Dragons defend the Seven Realms, where androids light the darkness and dinosaurs walk the earth.

Dragonspark: The Isle of Arcanum

Coming March 2026.

Prologue

Tasien

Zyren tucked in his wings and stepped through the portal, freezing wind and screaming air-raid sirens blasting his golden scales.

“T-minus five minutes until contact!” A shrill voice cried over a loudspeaker, the crackling of the ancient technology overlapping with the voice’s sharp, biting, and distinctly human pronunciation. “I repeat, T-minus five minutes!”

The white spires and ivory towers of the Scribes rose before the dragon, the thin line of Tasien’s rings crossing the sky above, a blood-red aurora convulsing to the north. The university city had been built as a great bridge across two cliffs, and far below, the stormy waters of Tasien’s icy sea raged. Zyren didn’t know what monsters dwelt far beneath the dark surface, and he had no intention of finding out.

Instead, Zyren focused on the monsters he could see: a twisting storm of swirling snow, advancing towards the city. If he squinted, he could just barely see the outlines of frozen spikes and solid land within it, a floating fortress of death and destruction. The Scribes had surrounded their city with a spherical dome of magic, stretching above and beneath the bridge, but Zyren doubted it would hold for long.

Fortunately, Zyren wasn’t here to defend the university—he was here to sneak inside. 

The dragon folded his wings around his ribcage, puffing heated air on his extremities. He held his tail aloft to keep it out of the snow.

“I’d forgotten how cold this place was!” Zyren said to his brother, his fangs chattering. “I can’t believe anyone actually lives here. They must be freezing their scales off!”

“That is why the Tasish dragons have fur.” Laphano exhaled a puff of steam as he strutted through the portal. His golden scales gleamed as bright as his violet eyes, his claws sharpened to deadly points. This here was the spitting image of dragonkind—and Zyren was proud to be standing by his side.

Laphano’s forked tongue flicked against the cold air, his tail sweeping in an arc around his hindpaws. A silver medallion shaped like a slice of flamebread, an eighth of a disk, dangled on a chain around his scaled neck, an invisible force pulling it back towards the portal. It pulsed with light until Laphano tapped it with a single talon, and the portal blinked out of existence. A gust of powdery snow replaced the warm, humid winds of their home. The blizzard approached.

A third dragon had been sitting in the space hidden behind the portal, her long, whip-like tail flicking across the snow. Azure scales covered her from tooth to claw, and two thin silver bands wrapped her foreleg like an ornate shackle. Compared to Laphano, she was unusually lithe and cat-like, like she’d stretched her claws so far that she’d been stretched with them. But most striking were her eyes: a fearless ruby-red gaze that could kill with a glance.

She smelt of sulfur and death, and Zyren was certain she was the most beautiful dragon in all the Seven Realms.

Dangerously beautiful, with an emphasis on the dangerous.

“Grandmaster Laphano, Master Zyren,” she said, her voice dripping with poisoned nectar. Her snout dipped in a bow. “We’ve been expecting you.”

“Thank you for agreeing to this on such short notice.” Laphano’s words were as carefully crafted as always. He dipped his snout in a bow of his own. Even among sworn enemies, there could be mutual respect. “Zyren, I would like you to meet Elaka. Elaka, this is my brother, Zyren.”

Zyren’s heart pounded as Elaka’s gaze turned on him, and his claws trembled in the flaky snow.

A moment later, and Elaka’s gaze had shifted once more. The fortress loomed in the sky overhead, and she watched as the blizzard came forth with it.

Was she thinking of her great-uncle up there, ruling his kingdom of ice and snow?

Were her thoughts drifting to the far north, to where her great-grandmother, Rika, had almost ended the world?

Elaka looked back at Zyren, and he became suddenly aware of how long he’d been staring. He quickly averted his eyes, focusing instead on a group of robed Scribes as they ran up towards the university gates. The three Scribes—two humans and a gryphon, each covered in thick black robes—seemed oddly eager to be slaughtered in battle against Elaka’s great-uncle. Young students, perhaps: arrogant; impatient to test out their amateur magecraft.

The gryphon turned his beak at the three dragons, and Zyren’s heart skipped a beat. It would do them no good to get caught before they snuck inside.

“Don’t worry,” a high-pitched voice said from behind, with a crisp tongue belonging to neither human nor dragon. “They can’t see us.”

The gryphon looked away, and Zyren turned to where the fourth member of their band lay unseen.

The air rippled like a curtain, the fabric of reality itself warping at the fourth mage’s presence, her black nose and whiskers piercing through. Golden eyes beamed out from the snout of a cream-furred fox as she padded across the snow. Nine bushy tails extended in a fan behind her, curling and twisting in a series of intricate motions that no one but another kitsune could follow.

“Snow,” Laphano said. The golden dragon bent his snout so far down that his nose was below the two-foot tall fox.

Zyren quickly rushed to do the same, accidentally shoving his snout into a crusty layer of snow. A blast from his nostrils expelled it back out, and he heard Elaka snicker from behind.

Oh well. It was better to embarrass himself than to risk getting turned into a lemming.

“That’s my name,” Snow sighed. “Don’t wear it out.”

There were very few beings in the Seven Realms who had both the arrogance and the power to speak to a clan leader like that. The fox standing before them, so small that Zyren could crush her with a paw, was one of them.

“Nana, don’t be rude!” Elaka scolded Snow.

Snow’s golden eyes turned towards Zyren, and he felt the touch of a miniature claw on his scales—a claw that contained more magic than he had in his entire body.

“And who is this?” Snow asked. “A second Laphano? And I thought that just one of them was too much.”

Zyren held his breath as the kitsune’s claw traced along his snout, the scent of magic, fox, and a hint of processed meat on her breath. His heart pounded as his scales clenched, his instincts roaring at him to snap at the threat in front of him, or to get away from it.

“This is my brother, Zyren,” Laphano said. “He’s here to help us out. Two of you, and two of us.”

Zyren stilled his talons, steadying his nerves. Snow was not just an illusionist as sublime as the most learned of Clan Nezka, but an immortal master mage on par with Rika’s Spawn, perhaps even the Three Immortals. A flick of her tail, and he could be sent into an eternal nightmare. To say that he was intimidated would be a vast understatement—he was terrified.

