Several people rushed out of the ballroom a moment later. Smoke billowed about behind them. More screams echoed from inside. Was there a fire? Amanda ran towards it.

  A woman running the other way tripped and fell but a man quickly pulled her to her feet and they kept on moving.

  Screams continued to echo throughout the palace and a loud roar could be heard, so fearsome that it shook the walls. That roar let Amanda know exactly what it was that was going on. It was the unmistakable sound of a very angry dragon.

  She managed to get into the ballroom before the crowds had blocked the doorways but a quick glance back suggested getting back out again was going to be difficult. Perhaps she should have run along with them, but fire was her forte and no matter who these people were, no matter how much she hated them, she couldn’t just stand by and watch them burn.

  There in the center of the room, surrounded by steel-melting flames was the dragon. It’s scales were a deep blood red. About the size of two large trucks, it was far from the largest one that Amanda had ever seen. There existed dragons who could have filled this ballroom in its entirety. This one was relatively young but from the way it swished it’s tail dangerously back and forth, the way it’s head rolled, and the sound of its roar, Amanda could tell that its state of mind put them all at far more risk than its size ever would. This dragon was not just hungry. It wasn’t just hunting. It was enraged.

  She had dealt with enough dragons to know how to handle them. Hungry dragons, territorial dragons, injured dragons. They all behaved different and they all needed different things. But at least they were predictable. A dragon in its right mind is smart but still dumb enough to be tricked. A dragon on a rampage however, those were unpredictable.

  The fire was also an issue and perhaps the more pressing one. Dragonfire burnt hotter than normal fire and it was designed to spread and flow and eat like an acid.

  Amanda dodged the dragon’s tail and scrambled into the further end of the ballroom. All the while she reached out with her magic for the flames and began to reign them in. The ballroom had many exits but dragon fire had blocked most of them. If she could just get them clear then that would allow many of those trapped inside to escape.

  The dragon had obviously entered in through the ceiling, which at least allowed the smoke to escape upward and into the night given it was no longer there. Many of the windows on the ground floor had shattered and the incoming cool air created an updraft. It let them breathe but it also fed the flames and amplified the heat. Amanda could feel it itching at her skin. If people survived this, they would likely be red and blistered tomorrow.

  These were aristocrats though, and while they may not be able to deal with dragon fire, many of them did carry healing infusements. It brought them some time. It was probably the only reason many of them were still alive. She could feel the buzz of their magic in the background. So much healing. Usually it wouldn’t have been so detectable, but the shear amount of it in use amplified it.

  Amanda had entered the room after them and the fire had already been burning in several places. She’d found a centered place to stand but even there it took her some effort and concentration to pull each and every flame from the edges of the room and up into the center above her. By the time she held a swirling fireball high above her and had pushed the heat out of her way she could see her skin looking very stretched. She could feel the burn.

  And then there was the dragon.

  Amanda’s manipulation of the fire seemed to have momentarily confused it for it paused and looked at the swirling ball of yellow and red, but then it ducked its head down and its black beady eyes saw her. In them, Amanda could see only madness.

  It opened its mouth.

  People behind her screamed.

  The dragon breathed fire right toward them all.

  But Amanda caught the flame and she sent it up with ease. She pushed it up and out into the night sky.

  The dragon started to move rapidly toward her.

  She braced herself, ready to run, knowing there was no way anyone but a quickfoot could outrun a dragon.

  But then a force pushed the dragon from the side. A group of aristocrats keen on fighting had entered from the side of the room. A telekinetic had attempted to push the dragon outside but had only managed to shift it a few feet.

  The dragon turned on them instead.

  Some of them raised weapons, all swords, for no aristocrat would lower themselves enough to use a human weapon like a gun in the presence of their peers, not even in the face of death. Guns were considered barbaric. For that Amanda was grateful, for she did not wish the dragon to be hurt. But swords could cut just as deeply and while an instant kill would be difficult on a dragon, the injuries would still be painful. They risked at best simply making it madder.

  “Stop! Stop!” she shouted at them. They needed to evacuate and then let the dragon calm down. Attacking it would only make things worse. Despite the risk to herself she ran closer to the dragon in an effort to get the newcomers to retreat.

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  They were not listening. One of them attempted to push the dragon with a violent stream of water but the flow was too weak and the dragon lunged toward them. A quickfoot darted around it to the other side but he got struck by the dragon’s left wing and down he went falling motionless to the floor.

  The dragon brought a foot down on another. The man must have been a strongarm for he was miraculously not squashed. But he did end up trapped beneath the foot, pushing up while the dragon pushed down, neither one quite gaining the upper hand. Lucky for him the dragon was easily distracted. It reared up and soon it was among the group snapping at them.

  They all went scattering left and right.

  The dragon breathed fire once more.

  Amanda ran in closer, doing her best to keep the flames contained.

  From the left, a woman rushed in with a sword pointed directly toward the dragon’s side. The dragon appeared not to see her.

  “Stop!” Amanda yelled again.

  Then the dragon snapped back around. It’s tail knocked down part of what remained of the wall behind it.

  More screams came from further within the building.

