Lich for Hire

Percival Lyon walked slowly down a dim corridor.

This was the passage to the imperial treasury, and the only such passage.

Beneath nearly every flagstone lay intricate mechanisms and magical traps. Only someone of Lyon's imperial bloodline could pass through safely, and only by remembering the exact sequence of steps. There was no margin for error.

This was not Percival's first visit to the treasury, but it was the first time he had come without permission.

His first visit had been just after his sixteenth birthday, when he and several other candidates had been brought here to attune with the Draconic Armaments.

He still remembered the unfortunate boy who had misremembered a step, who had dissolved into a bloody paste and seeped between the stones.

Step by single step, he made it down the corridor.

At last, Percival reached the vault.

The great chamber held only a handful of treasures. The Draconic Armaments stood at the center.

It was a suit of armor, silvery-white from head to foot, so plain it bore not a single ornament—or so it seemed at first glance. Look more closely, and one would notice a faint pattern shifting across the surface. Countless tiny scales appeared and vanished like a trick of the light.

This was the imperial treasure forged from the body of the Dragon Tyrant himself.

When worn, the Armaments concealed themselves entirely, indistinguishable from ordinary plate until the wearer called upon their power. Then the armor transformed its bearer into a time dragon, granting dominion over time itself.

For seventeen centuries, the Draconic Armaments had rested in this vault. In all of Lyon's history, they had been called upon fewer than ten times, including the two most recent.

Lyon had simply never needed them. The empire had always been strong enough on its own.

Percival stood before the mithril lattice and looked at the suit of armor. "Were you the one speaking to me?" he asked quietly.

All he heard was silence. The seconds stretched on. Percival's brow creased. Had it all been a delusion? Exhaustion playing tricks on a desperate mind?

He was close to giving up when the voice returned.

This time, he was certain that it came from the Armaments.

"Patience, young man. If a few seconds of silence are enough to break you, you have no business being Emperor of Lyon."

Silver light bloomed across the armor's surface. The scales that had barely been visible before sharpened into clarity, rising and multiplying until the smooth plates were entirely covered in layer upon layer of interlocking dragon scale.

"You're the Dragon Tyrant!" Percival's voice shook with something between awe and desperation. "Why would you help me?"

"Why?" A long pause. "An interesting question. I once imagined that if I ever woke, I would kill every last descendant of Arthur Lyon. Revenge is, after all, the most natural thing in the world. But your bloodline has been fed into me for generations. Year after year, your ancestors poured their blood over this armor, and that blood seeped into what I am. Because of it, a new soul took shape within this steel.

"Little Percival, there is not much difference between us now. To kill you would be to kill myself."

Percival knew it was true. In all the generations of Lyon emperors, barely any had managed to truly activate the Armaments' power.

He himself had only been able to make the armor glow until the ancient fogeys beneath the palace found a way to distill the essence of the Lyon bloodline. That concentrated blood had brought him close enough to his ancestors' resonance to wield the Armaments.

In effect, they had been feeding the Dragon Tyrant Lyon blood for centuries.

As such, the Lyon bloodline and the Dragon Tyrant had fused into a symbiotic, inseparable whole.

"You called yourself a new soul," Percival said slowly. "Are you the Dragon Tyrant or not?"

"That question has no meaningful answer, child. How would you even define it? By memory? By feeling? By the flesh and blood a body is made of?

"I was born inside this armor. From the blood poured into me, I inherited every memory of that ancient life. I can still feel the rage and hatred of the moment Arthur Lyon's blade took my head. I command the power of the time dragon. And yet I am stained, inextricably, by Arthur Lyon's bloodline.

"So tell me, am I still who I was?"

Percival had no answer. The question was so broad as to be unanswerable.

"I am the past and I am the present. I am the sovereign of dragonkind and I am a humiliated prisoner. I am Atros the Eternal. Do you understand now?"

"If you truly inherited all those memories," Percival said carefully, "what about the Dragon Tyrant's hatred?"

"Hatred?" Laughter rumbled through the armor. "Ha. Percival, the first thing a king must learn is to set aside petty loves and hatreds. That is precisely where I failed. Tell me, do you know why Arthur Lyon overthrew the dragon dynasty?"

Percival considered. "To liberate humanity. To free us from dragon rule."

"Correct. Humans did not wish to be ruled, just as the livestock you keep today do not wish to be slaughtered. Have you ever considered what would happen if every pig and ox rose up at once, and from their ranks emerged a hero like Arthur Lyon? What would become of humanity then?"

Percival's eyes went wide. "That's completely different—"

"It isn't. I spent my entire life uniting dragonkind. I was their hero. In my mind, dragons were the rightful masters of every race. Humans and all the rest were livestock, bred to serve us.

"But I eventually understood the truth. Who is livestock and who is a hero depends entirely on who wins.

"Arthur Lyon won. He took my head, stripped my scales, forged my bones and blood into this armor, and drove my kindred into exile beyond the sea. Not because he was righteous, but simply because he was stronger than me.

"I didn't understand that back then, and I lost everything because of it. I am a time dragon, a being of absolute power, supreme above all living things. It never once occurred to me that a mere human could kill me. I was careless. I treated their rebellion as a game, let the little insects run loose at first because I thought it amusing.

"By the time I understood what was happening, there was no coming back from it. Now you must learn what I did not. Seize absolute power. Leave your enemies no opening, no chance, no hope."

Percival drew a slow breath and asked his final question. "Why help me?"

"Because if I do not, the Lyon line would end here, and I would remain sealed in this vault forever. Percival, you will be Lyon's last emperor. You shall rule for eternity."

Percival clenched his fist. "Yes," he said, voice steady for the first time. "I will be Lyon's last emperor, its only emperor, and its emperor forevermore!"

The Draconic Armaments shuddered. The voice that came from them rang with something that had not been there before: hunger, or joy, or perhaps both at once. "That's what I wanted to hear. Come closer. Accept my strength!"