“H-hi,” Zyren whimpered. “I’m Zyren.”

“Yes, yes,” Snow said, pulling her talon back. “So I’ve heard.”

“You’ve heard of me?” Zyren scooched backward, dragging his paws through the snow. He glanced toward his brother. “Only good things. R-right?”

“Nothing more than your name.” Snow laughed. “Now, get up and stop groveling.”

On Snow’s insistence, Zyren’s limbs straightened out, and he felt himself pulled upright. He wasn’t sure how much say he’d had in the matter.

“T-minus two minutes before contact!” the loudspeaker roared. “Finalize battle preparations!”

The fortress had reached the side of the bridge-city; the blizzard buffeting the Scribes’ shield with ice and hail. Bursts of light scattered across the shield as they struck, and the roar of wind filled the sky. Thin cannon barrels manned by robed Scribes twisted around the university’s spires, pulsating with energy.

“Hurry up.” Snow twisted around, her tails twirling behind her as she strutted towards the walls of the city. “We have a book to find, don’t we?”

The three dragons padded after her. Zyren’s tail flicked as he saw a long cylinder extend from the base of the fortress, piercing through the winds of the blizzard. He wasn’t sure what the weapon was, but he doubted Kua would use something that couldn’t break through the university’s shield.

“T-minus sixty seconds!” the loudspeakers crackled.

The four found themselves standing before the ornate gates of the university, the stone as white as Snow. The shield fell before them like a wall of light, blocking their path.

“Perhaps we should have chosen a different time to sneak in,” Laphano remarked. “This doesn’t seem ideal.”

“A different time?” Snow hissed, her tails curling behind her. “Do you have a problem with me?”

“Oh, I meant no disrespect. I just—”

“I know what you meant,” Snow snapped. “See, this happens every time one of you clan leaders wants to get to Ansila’s stupid books. You come to me for help, bemoaning the entire time when you think I can’t hear about how you’re forced to associate with ‘the enemy’ and Rika’s line, while pretending you’re being oh so polite and offering us a chance for redemption and yap yap yap stupid clan nonsense yap yap yap.”

“T-minus thirty seconds!” the speakers crackled.

“I’m not—” Laphano began.

“Don’t interrupt your betters. As I was saying, while you pretend this is something new and special, I have to go through this routine at least three times a century. And every time, Pythia finds out and puts up better protections and alarms to keep me out. It’s a bit of a game between us, ‌except she hates my guts ‘cause I always win. Now, the last few times I went with subterfuge and sneakiness, so that’s what she’s suspecting. So this time, I’m gonna surprise her by using—” Snow gestured a tail up at the fortress, the cylinder beneath it now filled with crimson light. “—brute force. Genius, huh?”

“You’re working with Kua?” Laphano’s jaws opened in a horrified expression unbefitting of him, his forked tongue hanging out of his mouth. “What sort of monster are you?”

“T-minus five seconds!”

“Oh, Deer Fox in the Sky, no!” Snow grinned devilishly. “I’m just taking advantage of the moment.”

“T-minus on—”

The fortress’s cannon let loose, and the skies of Tasien were alight with the color of blood.

Zyren felt a chill in his bones that wasn’t just the cold. Crimson light splashed across the shield, pulsating and wobbling as its surface cracked. Inside, the students were sure to be hard at work, attempting to repair it against the ceaseless onslaught. Even if the four needed the shield to break, Zyren was still rooting for the Scribes.

“They’re feeding it magic,” Elaka remarked unremarkably, as if the revelation wasn’t horrifying. “They’re feeding him.”

And it was true.

As the Scribes joined their hands, claws, talons, and other manipulative extremities together, pouring out their magic in unison, Kua’s weapon only grew stronger. And finally, even the power of their intellectual bonds failed.

The shield burst in a spray of glittering light, and that was when the real battle begun.

The cannon drew a line of red destruction across the recently rebuilt towers of the Scribes, obliterating everything and everyone in its path, leaving behind a trail of steam and death. Kua’s armies poured out from the blizzard: hundreds of winged monstrosities fashioned from ice, their battle cries raking Zyren’s ears like the sound of claws on a blackboard.

The Scribes quickly mounted their defense. White beams of light shot forth from their own weapons scattered around the spires of the city, forming an interlocking net that sliced through Kua’s soldiers like warm talons through butter. Limbs and wings dropped from the sky, sounding like hail on stone as the ice crashed and shattered.

Though Zyren could see little of the battle over the walls of the city, blasts of light and flame assured him that the Scribes on the ground were fighting just as hard as those manning the guns. It brought a tear to Zyren’s scaly eye.

Zyren wiped the tear away with a claw, only to see that it shimmered with a faint glow against his golden scales. Apparently, a bit of the magic residue left over from the shield. He licked it: sweet like candy, but with an odd, bitter aftertaste, like he were tasting a soap bubble.

Elaka gave him a funny look, and he shrugged his wings. He’d eaten stranger things to see if he could get any magic out of them. All dragon mages knew that precious metals and gemstones—shimmer—could be used as an energy boost in a pinch, but few truly understood the full capabilities of their arcanodigestive system. No one but hatchlings seemed to believe his theories on chocolate! Truly, a hidden source of power.

Snow strutted through the gates of the walled city, beckoning the three with a curl of her tail.

“Remember. For us villains, timing is everything.” Snow grinned wickedly. “Elaka, take notes.”

“Timing, got it.” Elaka followed Snow into the city, the two brothers behind them. “Where on the ladder is that, compared to scheming, monologuing, and plotting?”

“Depends on the day,” Snow replied. “Like I said, you’ve gotta mix it up. Keeps pretty little clan dragons on their pretty little claws.”

Zyren looked down to his claws, feeling suddenly self-conscious. Were they not pretty enough? Were they too pretty?

The four passed through aged alleyways, some built so narrow that Zyren’s wingtips scraped against the aged white stone. Ornate buildings rose on either side of them, topped with intricate spires and etched with angular patterns. The architecture was ancient—not black-and-white cinema ancient, but actually ancient, older than Snow ancient. The free brochures the Scribes gave out said the city had been built over two millennia ago, before the Cataclysm.

