Tiamat's lair smelled of salt and old stone, and of the slow heat the mountain breathed up from somewhere far below. She lay along the cavern floor in her true shape, head tilted, crimson eyes glowing in the low light. The scales around them were black and polished, each one the size of a shield.
"Are you trying to kill me?" she asked.
Her voice was calm. It rolled off the vaulted ceiling and came back a little lower.
I blinked. "What?"
"I know my training methods were harsh," she went on, dry as dust. "But they worked, did they not? So I must ask why you are now attempting to end my life."
"I'm not trying to kill you." I lifted both hands. Far off, a steady warmth in the back of my mind, Luna's bond hummed and went quiet again.
"Aren't you?" She tilted her head the other way, and shadows the size of houses slid across the walls. "Then why did you ask to 'train together'?"
"To get stronger," I said, because it was the simple truth.