  With a second swish of the tail the dragon sent the woman with the sword flying across the room.

  Amanda ducked a claw and skidded to the floor as the dragon reared up above her.

  Then a child screamed. There at the front of the ballroom, just behind the dragon, peeking out from underneath the stage, a small and scared boy was attempting to hide. Several times he looked like he was going to make a run for it but each time the dragon inadvertently moved to block the way.

  Someone fired an arrow that struck the dragon in the neck.

  The dragon reared up with a scream and Amanda could feel its pain in those cries.

  It did not slow the dragon down though. As it came down it brought it’s tail crashing through part of the stage only metres away from the boy.

  Amanda winced, knowing she could not reach him, and that if she tried to run away now she’d almost certainly draw the dragon’s attention toward herself. It wasn’t safe where she was either. Any moment the dragon would bring its feet back down.

  If it had been a territorial dragon she could have created a fire version to distract it. She had done it in the past. It was a trick that sometimes worked. But this dragon was obviously beyond that. A hungry dragon could be distracted. But this was not a hungry dragon. This was an angry dragon. As Amanda lay on the floor and looked up at its belly she finally figured out why.

  Then the dragon’s feet dropped.

  Amanda rolled to the side and then stuck fast. The claw had missed her body but had pinned her hair.

  With barely the flick of one finger she burnt her way free. It wasn’t the first time a dragon had given her a hair cut and it wouldn’t matter tomorrow if she didn’t make it out of here today.

  She rolled onto her stomach, a new plan forming in her mind.

  The dragon’s belly rippled only metres above her. If she’d had a sword she could have plunged it deep within but she still did not wish to hurt this animal, not if she could help it. It was only angry because it had been hurt and if she could just get them to stop attacking and surrounding it for a few seconds then she could get it to calm down.

  She glanced back at the boy under the stage. He was still there, looking at her with wide terrified eyes.

  Filled with a renewed sense of determination she pulled herself to all fours and looked out into the rest of the ballroom.

  Aristocrats were out there, trying to get close. Dreamwalkers trying to touch the dragon to sleep it. Mindwalkers forgetting that mindwalking didn’t work quite so well on animals. Telekinetics who weren’t used to trying to lift something that could fly and who couldn’t seem to agree among themselves which way to try and move the dragon.

  The place must have been filled with over a dozen aristocrats, all individually talented but with little experience in working together. It was less than she would have expected though. Most she realised, had no wish to risk their own necks, and none, not a single one, could control the fire.

  The only reason any of them were as close as they were was because she was keeping the fire tamed. And so, when the dragon next pushed out its fiery breath, she didn’t send it up. She sent it out. She sent it towards the people but she held it back. Controlled it so it wouldn’t burn them but so they would be forced away from the dragon.

  Water elementals tried to put it out. They failed. Telekenetics tried to move the flames and the dragon. They too failed. Flyers tried to attack from the sky. But the fire was everywhere.

  She did her best to keep it away from the small boy who was still trapped.

  “My son! My son!”

  She could hear his mother screaming from somewhere far away.

  Once they were all gone, all safely out the doors she created a space in the middle of the ballroom and there she crafted from fire a smooth set of shapes, several ovals. She knew not how many were needed, nor could she be sure if a dragon could count, but it would have to do.

  Her fire there did not flicker or break. It curved in on itself, tight and soft and very hot. It had to be hot to make it so tight.

  The ceiling had long since fallen in, likely when the dragon first descended. Around her the marble walls had crumbled and fallen. The floor had turned to dust. And there in the middle of the ballroom, what looked like eggs made of fire suddenly started to crack too. From them Amanda drew a new image. Tiny little dragons, their wings made of red and orange. So precisely done that they looked real, not made of fire but more like physical molten lava.

  Amanda had spent a lot of time watching the way dragons moved. Training them and taming them. She knew them well enough to create a replica but would it be an effective one?

  Above her the dragon seemed to calm and still. The tail stopped flailing and crashing. A soft cooing questioning sound emanated from within it.

  As Amanda focused on the tiny fire dragons, she was forced to reduce the flames at the edges of the circle, the ones that had been keeping the people out. She didn’t have enough energy to manage both. But it didn’t matter, as the flames at the edge reduced, no one returned to attack the dragon. Instead they watched from the sidelines, all seemingly aware that something different was happening.

  Amanda made the tiny dragons fly. They climbed up the ruins of the palace walls and then they leapt out into the night.

  They circled once, then twice, before the red dragon leapt into the sky to join them.

  Carefully Amanda climbed to her feet. She could not send them too far away from herself so keeping her eyes on the sky she walked across the ballroom and out into the garden. She did not look at the crowd. She kept her gaze fixed on the sky as she walked across the garden, leading the dragon away from building and away from the people.

  When she’d gone as far as she could she pushed the tiny balls of fire with a great force. She’d intended to make the dragon keep flying away, chasing the slowly collapsing balls of light. It might return once the flames had faded but it would give them all time to flee.

  Unfortunately for her, she wasn’t the only one with a plan that night.

  The loud flapping of wings came from behind her. The sound of more dragons.