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"Your Majesty!" Aranxia screamed from her hiding place beneath an outcropping of rock.

The fire subsided and the dragon turned away, clearly expecting the threat to be neutralized. But Aerin was not injured: her clothes were blackened but not on fire, and she herself seemed completely unaffected by the flames. She had not slowed down at all. She kept running towards the dragon. She didn't waste time trying to slash or stab at it: she knew her blade would never make it past the dragon's scales. Instead, she took a running leap and landed on its back, her sword arm raised high. Before the creature realized what was going on, she had plunged her blade into the creature's eye.

The dragon managed only a short roar of surprise and pain before it fell, lifeless, to the ground.

"Stay back," Aerin ordered Miyuki, holding up one hand to tell her to stop. "It's not safe yet."

Her mouth set with grim determination, she ran back towards the other dragon, which was still struggling against the two rocs and Wing Riders. They were attacking it as best they could but they only encountered its scales and were doing no damage whatsoever. It on the other hand was getting in quite a number of attacks: claws, horns, tail, all of them thrashed about, and blood spattered the entire area. It also had begun to breathe fire at its attackers, and the Wing Riders' armour was black and the rocs' feathers were smoking slightly from being singed. One of the rocs was on the ground, not even trying to fly anymore, while the other was trying to attack from above.

The dragon was still unaware of Aerin's presence - being as it was preoccupied by the two rocs - and Aerin took advantage of the fact to plan her attack carefully. This dragon was three times the size of the other one, and therefore three times her size, and she would have to be more careful here.

The other dragon had not been very smart. This one would be.

After a brief moment of thought, she ran forward, dodging the thrashing tail. Suddenly she vanished in a burst of flame - not from the dragon, but of her own making. The rocs backed away, one on the ground, the other in the air, and then the dragon was enveloped in the same flames as Aerin. Nothing could be seen, but there was noise: the dragon's roars of pain and frustration, something being shredded, a crunch, snarling, hissing - and then the high-pitched squeal of dying.

Then the flames vanished. The dragon lay on the ground, only its wings twitching, blood seeping from its mouth. Aerin stood over it, leaning forward on her knees, panting heavily. Her sword was on the ground, her eyes on the creature she had killed.

Aranxia hesitated, still filled with fear, before she stepped cautiously out from her hiding place. Eon was right next to her, and he stepped forward just as cautiously.

Suddenly, Aerin fell to her knees and held her one arm to her chest. The rider of the roc on the ground unfastened his restraints and jumped to the ground, racing to his sovereign's side. He spoke with Aerin for a few moments, looking over his shoulder at his roc, and then up at the sky where the other roc was still circling. He lifted one hand to the other rider, and roc and rider glided to the ground. The man on the ground joined the one on the roc, and together they returned to the sky and soared back to the city.

Aranxia and Eon were also making their way to Aerin. Despite her flight of terror, Aranxia ran to the queen, anxious about her condition.

"Your Majesty!" she called worriedly as she drew nearer. "Are you all right?"

Aerin looked up at the approaching princess, and her face was pale.

"You children are all safe," she said quietly through clenched teeth. "That is what is important."

Aerin shook her head. "Lady Alassëa is being brought here. I will be fine shortly."

Still, there was a smouldering fury in her eyes that she couldn't disguise, no matter how hard she tried. It frightened Aranxia. She had not seen such fire in the queen's eyes before, and had never thought to see it in her.

Aranxia hesitated a moment, but her curiosity was too great to hold back.

"Your Majesty," she murmured, "where did these dragons come from? I mean, I know they were in the cave we were exploring, but I thought that there were no longer any dragons on the island."

Aerin's eyes narrowed furiously, and for a moment Aranxia thought she had overstepped her boundaries. She was relieved when Aerin answered her question without directing any anger at her.

"So did I," she said tersely. "And I would like very much to know how and why not one but two dragons were missed in the search, which I was assured was very thorough. They may be young, but neither of them should have been missed."

The anger faded ever so slightly from her eyes as fear crept in to join it. Aranxia understood how the queen was feeling: if two dragons of such a size as this had been missed in the 'thorough' search of the island ... what else might have been missed?