The dragon gave a slow blink as the little humans rushed around. While he'd learnt some amount of human politics out of necessity, that didn't mean all their actions were suddenly comprehensible. He doubted whether their actions were even comprehensible to themselves at times.
"Did the fool not get the message that she was innocent?" he grumbled rhetorically as the fleeing knight was restrained by a dozen others. Clicking his enormous tongue, he fixed Steven with his angry gaze.
"As luck would have it, Father Serrell is already on the premises," said Steven, answering the gaze with exactly what he knew the dragon wanted to hear. "I've already dispatched a runner to fetch him."
"Oh? How convenient," replied the suspicious dragon, eyes narrowing.
"Obviously, we needed him to agree to the plan. As you might expect, he was rather reluctant, but he will not refuse to help those in front of him."
Father Serrell was indeed rather reluctant, but not for the reasons Steven implied. "This is madness," he muttered to himself as he made his way from the waiting room to the courtyard. Meanwhile, the dragon was being very careful not to look at the corpse. The quality had lessened somewhat since his previous engorgement, and he was still feeling somewhat bloated, but it was still better meat than his usual fodder.
"We won't count that one. No point wasting it. Consider it an apology," said Steven encouragingly, and the dragon's eye twitched.
He held out for a full five further seconds before hooking the corpse with a claw and expertly flicking it into his mouth. He swallowed as inconspicuously as he could manage, which wasn't very, given the fact that he was a dragon.
"Still no remorse, I see," sighed Father Serrell, picking that moment to enter the courtyard.
"On the contrary," answered the dragon. "I regret my lack of self control immensely. But you aren't here to preach to me, and you will be pleased to know it wasn't me that killed her that time."
Serrell was not pleased to know it, and the fact the plan involved their side killing the princess again was the main reason for his reluctance. Nevertheless, he accepted that the dragon needed to be dealt with, and his refusal to cooperate would just make matters worse for everyone.
Except for the dragon, of course. If he had any say in the matter, the dragon was about to have a very bad time.
"Divine Wrath!" he declared, and the dragon screamed as white light erupted from every orifice. The seam between every scale lit up as the dragon glowed from within. A second later, the stench of burnt flesh rolled over the assembled forces as the dragon suffered the wrath of a god.
But it wasn't enough. Sulltheria was a gentle god, and as Father Serrell had feared, his wrath was weak, despite the dragon's abuse of his gifts. The dragon swung his head around, bleeding eyes staring at the high priest with unbridled fury. The mouth opened, the flickers of flame adding to the holy light within.
Every knight and mage opened fire at once. Bolts of lightning slammed into the dragon from all sides, and he thrashed around as his muscles went into spasm, his flaming breath dead in his throat. A barrage of crossbow bolts pierced into his eyes, blinding him, and into his wings, cutting off his chances of escape.
A dragon in the air was unassailable. One on the ground, caught by surprise... Yes, they were still a threat, but they were not invincible. This dragon had allowed himself to be surrounded, and had driven a god to fury. His stomach was still bloated, dulling his movements. He lashed out with claw and fang, slicing through the armour of knights as if it were paper, but Father Serrell was there, praying to his god with rather more enthusiasm than his stint on the mountain. No matter how thoroughly the dragon crushed the knights, they rejoined the fight within seconds. Yes, they ended up missing parts of their armour, or in some cases found themselves completely naked, but it wasn't as if the armour helped.
The weakened dragon was pierced by both magic and spear, collapsing onto his side as his lifeblood pooled around him.
"Fools... Your kingdom... will fall..." he gasped, his blinded eyes nonetheless seeking out Steven. "You have... many enemies... For one girl... You have... doomed yourselves..."
And with his last prophetic words, the dragon perished.
"How much it pains me to admit you are correct..." agreed Steven, before turning to Father Serrell.
The priest gave a heavy sigh. "You're certain, then?" he asked.
"We've spent the past three days debating this. There's no time for another session."
"I suppose you're right," admitted Father Serrell, before fixing the gigantic corpse with his gaze. "May Sulltheria have mercy upon us all. Resurrection!"
Blood erupted in a reverse fountain, launching itself out of the soil and into the air, where it circled around the draconic corpse before pouring in. Broken scales reforged themselves and cooked flesh healed. Eyes larger than a man reformed and groggily opened.
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And alongside the dragon, a skeleton sprouted from a smaller whirlpool, and in turn grew layers of flesh, finally coating itself in skin. The reformed body of Queen Josse opened its eyes, then promptly fell over, twitching uncontrollably on the floor as it made incomprehensible noises.
The dragon was doing no better. Limbs flailed seemingly at random, and claws cut great scores into the ground.
"Calm yourself!" shouted Steven, and both bodies stilled as they tried to turn their heads to face him. He looked at human and dragon in turn, noting the obvious confusion and panic each shared, then smiled the smile of someone who knew his gamble had paid off. "You're right, unfortunately. You've ensured we're dependent on you, riling up our neighbours to the point that we'll be invaded from half a dozen directions the moment they learn you're gone. And we let it happen. So now we must pay the price."
