When Azara approached the fortifications which Ursus' defenders had erected, she announced herself as an emissary. She was received cordially, despite coming from the enemy side, and escorted to the palace. They did not blindfold her, to her surprise, and she was able to see that the defenses of the capital were surprisingly light compared to what she had expected. Once there she was attended to in the same manner as she had when first arriving in the country. Some of the servants, who she had met before, were concerned over her disheveled appearance.

She was taken to the baths, where she washed away the dirt of travel. Her traveling mage robes were taken away to her room, and she was given a dress to wear that was clean, but not particularly fancy. She took care to retain a satchel that she had placed the Dragon's Eye within so that none would be able to take it from her. After this was done, she was informed that everything in her room had been untouched while she was gone and that she could return to it if she wished. Worried for her jewels, she did just that.

Once she reached the room, she rushed over to one of the dressers and looked inside the top drawer. There was a lockbox within it. The lockbox had no key, but instead had a magical rune carved into it. She touched this rune with one finger, infusing it with her presence, and the box clicked open. She looked inside, and her to delight all of her jewelry was still there, safe.

"You could have a hoard much larger." a male voice said from behind her.

Azara jumped in surprise and whirled round to see its source.

A man was sitting at the vanity in the room. She had not noticed him when she entered since the door had hidden him from view. He was a massive person, well over six feet tall, and had golden hair and eyes just like hers. Tentatively, she reached into the satchel that held the Dragon's Eye within it.

"Do you need that disgusting thing to know the truth?" he asked. His voice was not angry, but genuinely inquisitive. "Doesn't your sight already tell you what you need to know?"

He was not wrong. The conclusion was foregone. His soul was slightly different than a human's soul. In a way, she would describe it as burning, and it reminded her of her sister.

"What do you want from me?" she asked, unable to ask anything else. She didn't want to question the claim that he had made on the mountain, that he was her brother. She had no proof one way or another, and it was so terrible a subject that she wanted to avoid it rather than confront it.

"Why do you live in that wormlike form? Crawling about on the earth with such pale and slimy skin?" he said, derisive. "Is there anything left of our kind in you?"

Azara swallowed, she looked at herself for a moment. She was beautiful, or at least she had been told all her life. Surely, that wasn't how it looked to a dragon, but when she had met Isiya as a young mage that dragon had complimented her human appearance.

"When father was still alive, before our mother's killer slew him as well, he told me that I had two sisters which she had taken. I could not believe it when I learned that you lived like...like this," he said, still clearly disgusted.

"If you are my brother, how did you live? Mother never told me that there was another. We were the only dragons she encountered."

His eyes grew dark and he glared towards her. "I escaped when our mother distracted that monster. I rested nearby and heard her wails of pain as she was defeated. I fled as she instructed, that her death not be in vain. I was coward, I will admit, to leave you and our sister to your fates. However that was what I had been told to do, and I would have been powerless in the face of that terrible mage."

"Well then," Azara said, steeling herself as the conversation went on. ", I will also again, what do you want of me - my long lost brother?"

"My name is Akahtar, and I have questions for you, far too many for us to exchange in a short conversation," he said, and his anger turned to sadness. "I have wanted to meet you all my life, and now I have so many questions indeed. I want to know why she named you as dragons are named. I want to know what she has told you about her terrible deed. I want to know how hellish your life has been. All that must wait however, for the time I have waited for is upon us. so instead, I have one separate question."

"Then say it already," Azara replied, impatient with his ramblings. Who was he to ask such questions and make such presumptions?

"Will you join me, in ridding this world of these vile creatures?" he said, almost as if it was a given that she agreed with his opinion on the matter. "Will you throw off your chains and embrace the prophecy of your heritage, the fate you were born for? You know of it, don't you? Father did. He knew that one of you would be the one to fulfill our forefather's desire. That she gifted you with her Sorrow, the trinket you carry, is proof of it. You will win back her favor for our kind."

Azara felt tears forming at her eyes, but she did not let them fall. She fought to keep her face from contorting into a pitiful expression of sorrow, and wondered if any amount of such strain would ever wrinkle its perfect features. Her dress felt just a little bit coarse against her skin, and she could smell the dusty room and the wood panels. Every sense, all of them human in degree and nature, heightened as she realized that she was about to be in a confrontation.

"You're right, in some ways, " she said. His expression seemed to lighten as she said this, and he became expectant of a positive answer. "Human beings are fickle creatures. Their delicate and their lives are short. Their sorrows are many, and they are silly things who are cold in winter and cannot abide in the warmth of summer. They are transfixed by beauty and are easy to deceive, so I have grown rich while traveling this world, bowing before their kings, fooling their merchants, and wooing their princes. And..."

