“I’m going to kill them,” Bella said. Over the last few hours, it had gone from a scream of fury to a simple statement of fact. Eve had laughed it off in the beginning, but even the giant barbarian wasn’t laughing now.

Harper looked around, her usually absent gaze focused for once. Rather than waiting with the other teams in the room below, they stood in the stands, trapped on one side by a pair of idiots who were as thick in the head as the waist, and on the other by a pack of screaming girls.

“That seems reasonable,” Harper agreed with a yawn.

Only Eve was still willing to give their absent teammates the benefit of the doubt. “I’m sure they have an excellent reason why-”

“A reason which I will never know,” Bella said, “because I’ll kill them before they can give it.”

That shut down her over-sized friend, and they all turned to watch the fight occurring in the arena below. It featured a group of muscle-bound men - not unlike ‘Big Bro Gravy’, and who did he think he was fooling with that obviously-fake name? - fighting a mixed-gender quintet with a fairly impressive set of skills.

“We could have beaten them,” Harper said.

Eve squinted down at the clashing fighters, as if that would make them any clearer. It was bad enough that she and her friends were in the stands at all, having been disqualified because two members of their team failed to show up, but since they’d gotten there late, they were so high up in the stands that the combatants looked like little more than dolls being thrown about haphazardly by a petulant child. “Which ones?”

“Any of them,” Bella growled. She pointed a trembling finger down at the dirt. “This was my year! All of them are pathetic amateurs compared to us! I could finally have shown the Order of Brass what they missed out on just because of a-”

“Height requirement,” her friends chorused, both having heard this rant many times before.

“You know it wasn’t just that-” Eve tried, but broke off at Bella’s glare. Sometimes Bella was willing to admit that she might be a little limited in her skillset compared to the rest of the all-female mercenary group, but right now was not one of those times.

“You should just join Adamant Reach,” Harper said, clearly missing the cues that it was better to shut up for now.

“I don’t want Adamant Reach!” Bella almost screeched, causing the pretty, puffy little girls and the middle-aged men to all turn and glare at her. She glared right back, but did manage to lower her voice.

“They take men,” she reminded her friends. “In fact, they’re mostly men.”

Eve sighed and slung an arm around Bella’s shoulders. Since Bella stood a good foot and a half shorter than her, this was actually rather awkward. “I know your dad told you to watch out for men because they all want one thing, but that doesn’t mean-”

Bella pulled away, wrapping her arms protectively across her chest. “Did you see the way that Gravy looked at me? Like he wanted to carry me away!”

“Or like he wanted to stuff a sock in your mouth so you’d stop arguing with everything anyone says,” Harper muttered. “I know that feeling.”

“Wait,” Eve said, and they both turned to look at her, startled. It wasn’t often that Eve sounded that serious, and when they saw that her expression matched her tone, they followed her gaze without asking questions.

Far below, the battle had stopped, and it wasn’t because it was over. Four out of five of the strong-men were still up, and all five of the decently skilled team as well. But all nine of them had halted mid-motion and were staring at the boxes where the nobles, including the king and queen, sat. Those boxes had awnings stretched over them to protect their occupants from the ravages of the sun, so Bella couldn’t see what was happening there. She could, however, see the reactions of those who could.

They were horrified. Not just horrified, but frightened. The excited screams, stomping of feet, and whoops of encouragement had all stopped. There was no way for a stadium full of thousands of people to fall silent, but this was as close as it could get.

And then the screaming began again. It wasn’t enthusiastic and exhilarated this time, though. No, this was the screaming of terrified people who wanted to escape from something. Motion rippled away from the noble’s seats, with wealthy merchants and lesser nobility suddenly regretting that they’d spent so much money to get close to those in power.

People began to run. Most of them didn’t even know why, but they did know that other people were trying to flee, and that was enough to tell their hindbrains that they needed to get out of there as well. People were shoved aside, then knocked down, and Bella saw one of the annoying girls teetering precariously on the edge of a step. She lunged, grabbing the girl’s wrist, which was tiny within the circle of her own strong fingers, and pulled her back, shoving her toward her friends.