But Zyren knew the Scribes had rebuilt the city a number of times since then, and right now, it was pretty obvious as to why.

Young mages in black robes fought against fearsome soldiers of ice, blasting stone and shattering stained glass windows. The battle raged on around them all across the city, and every time Zyren saw another piece of it, he wasn’t sure who was winning. Spears and lightning bolts flew over their heads, fireballs and frozen maces causing destruction all around. A few robed mages ran after an ice monster directly in front of Zyren’s path, though thanks to Snow, none even noticed the four were there.

Snow herself seemed to relish in the wanton destruction, dancing among falling rubble and broken glass. Her tails twirled as she got on her hindlegs, singing a tune in an odd, warbling language. Spears and blasts of flame warped around the four of them as the kitsune let out her heart, as if even magic itself had forgotten they were there.

“Bravo, bravo!” Elaka called out.

Snow bowed over one of her tails. “It’s been seven hundred years since I last spoke that language,” she remarked. “Seven hundred years since it’s passed along anyone’s tongue, in fact.”

“What culture?” Zyren asked.

“You wouldn’t have heard of it.” Snow shook her head. “Forgotten, like so many others. They had consonants you couldn’t even dream of.”

The cries of a young human mage caused Zyren’s ears to perk up, and there was a streak of black robes as he ran past the four. Zyren peeked around the corner of the alleyway to see what he was running from—a seven foot tall ice monster carrying two frozen blades, its body lined with spikes.

As the ice monster ran past, Zyren stuck out his tail. The monster tripped over with a crash, its nose splintering off on the cobblestone road.

The monster’s head twisted a full 180 degrees, rubbing its missing nose with the back of its hand. 

Before it could get up, Snow spat out a word at it. Though Zyren didn’t know the language, he was absolutely certain it was something vulgar—vulgar enough that the ice monster violently exploded upon hearing it.

“Don’t interfere,” Snow warned him.

Zyren obeyed. He had no intention of finding out if that worked on flesh as well as frost.

Snow led them along the edge of a courtyard. In its center, a ginormous bronze statue of a winged human was swinging an oversized sword. It was battling an ice monster that resembled a giant spider with two frozen human heads sewn on.

Scribes cheered as the statue lopped off one head, only for the severed head to grow spindly legs of ice from where its neck had been, chasing them around.

Whatever one might say about him, Kua certainly wasn’t suffering from a lack of imagination.

Zyren leaped as he felt his tail nipped, only to see his brother attempting to drag him away from the scene.

“Hurry,” Laphano hissed. “There’s no time for watching.”

Zyren scrambled after Snow and Elaka, who had entered a tall, ornate hall lined with wooden desks. The desks had all been abandoned except for one, where a small robed dragon with violet fur and two long fangs sat, flipping through textbooks. She was cramming for finals, assuredly.

The four passed her, down a spiral staircase and into the underbelly of the Scribes. Zyren found himself in a long, white hallway, lined with busted doors and shattered windows into classrooms. He peered into one, where some sort of alchemical formula was written on a broken blackboard.

“Ahhh!” Snow lifted her nose in the air, taking in a deep breath and stretching her tails. “The hallowed halls of the Scribes! Good times, good times!”

“Did you go to school here?” Zyren asked.

“Do I look like someone with an education?” Snow cocked her head back and glared.

Zyren wasn’t sure how to answer that, so he didn’t. He’d never been one for school himself—which made it slightly ironic that as a Master of Clan Zura, his duties were now predominantly related to teaching hatchlings.

As they paced down the underground hallway, Zyren found himself walking side-by-side with Elaka. She gave him an expectant glance, and Zyren suddenly felt the awkward pressure to make small talk. His least favorite subject.

Well, Zyren, let’s see how far you can stick your tail in your mouth this time, he thought.

“So, uh, is she always like this?” Zyren blurted out.

Amazing opening, Zyren. Insulting someone’s parental unit always works.

“Nana?” Elaka gave Zyren a confused half-smile, one of her ears wobbling. “She’s actually in a pretty good mood today. She might not say it, but this sort of thing brings out the best in her.”

“Death and destruction?”

“Messing with the Scribes while getting on the nerves of a clan leader,” Elaka replied. “Two birds with one flame.”

“I see, I see.” Zyren thought for a moment about how best to approach this. He needed to find a safe topic. Something anyone could appreciate. “So how about this weather, huh? It’s so cold, right? My scales are practically freezing off.”

“Yep,” Elaka’s ears twitched. “Tasien is brutally cold. That’s its thing.”

“Makes me grateful for how warm Tuca is. Is this your first time here?”

“Second time, actually. I went once as a hatchling, when Nana took me to see Rika.”

“Wait, really?” Zyren blurted out. “How was she?”

Elaka stared at Zyren. “You know. Frozen. Same as always.”

“Right, yeah, uh, I didn’t mean—” Zyren’s ears tilted down in embarrassment, his head shrinking back against his body.

“It’s fine,” Elaka laughed, fluttering her wings. “I never even knew her.”

“It’s not a sensitive subject for you? You don’t hate the clans for it?”

“Rika might be my thrice-mother, but I don’t have fur for brains,” Elaka replied. “I know as well as anyone what would’ve happened if she hadn’t been stopped. Besides, it wasn’t even your clan that did it; it was Lord Tsan and the Sun King. Honestly, it’s refreshing to have a conversation with someone who’ll bring up the tyrannosaur in the cave and talk to me about it.”

“Right, right.” Zyren let out a relieved puff of ‌misty air, the white cloud lingering in the frosty hall. In hindsight, it should have been obvious that Elaka would have been on the anti-freeing-Rika side of things. No one reasonable wanted to end the world.

Zyren was glad that Elaka was reasonable. Knowing she wasn’t trying to end the world made him feel less weird about having a friendly conversation with his clan’s sworn enemies.

“So, why do you think Ansila put his library in the Scribes, of all places?” Zyren asked. “It’s so inconvenient.”

