The horses' uneasy whinnies were the first sign that something was amiss.

Prim glanced up at the sky. Dark clouds billowed above, and the telltale petrichor odor wafted up from the earth. The townsfolk moved to cover up anything that was vulnerable to inclement weather. Disturbed, the princess urged her horse to move faster.

"He's here," she warned the knights beside her.
Wesley snorted. "You read too many novels."
"There's a reason authors keep using dramatic rain, you know."
"Because it's cool, not because it's realistic."
"Your 'realistic' got me caked in mud the last time."
"How is that even-"

He cut off when he heard a foul, unearthly shriek in the distance. It sent a shiver up Prim's spine, and all the horses began to whimper. She'd know that cold howl anywhere. Prim broke out into a gallop and sped toward the city, her knights trailing behind her. Already, the town guards raced into position along the walls, and whole companies of archers marched out. Engineers loaded their cylindrical nitro-catapults and pointed them to the north. Swarms of wyvern knights took off en masse.

Then the screams started. As she raced toward the city center, the screams drew closer and closer to the city limits. An explosion ripped through a nearby house, prompting the girl to look up at the sky once more. Guts and armor rained from above. Wyvern knights crashed into each other and tumbled to the earth. Soldiers trembled with fear and reverence.

There, in the center of it all, an unsettling streak of black tore through the sky. In the blink of an eye, dozens of soldiers erupted in flame and melted like wax in a furnace. Prim covered her eyes and raced for the central tower, praying over and over that it was strong enough to protect her. No sooner did the horse grind to a stop at the wall than the princess burst through the doors and run up the spiral steps.

From the top of the tower, she witnessed a sight she would never forget.

It wasn't the countless burning buildings that once held generations of families. It wasn't the rivers of blood draining through the streets. It wasn't the hellscape strewn out around her.

No, it was the dark, monstrous animal hovering in the air before her, a creature of majestic ebony whose very presence served as a consequence of her arrogance and a living testament to her failures, the one creature in all the world she hoped never to meet again:

[i]Abraxas.[/i]

The princess straightened her back and stiffened her trembling lower lip.
"What do you want with me?" she demanded.

The dragon perched on the balcony and brought his face to her eye-level.
[h3]"You."[/h3]