“The main entrance will be a madhouse,” Bella told the quivering quartet. “Better to find someplace out of the way, then get out once the rush is over.”

She looked around. Since they were in the upper seats, they and everyone else there would have to climb down six flights of narrow stairs to reach the main level. There were handrails, so usually that wasn’t a problem, but right now no one was trying to go carefully and avoid bumping into anyone else. These pretty little girlies would never make it without falling or being crushed.

“There’s a back way,” Bella told them. By now she was having to raise her voice to be heard. “I sold roasted nuts here last year. Go straight up to the top, and look for a blue patch of wall. There’s a handle inset on the right side.”

The four girls clung to each other, but Eve stood stalwart, her height and broad shoulders convincing the frightened people that it would be easier to go around than through her. When one of the girls ventured a timid nod, Bella waited for a break in the flow of people and ushered the girls upward. They would have to climb over benches rather than using the stairs, but not for long. There weren’t many people higher up to get past.

Once those four were out of the way, Bella returned her attention to what was happening below. There was an empty space around the royal box now, but people seemed to have stopped running because there was nowhere to go. Instead, they were shoved up against each other, without even the small space there had been during the fights.

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She squinted down at the entrance to the broad hallway leading to the exits. Why was no one going through it? They just stood there, swaying as people tried to get out, realized they couldn’t, and were pushed back.

“We need to get down there,” Eve said grimly. “If someone starts a fight now, it’s going to be a bloodbath. Harper, can you do a calming song?”

Bella nodded. It was a good idea. Harper wasn’t terribly strong as bards went, but she was particularly good at calming effects, perhaps because she herself never seemed to get excited about anything.

As if in answer, a voice spoke. “Please remain calm,” it said, the spell that allowed the announcer’s voice to reach the entire stadium in effect. That wasn’t the man who usually spoke, however. This voice was rougher, less theatrical, with an odd emphasis on the ‘s’ sounds.

A man walked out into the center of the arena. Except he wasn’t a man. Even from here, Bella could tell that his neck was too long, his face extending into a short snout. His pitch black skin glistened in a way skin shouldn’t, and she wished she could see better. Was he covered in scales? One thing that wasn’t in doubt was the long, thick tail that whipped behind him, stirring up dust as he walked.

He raised his hands, and that mouth - muzzle? - moved as the voice spoke again. “You need not fear,” he said. “Some of you have seen something unexpected.” A ripple passed through the crowd as he said this. “But I assure you nothing you’ve seen needs to affect you in any way.”

More of the lizard-people were climbing out of the royal boxes now. Some of them wore the vast skirts that had recently come into fashion again, while others had wigs slipping from their scaled heads. They should have seemed ridiculous, but instead there was something chilling about them; the grace with which they moved, or perhaps the long, angular fingers and gaping maws that she suspected were filled with very sharp teeth.

Eve leaned forward over the railing. “Where are the king and queen?” she asked. “Did those things kill them?”

“And what, put on their clothes?” Bella snapped. “No, this is what Adara was talking about. This is why people have been acting so strangely lately. They weren’t people. Those things have been pretending to be the royal family.”

Not just the royal family, either. There had to be close to sixty of the lizard-men, and the royal family only consisted of thirteen people, if you counted all the husbands, wives, and children. Not that any of the things down there were even close to child-sized, so what had happened to Prince Phillip and Princess Isabel’s kids?

Her eyes swept over the people around them. Was it just the nobles? Or were there more of these lizards hiding among them, pretending to be people they knew, even friends or family? Bella stared at Eve, trying to see a reptilian face beneath the familiar black curls.

Harper slapped her upside the head. “Stop that. I’d know if either of you weren’t yourselves. The only strange person I’ve met lately is…Kaz.” Her brow furrowed, and her eyes were unusually thoughtful, but she didn’t explain further because the first lizard-man was speaking again.

“You see, a thousand years ago, a terrible injustice occurred. Someone came to your queen at the time, one of my kind, pretending to be one of you.” There was a distinct edge in his voice as he said ‘you’. He didn’t like humans, or at least wasn’t impressed by them.