He walked up to the body of Queen Josse, looking into the eyes staring up from where she lay on the ground, and laughing at the fear he saw in them. The sheer incomprehension of what had just happened. "Your highness," he declared, giving a mock bow. "Please allow these knights to escort you to your room. Given what you've recently been through, I imagine you'll want to rest and recuperate."
A pair of knights grabbed her, one by the arms and one by the legs, not at all showing the respect that should be due to a member of royalty, before carrying her off in silence. Not towards the castle, though, but rather towards the dungeons, where the new room of the 'queen' was likely to be rather less well furnished than the old.
Meanwhile, the dragon resumed its flailing, stuck on its side, making incomprehensible noises.
"Hmm... I didn't consider this problem," said Steven.
Father Serrell scoffed. "It's not at all surprising. Stuffed into an alien body like that, it stands to reason she would be left somewhat uncoordinated."
"Queen Josse?" called Steven, finally putting words around the plot. As Father Serrel had previously explained to the dragon, the miracle of resurrection was a two-part process: one to heal the body, and the second to insert the soul. Yes, the soul needed to belong to the body, but by this point, Josse's flesh and blood was already a part of the dragon. The dragon had unwittingly given his food the means with which to supplant him. Never had the phrase 'you are what you eat' been so apt.
The dragon, or rather, Queen Josse in the dragon's body, stopped writhing and made an odd strangled whine.
"Sorry about this. It just seemed to be the best option we had. I'm sure you'll be back up and about in no time."
Queen Josse's only reply was a staccato growl as she made another attempt at climbing to her feet, not at all used to being quadrupedal.
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"Are you sure everything is alright out there?" asked Lindy, a little earlier when the fight first broke out. "It's very noisy."
"I believe the royal guard had a training session scheduled."
"Their training sessions don't normally..." started Lindy before pausing to wait for the rolling echoes of thunder to die down. "Well, that," she finished.
"They're likely taking things up a notch, given the possibility of imminent conflict with the dragon," replied the governess, who was drilling into Lindy the etiquette required of royalty. She was taking her job seriously, despite being in on the plot. After all, if they pulled it off, Queen Josse was definitely going to need a regent.
"If you say so," said Lindy, who had certainly never heard magic like that cast in the palace courtyard in all her years working there. Not that it had been that many years, and it wasn't every day their dragon kidnapped a princess. At least, not one of theirs. Nor had she ever heard the dragon roar before, so she couldn't place the noises he was making, attenuated as they were by many layers of palace wall. As a result, she gave the claim the benefit of the doubt, and tried to concentrate on her studies.
That was rather hard when the desk kept shaking.
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The dragon fumed. He'd been robbed of his flaming breath, his impenetrable scales, his monstrous strength, and even his wings. Trapped in a prison of frail flesh. Turned into livestock.
"You will pay for this," he tried to roar, but unused to human vocal cords, all that left his mouth was meaningless noise and spittle. "I will break the bones in your body one by one. Flay the skin from your flesh. Even when you die, I will not permit your souls to find rest."
"I think he's angry," said one of the knights, who had no idea what he was trying to say, and wouldn't much have cared if he did.
"'She's', surely?" asked the other knight.
"Uhh... I don't think it works like that. Remember our old vice captain, when he pissed off Morgana?"
"Cease this meaningless babble lest I rip out your tongues!" incomprehensibly screeched the newly humanoid dragon of questionable gender.
"Well, yes, but that's because we respected him. We took his opinion into account."
"... A valid point."
The dragon, giving up on mastering fine motor control of his new bipedal body, instead concentrated on what he did have. His mind was still clear. It was simply trapped. But, if his mind was working, so would his magic. Yes, his meal had never shown any magical talent, but all living things had some mana. He just needed to spend the time to gather it.
He reached out with a muscle that was not at all grounded in flesh, disappointed to discover that his new shell was indeed lacking in inherent magical abilities, but that didn't matter. It simply meant that his revenge would take a few days. He concentrated, feeling the trickle of mana flowing through his soul.
And then it all cut out.
"... and that should take care of that," finished off one of the knights, the dragon having missed whatever it was he was talking about while he was concentrating. In fact, his entire surroundings had changed. He was no longer being carried, but was lying on a wooden pallet in a stone room. The feel of cold metal was tight around his neck, wicking away his mana.
Finally, the anger gave way to fear as the dragon realised just how impotent he had been left. Alas, his lack of control over his new tongue meant that he couldn't even beg.
Not that he was silent. A low growl echoed through the dungeon cell, causing both knights to peer at the immobile dragon in confusion.
"Was that..." started one.
"... Her stomach?" finished the other.
And with that, it finally occurred to the dragon that he'd neglected to feed the queen during his stupor, along with just how hungry his new body was. Not to mention that he was in no condition to feed himself. And so his fear grew.
"Do you think Lindy would be interested in nursing her 'queen' back to health?" asked one knight, grinning sadistically.
Despite his near paralysis, the dragon managed a perfectly articulate shudder.