Grondi Dragonscale wore a dragon's skin to hunt the dragon that once owned it. His black scale armor hummed against his ribs whenever the beast flew near. Tonight it hummed hard. He stood on a scorched hillside and watched the ancient black dragon circle the clouds, a shadow blotting the stars. He had sworn to kill it. Its scales had armored him since boyhood, and somewhere inside the creature waited a last power he meant to claim. The humming was a curse as much as a gift. The armor shared the dragon's essence. When the beast turned, Grondi felt the pull in his own chest, like a hook behind the breastbone. He gritted his teeth and drew his long sword. The blade caught the firelight from the burning trees below. "You feel it too," said a voice behind him. Grondi did not turn. He knew the old wizard by the tap of the staff on stone. Mordecai Blackthorne had joined the hunt three villages back, uninvited, and had not left since. His black robes dragged through the ash. His white beard was singed at the edge. "The scales answer the beast," Mordecai said. "That answer will get you killed. It knows where you are through your own armor." "Then it knows I'm coming." Grondi raised his kite shield. "Good." The dragon dove. Its wings tore the smoke apart. Grondi planted his feet and poured his magic into the shield. A wall of blue light bloomed before him. Fire broke against it and split around the hillside. The heat cracked the rocks at his back. The beast landed hard. The ground jumped. Grondi charged through the falling embers. The dragon swung its tail and he caught it on the shield, then slid beneath the jaw. His sword bit deep into the soft throat. Black blood hissed where it fell. The dragon screamed and clawed him down the chest. Scales cracked. Grondi rolled, came up, and thrust the blade up through the wound he had made. He drove it to the hilt. The dragon shuddered. Its great head dropped. The wings folded and went still. Grondi stood over the body, breathing hard. The humming in his armor stopped. For the first time in his life, the scales were silent. "You did it," Mordecai said. But he was not looking at the dragon. He was looking at Grondi's cracked chestplate, where the broken scales had begun to glow a dull red. Grondi pressed a hand to the light. It burned cold. The dragon's final power had not stayed in the beast. It had passed into him, into the armor, and now it was waking. "That power wasn't hidden in the dragon," Mordecai said quietly. "It was hidden in you. And it will not sleep long." Grondi looked at his glowing hand. He had killed the dragon. He had not won. He had only carried the danger home in his own skin.

Three days after the dragon fell, the glow had not faded. Grondi knelt by a cold stream and clawed at his chestplate. The scales would not lift. They had sunk into his skin, warm and fixed, like roots. He pulled until his fingers bled. The armor held. Mordecai Blackthorne watched from the trees, leaning on his staff. "You can't tear it off," Mordecai said. "It's part of you now. Fight it and the power only digs deeper." "Then tell me how to get it off." Grondi stood. His breath came hard. "You said you knew what this was. So fix it." "I know one who might." Mordecai pointed through the trees. A dark castle rose against the sky, all sharp spires and cracked stone. "There's a door behind that gate. What lies past it can loosen the scales. But the doorkeeper decides who passes." They crossed to the gate. A skeleton stood before a tall stone door carved with twisting lines. He wore a black suit, neat and old. His bony fingers rested on the frame. He looked Grondi over with empty sockets. "Name," the skeleton said. "Grondi Dragonscale. I need through." The skeleton did not move. "Not on the list." "Then change it." "I don't make the list." His jaw clicked shut. He turned his skull toward the road, the way he turned it for everyone he sent back. Grondi stepped closer. The glow at his chest brightened. The skeleton flinched, the first thing that had moved him. He stared at the burning scales. "That light," the skeleton said slowly. "The list changed. New names. One of them carries a dragon's fire." He looked at Grondi again, searching. "Maybe you. Maybe not. I wasn't told." "Bittamen," Mordecai said. The skeleton stiffened at his own name. "You know who rewrote your list. Let him through, and you'll learn where the others went." Bittamen stood still a long moment. Then his hand dropped from the door. "Go," he said. "But I never saw you." The stone door swung inward on its own. Cold air poured out. Grondi stepped through into dark. The glow lit the walls. Then the scales flared white, and pain ripped across his chest. He fell to his knees. The armor cracked along every seam. For one breath it loosened, floating off his shoulders. He grabbed the helm and pulled. It came free. He tore the chestplate loose and flung it down. The fused scales lifted away in sheets. But the light did not stay in the armor. It poured out of the bare metal and into his skin, sinking under his ribs. The glow burned now inside him, with no shell to hold it. The armor lay empty on the stone, cold and dull. Mordecai knelt and touched it. "You're free of the armor," he said quietly. "But the power found a better home. It's in your flesh now. There's no taking it off."