A vast crater had formed from the impact. Not as large as it should have been, for the change had begun the moment he struck the ground. After a long while, his eyes opened. Kharvathar felt utterly alien. His breathing grew rapid and intense.
"Grrh, I…" He tried to spread his wings and take flight, but pain lanced through him as a far thinner forelimb slammed against the shattered earth. He felt grains of sand—now shards of glass—piercing his gray arms.
"This is—" He froze, unable to comprehend for several seconds. His mind warred with itself.
"Where is… I… WHERE AM I?" The dragon could not grasp the physical transformation. His chest heaved at a frantic pace, his head spun, and he looked down in near despair. Amid the thick dust and stifling heat, he no longer saw his massive hind legs. His tail was gone as well.
"Where am I? Why do I see this? This does not belong to me!" He writhed. He willed his legs to move, and a lower limb rose—a leg.
"This… This form is not mine. It belongs to one of the small beings." The realization screamed within him. "Why do I see a small being… inside me?"
He tried to lunge forward, as if to leap and glide like in his days of glory. His back lifted from the ground with a powerful thrust, propelling him ahead—only to collapse backward. He ended up seated, swaying slightly as though his spine refused to obey. Shoulders slumped forward.
"No… something is wrong—terribly wrong!"
His nostrils no longer exhaled embers as before. Instead, he smelled a strange, acrid burn. He lifted his neck. The mist was already thinning. Kharvathar heard shouts. He looked skyward and felt searing pain. His mind was struggling to adapt to this new shape.
///
The fall had occurred nearly twenty minutes earlier, and they had arrived minutes ago—yet none dared advance. The mist, inexplicably dense for so long, dispersed slowly, carrying what looked like floating silver droplets—magical in appearance, but merely tiny fragments of glass born from the intense heat of whatever had transpired here.
"Everyone in position!" a soldier shouted to the prince.
"Stay alert," Setarek, Son of the Setting Sun, commanded, stepping closer. He halted near the wide steps leading to the entrance of the first temple. His long braid swayed gently behind him. He wore his dignified leather armor.
"The sanctuary… ruined," lamented a scribe a few meters behind the Pharaonic Master, Uras'Diptsur.
"It will be rebuilt," Uras warned. "So that our light may endure longer." The Master did not avert his gaze from the great destruction. As he pondered this dire circumstance, his servant said nothing and withdrew toward the hiding place within the temple where the others waited. Uras'Diptsur himself was incredulous about what had just occurred, yet he felt compelled to confront it.
"How could a being of that size still exist? And how did it not destroy everything upon falling? Why did it fall…? Did _she_ do this?" He thought, then glanced at his son, Setarek, who gripped the black iron sword forged from sacred sand—the only weapon believed capable of slaying the beast. At least, that was what they believed.
"The eastern obelisk has been completely destroyed, my lord!" reported one of the soldiers who came running from within the temple. Uras'Diptsur nodded gravely; he knew who had been there. "We don't know what happened to them," the soldier added. The pharaoh merely acknowledged it. Overall, the destruction was minimal—not at the scale his dream had foretold. In the dream, the demon had burned everything and never fallen.
Setarek shifted the sword to his right side. Archers encircling the area within a fifty-meter radius—positioned atop the walls—drew their bowstrings taut; red-iron arrows ready, both from longbows and crossbows.
"At my signal!"
"Move already!" A feminine voice rang out from one of the entrance paths to the Sanctuary of the Celestial Mirror—an enormous courtyard with countless access points.
"Ishara?" Setarek recognized the elf despite the heat-protective cloak she wore. "Get out of here, or the heat will kill you."
"Don't worry about me. Just do it quickly—before it's too late!"
"What?" He glanced briefly at her, but his eyes snapped back to the mist.
"Don't you find it strange that such an enormous creature fell in that manner?" The sand elf suspected something. Setarek had no time to think.
"It cannot be!" Uras had descended the stairs. Curiosity outweighed fear, compelling him forward. He could already discern a shape within the mist. It was not the gigantic, draconic form they had expected. His eyes burned; his dark skin prickled with an unprecedented chill. The figure was humanoid.
"It's an abomination!" Ishara cried. "Don't you see, Setarek? Look closely at it! A creature of chaos should not possess a sacred form!"
The emperor's son gripped his special sword firmly with both hands, ready to charge, his heart pounding.
"FIRE!" he shouted, pointing with the blade. Arrows streaked from every side of Setarek toward the center of the destruction—and toward the creature at its heart. They did not understand what had happened. Fear of the winged beast mingled with bewilderment over its own transformation. Within herself, Ishara already blamed Maelis and her priests for this transgression.
And suddenly, a hoarse, powerful roar echoed, unleashing a gale that swept away all impurities from the air and revealed the chaos amid the ruins.