“Hm, that’s a good one.” Elaka lashed her tail. “Well, it’s Ansila. He’s the Prophet, not us. Only Ansila knew why Ansila did what he did. But I suspect it’s another form of influence.”

“Influence?” Zyren asked.

“Influence,” Elaka affirmed, as if saying the word again had made her more certain. “In normal circumstances, Nana and Laphano would be mortal enemies—as would the two of us—but Ansila has brought us all together, and just by that, he’s changing the course of history. The question is, why?”

“So…us being right here, right now, is destiny?”

Elaka shrugged her wings. “What isn’t?”

They reached a wooden door at the end of the hallway. A twist of Snow’s tails caused it to break free of its hinges, telekinetically flinging away from them at high speeds. The door crashed and splintered in the distance, but the sound was lost in the clamor of battle.

Zyren found himself staring from a platform into an enormous underground chamber. The four stood at the edge of the famed Library of the Scribes. Below, a ringed maze of bookshelves covered the floor, each four dragons high. Above, even more books filled the air, floating stacks of shelves that appeared to have been unarranged in a haphazard pile on the ceiling. The stacks shifted and moved in a whirlpool of motion, while floating wooden boats sailed their literary seas.

The library itself hadn’t been spared from the battle above. Kua’s soldiers fought Scribes, who seemed a bit less willing to go all-out with their magic down here. Rings of shelves had been knocked over, tomes scattered and spines bent in all the wrong ways. The skirmish was focused around a rotating orrery in the center of the shelves, where a dozen Scribes were in the middle of being thrashed.

Snow whistled like a human—Zyren wondered how long that trick had taken her to learn. A wooden boat came down to the platform to greet her like an old friend.

“Come on, don’t be shy!” Snow yammered, leaping to the boat and placing her forepaws on a wheel as tall as her. “Don’t worry about your scales being too heavy. They were recently renovated to carry dragons only a few hundred years ago.”

“We can fly.” Laphano replied.

“So can I, but you don’t see me flapping my wings!” Snow snorted, twirling her tails. “It’d be rude to the boat! Look, you hurt her feelings!”

The boat wobbled, throwing the kitsune from side to side.

“Oops, him?” Snow asked. The boat was still, as if in confirmation. “Him, got it. Look, you hurt his feelings!”

Elaka pounced onto the boat with the grace of a cat. The boat swayed as the dragon landed on its surface, but didn’t tip. Elaka waved a paw at Zyren, gesturing for him to follow.

Laphano glared at his brother.

“Sorry.” Zyren shrugged his wings and carefully climbed on, sinking his talons into the boat’s soft wood to hold on. The boat jittered angrily.

“Watch those claws!” Snow commanded. “You’re hurting him!”

Zyren quickly retracted them and pulled back a wing, offering his brother a space onboard. Laphano just gave him another look of derision before leaping from the platform, allowing the air to catch his leathery wings.

“Keep your paws and tails inside the vehicle at all times!” Snow shouted, slamming the wheel forward.

The boat lurched downward. Zyren squealed like a hatchling on his first flight, while Elaka roared in laughter.

Snow pulled the wheel back up, and the boat began gently drifting above the bookshelves. Beneath them, the battle raged on.

“Fun fact!” Snow said. “Did you know that the library boats are actually students who failed too many classes, and have to spend a semester like this?” She slapped the wheel with a paw, and the boat tilted to the right, making its way around the center of the library. Laphano followed, gliding a short distance behind.

“Wait, really?” Zyren asked.

“You think I’d lie to you?” Snow grabbed the wheel with two of her tails. “Now, let’s see we can find out this poor kid’s name! Okay, give me a wiggle when I say the first letter. A… B… C…”

As Snow played her guessing game, Zyren turned back to Elaka to resume their earlier conversation.

“So, what are you doing after this?” Zyren asked casually, tapping his talons together.

“Oh, good question.” Elaka pondered for a moment. “Well, Nana and I were planning to head back to our secret volcano fortress, dig through some ancient tomes, discover a few dark arcane secrets, and plot our revenge against the dragon clans. What about you?”

“Well, I was thinking about heading to the City of Gold for a night out.” Zyren gulped. “Perhaps instead of plotting revenge, you’d be interested in joining me? They just opened up a Waffle Wagon in the Gravenian Quarter.”

Zyren waited with bated breath, the end of his tail twitching.

“Really, now?” Elaka raised an azure eye ridge. “Asking your clan’s sworn enemy out on a date within five minutes of meeting her? That’s bold, perhaps even a little villainous—for a clan dragon, that is. I like it.”

“You do?” Zyren’s ears perked up. “I mean, but you see, I’m actually distracting you from plotting. A heroic endeavor of self-sacrifice. Plus, I didn’t say date, did I?”

“Hm.” Elaka’s tail swished through the air in a long arc. “Well, I hope you understand that I’ll be using any and all information you give me in my evil plots.”

“So that’s a yes?” Zyren gasped.

“I’ll give you and your so-called ‘Waffle Wagon’ a try.” Elaka gave him a fang-filled grin. “For the sake of the scheme, how could I pass up such an opportunity?”

Zyren’s tail wagged like a dog’s, and he nodded fervently.

“So, what’s a waffle?” Elaka asked.

“Oh, you have got to try,” Zyren answered. “They’re like—”

“And we’re here!” Snow interrupted. “Please watch your step as you exit!”

Snow leaped out of the boat onto the floor. Elaka and Zyren followed. With a gust of air, Laphano landed at Zyren’s side.

“Thanks for the ride, Timothy!” Snow said. “Good luck with Shapeshifting 101 next semester!”

The boat wobbled before floating away, and the four turned to a large door with a thick iron handle, tucked away in plain sight against the wall of the library. A glyph had been carved into the wood and painted over with silver: concentric ovals arranged in the shape of a slitted eye. It watched over the dragons, holding them within its gaze. Words had been written above it in Old Imperial.

‘The Library of Ansila.’

“Be prepared,” Snow said. “A bunch of bells go off when someone touches the handle. Dean Pythia is probably busy overseeing the battle, but she’ll know. We won’t have much time.”

“Bells?” Zyren asked, looking for any sign of them.

