s reptilian head snaked up from behind its torso, like a bannerman poking up from behind a rampart. Its scales flared a furious crimson when it saw the Dwarf staring, and it managed to cough a flaming loogie at him.

Gorm watched the gobbet of fire hurtle past him and into the darkness below. “Not much of a fireball,” he told the others. “Can’t have too much left. We just wait it out a bit before we go on the attack. Gaist, ye’ll need to get the drop on it, if ye can find a way up to the paths that⁠—”

“But what is it defending?” Laruna asked, peering around the pillar.

Heraldin shrugged. “Probably a treasure. Maybe a nest.”

“Right,” said Gorm. “So, once Gaist is in position⁠—”

“It’s scared,” said Laruna.

“It should be,” said Heraldin.

The solamancer stared at the dragon as a student might peer at a particularly complex equation. “No, I mean I think it’s scared of losing something. I don’t think that’s just a treasure. It could have fled down to the depths to escape us. Something else is motivating it.”

“So a nest then,” said the bard.

“Don’t think of it like it’s a person,” said Jynn. “It’s really an animal driven by needs like greed and self-preservation in equal measure. I’m sure it gets confused sometimes.”

“Sounds like most people to me.” Laruna returned her gaze to the other heroes. “I don’t think it’s a nest. This isn’t about instinct.”

“It’s a flying fire-breathing lizard the size of a barn!” said Heraldin. “You can’t know what it’s thinking!”

There was almost an audible slap as the same thought struck them all at once.

“Yes, I can!” said Laruna.

“The Eye of the Dragon!” said Jynn, shuffling through his enchanted satchel.

“How does it work?” the solamancer asked as the wizard produced the gemstone.

“The Tandosians just stuck it on a hat,” said Gorm.

“I’m fairly certain that’s not how it works,” said Jynn, looking over the crystal.

“Besides, we don’t have any hats,” said the bard. “None to spare, anyway,” he added when he noticed Gaist eyeing his wide-brimmed headgear.

Gorm pulled the solamancer aside as the others examined the gem and discussed the terms of surrendering a hat. “Lass, I see where you’re goin’ with this. Ye’re wonderin’ what it’s thinkin’, or if it has baby dragons, or some other reason for delay. But that thing killed our friends. It’s tryin’ to kill us right now. If we hesitate… if we don’t do what we need to, we could all go the way of… of…” He shook his head. “I trust ye, but are ye sure about this?”

“No,” said Laruna, and Gorm was surprised to see tears running down the woman’s face. She wiped them away when she caught him looking. “I wish it was simple too, you know. I hate all the cloak and dagger drake spit in the city, and I hated not knowing what we’d face down here. And now we know, and finally it seems so straightforward. That thing killed Thane, and then it killed Kaitha, and I want to kill it. I want it to be wrong, to be evil. I want it to deserve everything I throw at it.”

Gorm had to take a deep breath to loosen his white-hot grip on his axe. “Aye,” he croaked. “I want that too.”

“But I can’t have another Bloodroot on my conscience,” said Laruna, gulping back more tears.