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"They have taken everything from you that you could have had, haven't they? All this life, while you have been on her leash?" he said and gave her a pitiful smile. "You could have had a family, you could have had hordes of riches without their bartering and humiliations, you could have had the freedom of living as what you are!"

"...and I am one of them," Azara said. Akahtar's brow furrowed as his expression soured. "You called this form wormlike. I think it is wonderful, in its own way. I have lacked many things, Akahtar, but family, riches, and freedom are not among those things. Sure, some have not accepted me. Others have though."

"They would kill you if they knew!" he said, angry. "You are a tool at the hand of that bitch! Your mind has been turned. I feared this. She wishes that you were not the child of prophecy. She is manipulating you to keep their evil deities alive, the stars. She is manipulating you to try and protect humanity from you."

Azara shook her head. "My mother is no friend of the heavens, Akahtar. She has never used me as her tool, never ordered me to enforce her will. At most, she has requested my aid, and I have been happy to give it."

He grew increasingly angry as she said these words, and stood from his seat. His face was red with anger, and Azara could feel raw and uncontrolled presence spilling out of him. It was clear he had never learned to control his powerful soul like Azara had, through her training as a mage. To him, it was just a massive supply of fuel for magic.

"How dare you say that again and again. She is not your mother. She KILLED our mother, Azara. She destroyed our lives! We were happy!" he shouted, his anger mixing with sadness. "How could you accept her? What has she done to sway your mind?"

Azara flinched at his words, and could not meet his gaze. Instead, she looked to the floor as she spoke, holding her arms around herself as if to warm her. "She has loved me, Akhtar. Of few humans that have known what I am, she has cared for me."

"Bah!" he exclaimed and waved his hand towards her. "You are in denial of the truth. You cannot make the decision that you must. You cannot realize that she is evil. You cannot realize how terrible you are. I am your brother Azara, I am your kind Azara. These humans have slaughtered our kind. They deserve every horror to be brought upon them. This kingdom once killed our kind, and now it is weak and divided. In the chaos, we could wreak as much destruction as we pleased, and assure that they never rise from the ashes. With that victory, we could rally the few of our kind that remains. We could kill Ezmeralda and -"

"Stop it." Azara said, cutting him off. "I will not be embarking on some horrible quest of genocide with you, no matter how much hate you have in your heart for humanity. I have no idea why you thought that such a proposal would be acceptable to me. I have no idea why you think this has anything to do with my fate or the prophecy which surrounds me either. We will not win the sun's favor by harming humanity, no matter what our father once told you. I just want to live a good life and be loved Akahtar. I want others to love me and to love them. I want to be happy. That is all. I do not need power or riches. I do not need Sitari's favor or vengeance on humankind."

He sneered and advanced towards her. His human form was massive and muscular, intimidating in every way possible. "Maybe you have become one of them. Another vile worm. If you cannot see that woman's evil, and if she ties you to this world, then you should know that I have already rid the world of her. She is no longer a fetter upon you."

"What?" Azara asked, shocked at the claim. "I thought you said you would need many of us to do that? Now you say you've already killed her?"

He chuckled. "Perhaps, and if not then I will go to finish the job, after I sow the necessary chaos on this battlefield, and enact vengeance against the line of killers which rule this land."

"How?" Azara asked, hoping he would continue to monologue.

"Did you not see the defenses of this pitiful city?" he said. "I am a friend of this king. I have made deals with him, not to harm his lands or his armies, to not be a problem for him, while he agrees to give me favors."

This made sense to Azara, as far fetched as it seemed. The king's indifference to the rumored dragon threat had not been because he did not consider it credible, but because he had already handled it by negotiating with the dragon.

"That is how I convinced him to send forces south, to meet your mother and her little army coming north. Thousands of men, a true army, face her at this moment. She will either die or be exhausted by the time she reaches this place, which is when I shall defeat her. So you see, I don't need you to accept my offer...but..."

"What?" Azar asked. The next moment one of his hands suddenly whipped forward and grabbed her around the throat. His other hand followed.

"But I won't tolerate no for an answer. Don't worry, I won't kill you. Not now," he said, as he squeezed tight and cut off her hair. "but you have one more chance to join me. Once I have killed that disgusting woman. Then I will consider you a worm, just as you have decided you are one, and I shall kill you like I will kill all of them."

Azara kicked out with one leg towards his genitals. It was apparent that such a weakness to his human body wasn't well known to him, since he did not react or try and stop her at all. He cried out in pain when her kick struck home, and let go of her. In that moment of opportunity, she reached into the satchel that contained the Sorrow, her trinket, and pulled it out of the bag. As it activated, however, Akahtar threw a wild punch. It struck her in the jaw, and in a blink, she lost consciousness. Never the less, her jeweled trinket blasted off a bright laser of light, tearing through the wall of her room as it fell from her hands and blasting off a beam of light into the sky.