“Metaphorical ones, pretty boy,” Snow sighed. “Metaphorical.”

Zyren wasn’t sure why they needed to worry about metaphorical bells, but he thought he trusted Snow at least as far as he could throw her, which was probably a respectable distance to throw an immortal archmage.

Laphano wrapped his claws around the iron handle and pulled. The door swung open.

Zyren was immediately hit with the smell of dust and musty books billowing out from the doorway. He sneezed out a small puff of flame.

Though the Library of Ansila was far smaller than the Library of the Scribes, its walls held within it a presence of mystique. Since the fall of the Pearl City, before even the Cataclysm, the books within this room had been a center of power for the dragon clans: their guide through the Seven Realms, their source of knowledge. Dusty shelves rose two stories tall, each filled to the brim with books so old they would fall apart at the touch. A small balcony on the upper shelf had landing platforms and reading nooks, an indication that once, dragons had used this place as a proper library. Rotted parchment and ink stains covered a long, wooden writing desk. Streaks of dried blood surrounded a shattered mirror.

But now, only one shelf mattered: the shelf behind the corpse of the Prophet.

Even in death, Ansila had been cursed to forever watch over his books. The dragon’s body had been petrified into crumbling gray stone, and pieces of him had fallen away over the years. Yet, dead and broken, Ansila’s presence still ruled this place, his chipped snout lifted high, his broken horns brilliant. He’d been old when he’d died, and he stood twenty feet tall—twice Zyren’s height. His face had been frozen into a permanent grin, like he’d been telling a final joke on his forked tongue, and had died just as he’d gotten to the punchline.

Laphano bowed, and Zyren did as well.

It never hurts to bow. You never know who is watching.

“So, how does this work?” Laphano asked. “The books—we need you to open them? Which one is it?”

“Patience, scale-pup,” Snow replied. She bounded over the desk and onto Ansila’s head, reaching a tail behind his horns.

Snow’s tail brushed dust from the shelf of tomes behind Ansila, revealing golden letterings on each of their leather spines: ‘The Prophecies of Ansila.’ A volume number was written at the bottom of each.

“It’s the last one on the shelf,” Snow explained. “It always is. They don’t appear until you need them to; that’s why there’s a gap at the end.”

Snow reached the end of the books, and her tail pulled out the rightmost one, sliding it across the desk. The number 60 was written on it.

Zyren couldn’t help but notice that there were only a few more empty spaces left on the shelf for books to appear into. He wasn’t exactly sure why, but that made him nervous. Perhaps Ansila had a second shelf hidden somewhere?

Snow leaped onto the desk while the three dragons crowded around, all wanting a look at the book’s cover. A symbol had been impressed into the leather; it looked like two spirals curling around a circle, with a line drawn through it.

Laphano placed a talon on the edge of the cover. It didn’t open—it was as if all the pages were pasted together.

“It takes two to open Ansila’s Eye,” Snow explained. “A clan leader, and one marked by Corruption. Laphano, Elaka, on either side.”

Of course, Zyren realized, that’s why the clan leaders always come to Snow—it’s not her they need, it’s one of Rika’s descendants.

“What about me?” Zyren asked.

“Take some pretty pictures?” Snow snorted. “Give Ansila a hug? I don’t care.”

Zyren hadn’t brought a camera, and hugging Ansila felt sacrilegious, so he decided to just watch.

“What do I do?” Laphano asked once he and Elaka had taken their places. His wings twitched nervously.

“Claw to the cover, and do your thing,” Snow explained. “Don’t worry, you won’t hurt it. These things are tougher than titanium.”

Laphano’s talons shivered as they scraped the tome’s ancient cover. With a deep breath, he steadied himself. Zyren watched as his brother’s eyes shone, and violet tendrils of light arced forth from his claws. One of the spirals sucked them up, turning them the same color.

“Elaka, your turn,” Snow said.

Elaka placed her forepaw with the twin bracelets ‌against the cover. Now that Zyren was focused on them, he realized the bracelets had been forged in the shape of silver snakes, their scaly bodies wound so tightly together that it seemed like the two bracelets were one.

Elaka bent her snout down to the silver snakes, whispering to them. They shifted, slithering as if alive, unwinding in opposite directions. Beneath them, hidden from view, they revealed a diamond as red as Elaka’s eyes.

No—upon looking closer, Zyren saw it wasn’t a diamond, or even a gemstone at all. It seemed to be an odd mechanical device, with hundreds, maybe thousands of minuscule bronze gears turning within an octahedral crystalline container, powdered by crimson fluids that flowed within it. The mechanisms were intricate, so tiny and detailed that Zyren knew for sure that not even nimble human fingers could have constructed them.

Elaka placed the ‘diamond’ to the side. Where the silver serpents had been, her scales were pale and discolored, wrapping around her foreleg like a chain of rose thorns. She took ‌a deep breath.

“Steady,” Snow warned her.

“I know, Nana,” Elaka replied.

Elaka’s discoloration shifted to ‌ruby-red, the same color as her irises. She lifted her snout and stretched her talons, while her eyes looked across the library, in a ceaseless, silent stare into nothing at all.

Zyren’s scales itched, and he scratched at his underbelly with a hindpaw. He had an odd feeling that something was wrong, but he wasn’t sure what. It was as if he were seeing something he shouldn’t be seeing—something exposed and personal, like he were watching her shed her scales. He had the sudden urge to turn away and preserve Elaka’s privacy, but his curiosity wouldn’t let him.

Curiosity killed the raptor, so it was a good thing Zyren wasn’t a raptor, because he’d be a very dead raptor indeed.

And then, Zyren had the strangest feeling indeed—the sudden sensation that he wasn’t the watcher, but the one being watched.

A shudder crawled up the spikes on his spine.

Don’t turn around, Zyren. Whatever you do, don’t turn around.

He’d have been a very, very dead raptor.

Zyren turned around.

A thousand eyeless eyes watched without watching from the walls, tears in what was there to reveal what was not. They blinked in and out of nonexistence, leaving behind small pocketed gaps in the shelves, popping sounds as air rushed back in to take their place. It felt like Zyren was looking at a thin paper screen speckled with holes, and behind it, something bigger was looking back.