“Ever since then, the blood of my people has run in the veins of your kings and queens, but rather than being acknowledged, it was forgotten. I am here to right that wrong.” He lifted his hands again. “I am here to take command of this country, just as it should have been for a millenia.”

At that, a buzz rose up. People were starting to recover from their panic, and the longer this person spoke, the less seriously they took him. Yes, he looked frightening, and finding out that your entire ruling class had been replaced without anyone realizing it was horrifying, but what he was saying was ridiculous.

“Go away!” someone shouted, their voice echoing up in a momentary lull. “Give us back our king, an’ go away!”

There was no way the man could have picked the one person who had spoken out of the crowd, but he turned his head and someone just…exploded. It was a terrible, gory sight, and led to fresh panic as people tried to get away from those who’d been caught in the crimson downpour.

“That’s not going to happen,” the reptilian man said as if he hadn’t just murdered someone. “But this doesn’t need to be an issue. For the most part, your everyday life doesn’t even need to change. In fact, if something hadn’t gone wrong, you never even would have known until it was over.”

Those two words, ‘gone wrong’, were said with such ferocity that Bella didn’t think she’d ever heard anyone be truly angry before. Even her own irritation at Gravy and Kaz was nothing compared to the depth of that wrath. For an instant, the tall, vaguely humanoid shape in the center of the arena seemed to swell, bulging within the dark clothes covered by a dashing black cape.

The lizards ranged out behind the speaker, shedding clothing and hairpieces until they wore almost nothing. Without any covering, they were far more blatantly inhuman than the first. Spikes and horns crowned their heads and ran down their backs. Tails of all shapes and sizes swayed behind them. Most of all, their scales were all the colors of the rainbow, gleaming in the sun.

Suddenly, a sword thrust through the chest of a particularly tall red-scaled one, releasing a gout of blood. The lizard-man slumped forward, revealing one of the warriors who had been fighting when whatever happened to break the spell concealing the reptiles happened. Bella couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman, but she hoped it was a woman. Right up until she, too, exploded.

The dead person’s teammates ran forward, screaming, quickly joined by most of the brawny men on the opposing team. Spells burst forth from the wands of the two mages, flames engulfing one of the lizard-men, while an earthen spike drove up toward another. All of it failed, and every one of the humans died. There was no hesitation, and when the black-scaled creature spoke again, its voice held neither regret nor concern.

“I can see that I’ll need to show you proof of my strength,” he said. “My supremacy. I am your king. Your rightful ruler. You will bow.”

The lizards around him raised their hands, and the stadium was filled with the thud of knees hitting the ground. Bella, Harper, and Eve saw the ripple coming toward them, and had just enough time to take a step back and get down on their own, avoiding the cracks and howls of pain around them. Bella hoped that was the sound of knees on stone and popping joints rather than bones breaking, but she couldn’t tell for sure. Her head was down, so she couldn’t look around, and she felt like a huge hand was pressing on the back of her neck.

Harper began to play softly, just loud enough for the three of them to hear her. “Where are the mages?” she sang quietly.

Bella felt the pressure on her back ease up as the music filled her ears. “They should be here,” she managed. “There should have been some-” Realization crashed into her. The mages - the real mages, not just the corner magicians and wise-women - would have been in the noble’s boxes, if they were here at all. The very boxes those things had crawled out of. Had they taken over the mage college, too? Was that what had really happened out on the Cliff?

“Soldiers,” Eve choked out. “Mercs.”

Maybe. But the soldiers were controlled by the nobility, and the mercs didn’t do anything without the promise of money. Who was left to save them from this?

She caught a glimpse of motion out of the corner of her eye, and managed to turn her head just enough to see…a wyvern? But no, as it rose up over the open edge of the stadium, broad wings blocked out the sun, and she realized this was far too large to be a wyvern. Plus, it had front legs, and front feet with long claws adorning each toe. As high up as she was, as close as she was, there was no doubt.

It was a dragon.