A tendril of crimson extended from Elaka’s talons, grasping at the book. The second spiral lit up red. It intertwined itself with the first, meeting at the center.

The line across the circle split into two, then four—revealing a glowing silver glyph of a slitted dragon’s eye.

Ansila’s Eye had opened.

Zyren twisted around, only for a beam of silver light to burst forth from the book’s cover, shooting straight into his right pupil.

Zyren roared, slamming a paw against his eye to block it, shutting them both. It stung as if he’d stared directly into the sun. Even closed, light covered the dark interior of his right eyelid.

Slowly, he regained the courage to open his left eye again, glancing warily at the book’s cover. Laphano and Elaka’s magics had gone dark. The glyph remained open, albeit dead.

“Stupid book!” Zyren huffed. “Don’t tell me they didn’t have laser safety in Ansila’s time. It could have blinded me!”

Snow, Laphano, and Elaka were all staring at him.

“What?” Zyren asked as he opened his right eye.

The silver glyph was now floating about a claw-width in front of it.

Zyren squealed and shut his eyes again, expecting another flash of light. He waited a few moments after it didn’t come before peering again. It was still there.

Zyren turned his head to the side. The glyph maintained its position, moving as he turned. He took a few steps back, and it went with him. He shook his snout. It didn’t budge.

Hello, Zyren.

Zyren yelped, raising his claws and baring his fangs. Those were not his thoughts. He knew his thoughts far too well, and they didn’t sound like that.

“Who are you?” Zyren hissed. “Show yourself!”

Zyren, you know who I am, the voice in his head replied. Though the voice was commanding and captivating, Zyren could hear the warmth and kindness ‌within it, and though he wasn’t sure how he knew, he knew the voice could be trusted.

Zyren turned, laying his eyes on the crumbling statue towering before them.

“Ansila,” Zyren whispered, trembling.

“You’re talking to him?” Laphano interrupted. “What is he saying?”

“Um,” Zyren replied, still trying to wrap his mind around the fact that he was somehow talking to someone who had, by all accounts, been dead for thousands of years.

“Hey, Ansila!” Snow yapped. “Qxb6.”

Zyren, would you mind telling Snow ‘Nxd1’ for me?

“Er, yeah, sure,” Zyren said, still dumbstruck. “Ansila says, uh, ‘Nxd1’?”

Snow considered this for a moment before letting out what might have been the vilest phrase to ever reach Zyren’s ears, if he could have only understood a word of it.

Language, Snow.

Zyren didn’t tell Snow that.

“So, um, aren’t you dead?” Zyren asked Ansila, vaguely aware of how odd a one-sided ‌conversation must sound to the others in the room.

In your time, yes. In my time, I’ve still got a bit of life ahead of me.

“Wait, so I’m speaking to you in the past?” Zyren asked. “How is that possible?”

They call me the Prophet Ansila for a reason, Ansila replied. And speaking of your rapidly approaching future, duck.

“Goose?” Zyren asked.

Ansila laughed a hearty laugh. And this is why you’re one of my favorites, Zyren.

“I am?” Zyren’s eyes lit up. “Really?”

A screaming slab of ice monster rapidly approached Zyren’s future, launching itself from the doorway and towards Zyren’s skull. Zyren ducked just in time, and the monster sailed over him, Zyren’s horns scraping against ice. Instead of Zyren, it slammed into Ansila’s petrified chest.

The ice monster raised its two frozen arms, screeching as its hands grew into spiked blades. A crack sounded through the stone behind it, and Ansila’s stone head broke off from his neck. As the head crashed down on the monster, the ice shattered into a million pieces, strewn across the dusty library and melting into glistening droplets of water.

Seems like I still got it in me, Ansila said. His crumbling head grinned up at Zyren.

More ice monsters roared from the library’s entrance, their frozen weapons glistening as they poured in. It seemed that the battle had spilt over.

“Hey Ansila, do you mind if I borrow your head for a moment?” Snow leaped from the desk, her tails out and ready.

Tell her not to lose it, Ansila said.

“Um, he says it’s fine, so long as you don’t lose your head!” Zyren thought about that for a moment. “I mean, lose his head!”

Ansila chuckled.

Snow sighed as she flicked a tail upward. The head flung itself, jaws first, at one of the ice monsters, slamming it against the wall until it was nothing but shards.

Look to your left, Zyren.

Zyren turned and let out a yelp as one of the monsters approached him. Its body was faceted like a crystal, and it stood a couple of feet under his height. In each hand, it held a spiked club as long as its body. Its face seemed half-finished—though it had chiseled out holes approximately where its eyes should have been, and a divot for a nose, the monster had no mouth.

It charged wildly at Zyren, flailing its clubs through the air. Zyren pounded down a paw, and a burst of golden light shot across the floor like a luminant blade. It sliced cleanly through the monster’s legs—only for it to continue charging, leaving its frozen feet behind.

As it leaped at Zyren, the dragon lifted two talons through the air. Two more golden blades shot forward, each oriented vertically. The ice monster’s arms fell from its side, and a blast of flame from Zyren’s jaws transformed it into a puddle.

“That wasn’t so bad,” Zyren remarked. “I don’t see why the Scribes are having so much trouble!”

Then, of course, he saw the next twenty pushing past the doorway, rattling and screeching as they charged him and Snow.

“There’s too many!” Zyren yelped. He shot a blast of flame towards the horde, but only caught two within it—the others ducked around and behind, too nimble.

Zyren backed up as two jumped him, holding up his wing. A golden wall of light formed in front of it, and the monsters slammed their weapons in futility against it. But another three were circling around him, surrounding him on all sides. In the background, Ansila’s head was busy, rattling and smashing around the library.

Stay calm, Ansila said. Do exactly what I say.

“Wait, like, a prophecy?” Zyren asked. He whipped his tail, and golden spikes of light impaled the ice monsters behind him. “You’re giving me a prophecy?”

Sure, a prophecy! Let’s go with that.

Zyren was absolutely giddy. Not every dragon got a prophecy from Ansila.

“This is the best moment of my life!” Zyren grinned, right before a serrated sword of ice slashed across his wing membrane.

Zyren, focus! Ansila commanded as Zyren stumbled backwards, holding his bleeding wing against his side. Ignore the pain—you’ll be fine! Now, tail swipe left!

Zyren’s tail whipped to the left, slamming a monster he hadn’t even realized was there in its spindly legs. It tripped, slamming its lopsided face into the stone.

Left hindleg step back, then feint right and prepare to flame!

Zyren staggered back, and a loud crunch rang through the library as his hindpaw slammed down on the fallen monster. It shattered beneath his claws.

The dragon shifted his body weight to the right, yelping as two of the monsters swung spiked clubs into the space where he’d just been. There was a crash and a clatter, and in the brief moment their weapons were tangled, Zyren brought heat and smoke forth from his belly. Flame poured from his jaws, and the misshapen faces of the ice monsters dripped down their melting bodies.

Tailspin, full circle to your right! Spiked shield over your head!

Zyren followed Ansila’s instructions to a tee, sweeping his tail and knocking the encroaching monsters off their feet. Only one, a monster with two wings instead of hands, had managed to avoid the strike: it pounced over and down on Zyren’s fragile snout, but the dragon was already prepared. A golden shield of light had appeared over his head. As the ice monster landed, spikes pierced out from the top, impaling and shattering it.

Feint left, right-wing strike, then double jump!

Zyren dodged an ice monster that had been attempting to sneak up from behind, then jutted out a wing, taking off its head.

“Wait, double what?” Zyren asked, momentarily confused.

Ansila laughed. Ignore that one, just a joke for a feathered friend. Your daughter will get it.

“My what?” Zyren squealed, slamming his tail into a monster who’d been hoping to take care of his confusion.

“Ansila, stop messing with him!” Snow snapped. With a flick of her tail, she used Ansila’s head to crush another few monsters. It seemed their numbers were inexhaustible. “Or do you wanna lose another horn?”

Oh, don’t mind her, Ansila replied. She’s just unhappy about my last move. Now, stay perfectly still, and look particularly dumbstruck.

“Oh-kay?” Zyren gulped, freezing up. Three more of the ice monsters made their way past Snow, sprinting and scraping towards him. Zyren’s talons tensed, and he instinctively prepared to flame.

Ah-ah, none of that.

Zyren held his body stiff as the monsters charged him. What was Ansila doing? If he didn’t move now, he’d end up impaled. Was Ansila trying to get him killed? He wouldn’t do that, would he? It was Ansila.

Zyren shut his eyes and braced for impact. The monsters leaped.

Elaka, enter stage right.

“Zyren, look out!” Elaka roared, throwing herself between Zyren and the monsters and flinging out her wings.

Zyren flinched, about to throw up a shield in front of Elaka.

Get back! Ansila barked, just loud enough to make Zyren hesitate.

Bulbous crimson tendrils crept out from Elaka’s spines, splitting into two and wrapping around her wings. They enveloped the ice monsters whole, then immediately pulled them backwards, retreating into Elaka’s body.

Elaka lowered her wings. No trace of the monsters remained—she’d completely annihilated them.

“Wow,” Zyren whispered, talons trembling. “She’s…amazing.”

Isn’t she? Ansila sounded as if he were wearing the smuggest grin of all time. I’m glad you agree.

Zyren paused. “Hey, wait, do me and her—”

Ah-ah. That would be spoilers.

Elaka whipped around, her eyes and ring of thorns glowing as she turned to face Zyren.

“Are you okay?” Elaka asked.

Another two ice monsters rushed towards Elaka’s backside. In a flash of red light from behind her wings, they were both gone.

“Y-yeah,” Zyren gulped. “Perfectly fine.”

“Elaka!” Snow snapped. “Put on your bracelet!”

Elaka’s ears twitched.

“Yes, Nana,” she dutifully replied, a hint of animosity beneath her breath. She stomped over to the writing desk.

“Alright boys, playtime’s over!” Snow snapped. She stretched out a tail, and Ansila’s head suddenly grew a few new horns—sharp, jagged-looking spikes.

Really, Snow? Ruining my pretty snout? Ansila remarked.

With another flick of a tail, the ice monsters began charging Ansila’s remains instead of the four. One after another, they impaled themselves on the spikes, shattering into pieces.

“Like lemmings,” Snow said.

Laphano had apparently been standing by the side of the flight, not wanting to get his claws wet. He watched with derision as the ice monsters continuously led themselves to their destruction.

“You could have done that the entire time?” Laphano asked with a twitch in his tail.

“Yeah,” Snow replied.

“And you didn’t until now?”

“Nope.”

“Why not!?” Laphano hissed.

“Didn’t wanna.” Snow stared blankly at Laphano, as if the answer were obvious.

Laphano seemed just about ready to exchange fangs with Snow, but stilled his tongue. Zyren suspected there wasn’t much point in arguing with an immortal. They’d always get the last laugh.

“Firm. Sheer surface.” Snow tapped a paw against one of the ice monsters. It didn’t notice her. “Proper internal structure. Seems like Kua has improved them since the last model. That’s my boy.”

Zyren pulled his wings against his body, his scales rattling. He blew warm puffs of air onto his forepaws. It felt as if the temperature had just dropped fifty degrees.

The stone walls of the library gleamed with a blood-like sheen. Ice was forming along their surface, climbing past Snow.

“And speak of the devil.” Snow glanced toward the library’s entrance. “I was wondering when you’d show up.”

Zyren stepped back toward Elaka and Ansila’s headless corpse. Laphano did the opposite—placing himself side-by-side with Snow.

The crackle of frost and the scrape of claws emanated from the entryway.

“Ah, yes, I suppose that would be me.” Malice dripped from the voice with every drop: deep, dark, and refined. Soft footsteps hid behind a disgusting squelching noise, and the scent of cold blood wafted along Zyren’s nose.

Kua stepped into view, and though he stood only ten feet tall, his presence filled the library’s entrance. Although his body had once looked human, and he walked on two legs, he certainly was human no longer. Overlapping red marks covered his skin like bulging scars or misshapen crimson scales, an asymmetric array of horns scattered around his hairless skull. Purple eyes peeked out from his protruding facial bones. He’d clothed himself in a white suit, now stained red.

Red liquid—perhaps blood, though Zyren wasn’t sure—seeped out from the scar-like protrusions on Kua’s skin. It dripped down his body like molasses, freezing into crimson ice once it reached his clawed feet, forming a slick trail behind him. In one hand, he held a staff of solid ice in long, bloody talons, tapping it across the floor.

Kua’s red tail swung around. Its sharp, arrowlike end impaled through the ribcage of a human Scribe, her black robes frozen to her corpse.

Zyren felt slightly sick.

“He’s like something out of those old Gravenian horror flicks,” Zyren whispered to Elaka. “Before they started using illusion magic.”

Kua’s mouth twisted upwards into a sharp-toothed grin, staring directly at Zyren. Zyren’s scales tensed from the chill.

“Didn’t you know? They based the monsters on me. And they never even put me in the credits!” Kua flicked his forked tongue out at Zyren before turning to Snow. The kitsune had her tails extended, but hadn’t budged an inch. “Hello, Nana. It’s been a while. It’s so nice of you to drop by.”

“Hello, Kua,” Snow said. Though Zyren couldn’t smell a lick of fear off the kitsune, Snow seemed genuinely distressed for the first time since Zyren had met her. “How is this whole warlord thing working out for you?”

Kua twisted his tail, ripping it out of the Scribe’s body with a crack. He held it up in front of his mouth, the Scribe’s heart still impaled on its end. Kua took a bite out of it, shivering with elation as the blood dripped from his jaws.

“Oh, it’s just been delightfully delectable,” Kua replied, wiping the blood off with a white sleeve. His gaze focused on Elaka, who let out a growl as soon as Kua’s eyes met hers. “And who is this here? It couldn’t be Wanika’s daughter, could it?”

“Granddaughter.” Snow’s tails stiffened.

“Really? Time truly does fly. She looks so much like my sister, doesn’t she? Such a shame what happened to her.” Kua took another bite out of the heart, smiling.

Though Zyren didn’t see Snow make any movements, the air was suddenly filled with such a presence of magic that Zyren’s scales raised on end.

“If you lay a claw on her—” Snow hissed.

“Calm down, Nana.” Kua interrupted, rolling his eyes toward the back of his skull. “I’m not here for her, nor for you. In fact, I’m looking for a child of my own. Have you seen him?”

“Even if I had, I wouldn’t tell you.”

“Keeping apart a son from his father? How cruel of you!” Kua shook his head. “Are you sure you haven’t seen him? I wouldn’t want to set my little monster loose on anyone else.”

“Leave.” Snow stamped down a paw. The stone walls around her shuddered.

“I could,” Kua said. His eyes turned to Laphano, “but I haven’t had the pleasure of eating a clan leader’s heart before. I’ve heard the taste is to die for.”

At that, Laphano roared, spreading his wings. Violet flames burst up from the ground in a circle around him, the ice on the walls dripping from the heat.

Kua bit into his heart again.

Zyren, call your brother back, Ansila warned. This is between Snow and Kua, not him.

“What, why?” Zyren asked, bewildered.

Really? Ansila asked. You’re asking the Prophet why?

Zyren’s tail twitched, and he let out a puff of misty air.

“Laphano, Ansila wants you to come back.”

“What?” The golden dragon whipped his head around with a snarl on his snout. “If Snow and I fight him together, we could capture him here and now!”

Kua raised a seeping eyebrow.

“If Ansila says you don’t fight, then you don’t fight,” Snow said. “Kua, I’m gonna count to three, and if you aren’t out of here by then, you’re not gonna like it.”

“Mm, just a moment, Nana. Let me finish my professor heart.” Kua took another bite of it. “I was never much of a fan of school. And she had the audacity to try to shoot me. Me! Can you believe it?”

“One!” Snow barked. “Two!”

Well, Zyren, it was nice to meet you, but I believe it’s about time for the three of you to take your leave.

“What?” Zyren asked. “But we just got here!”

And now, you need to leave. Don’t worry. You’ll know when it’s time to return.

Zyren sighed. “Laphano, Ansila wants us to leave.”

“He does?” Laphano cocked his head, bewildered.

“Two-and-a-half!” Snow snarled. She suddenly seemed twice as large as she had a few moments before.

You do not want to be here when she reaches three.

“Come on, it’s Ansila!” Zyren pleaded. “Just do it!”

Laphano touched a talon to his medallion, and a circular portal appeared next to him, outlined in glowing golden light. The warm, humid winds of their home realm of Tuca poured out from it, colliding with the frigid air. A human village rested on the coast far below—seeing three dragons suddenly appear overhead was likely to scare them half to death.

“Two-and-three-quarters!” Snow hissed. Her fur stood on end, and Zyren was absolutely sure she’d quintupled in size. “Elaka, get out of here! Go to the Isle of Arcanum. Clan Zura will keep you safe.”

Laphano opened his mouth to protest.

“On the honor of the seven clans, no harm will come to your daughter!” Zyren interrupted.

Elaka looked between the golden portal and the kitsune, torn. “Nana, will you be alright?”

“Good question!” Kua took another bite out of the heart. “I don’t think so.”

“I helped Rika bring him into this world,” Snow growled. “I can take him right back out again! Now, go!”

Laphano opened his wings and soared through the portal. Elaka gave Snow a final glance before doing the same.

Zyren was about to follow before realizing that Ansila’s book was still on the writing desk. Before he could grab it, Ansila interrupted him.

Ah-ah. The book stays here.

“But the prophecy!” Zyren protested. “We didn’t get what we came here for!”

Are you so sure about that, Zyren? Ansila laughed, in on a joke whose punchline hadn’t yet arrived.

“Two-and-seven-eighths!” Snow glared at Zyren.

“There has to be something!” Zyren said, inching towards the portal. “Ansila, please!”

I see. Ansila let out a long sigh of feigned resistance. Zyren didn’t doubt that Ansila already knew the outcome of this conversation.

Well then, Zyren. I suppose that if you really want a prophecy, I might have one or two to share…

Dragonspark: The Isle of Arcanum

Coming March 2026.