“I thought I’d find you here,” Philige immediately hugged her. “What happened this time? Standig said you ran off again without any explanation.”

Lolo studied his face, memorizing his blue eyes, the way they expressed his concern for her, his gentleness, his warmth. “Philige, I love you.”

Not that he was complaining, but he wasn’t expecting that. He held her close as she quickly became emotional. “Lolo, are you alright?”

“Just hold me?”

He scooped her up to carry her over to their favorite tree in the back corner where he sat down, leaning against the trunk, holding her tightly until her tears dried up. “‘Gonna tell me what’s going on?”

She took a deep breath. Her plan to go on a suicide mission was the one thing that she absolutely could not tell him, so she started the conversation she’d meant to have with him before she'd learned that she was marked for death. “Promise me something?”

“What’s that?”

“After the battle, assuming we both make it out in one piece, promise me that we’ll try again? On purpose this time.”

Philige leaned back so he could look at her face. “You-you want to try again?”

She nodded fervently.

“Just to be clear, what is it that you want to try?”

“I know we haven’t exactly talked about it. You haven’t even told me what you named her or where you buried her yet, so I know that this has been hard for you too. But it’s been nearly three weeks. I’m ready to talk about it if you are.”

Torn between laughter and tears, Philige opted for the default third option and kissed her. “I named her Xini Schonehm Tragen after our moms, and she’s buried here in the apple orchard, just on the other side of this tree.”

Huo Lohse’s eyes welled up again with fresh tears.

“Lolo, are you saying that you want to start a family? You want to try for a baby?!”

“Is that alright with you?”

He smiled and kissed her again, his own tears falling steadily. “After the battle?”

She nodded.

“I promise.”

***

“I’m sorry about yesterday,” Lolo apologized to her team (plus Tamkhee), hanging her head. “I know it worries you when I run off like that, but I really did need to get away by myself to think.”

“Nevermind that, Lolo,” Fortus sighed. “At this point, I think we’d all just like to understand why you ran off.”

“I have to be the one to kill the Black Dragon,” Lolo blurted without warning, and everyone stared at her, mouths agape.

“Why do you say that?” Standig looked utterly disturbed.

“During the meditation yesterday, I witnessed an interaction between the Dragon King and the Silver Wolf. The Dragon King told me that I had to be the one to kill the Black Dragon, and he gave me some sort of power specifically for that purpose. I ran off yesterday to talk with the Silver Wolf, confirm the vision, and ask her if she knew what we needed to do while the vision was still fresh. The battle is in two days. While the rest of you are fighting, I have to go hunting. The faster I can find and defeat the Black Dragon, the faster the battle will end.”

“There is absolutely zero reason why you should have to do that alone, Lolo,” Fortus said. “You should take at least one of us with you.”

"I'm coming with you, Lolo," Standig immediately volunteered, bracing himself for the protest he knew was coming. "I was the one, or rather, the Black Bear was the one that killed the Black Dragon the last time."

To his surprise, Lolo didn't battle with him; she simply hugged him and started crying.

"I should come with you too," Tamkhee surprised everyone by saying. "I know the palace. I know at least generally where to look for him, the Black Dragon."

"Captain Yudha," Lolo started carefully, "you're going to be needed on the battlefield."

"And why is that?"

"Because after the battle, assuming we are successful in killing the Black Dragon, the Dragon Tribe will need a new leader."

"What?! Me?!" Tamkhee laughed, convinced that she was pulling his leg.

"With the Ajigar line ended, and your father in power, you have a legitimate claim to the throne," Fortus nodded.

Tamkhee looked around at each of the primordials, and even Ulana, openly hostile toward him as she was, didn’t argue. "Wait. You're serious?! Did you all know about this?"

Everyone nodded.

"We might not be friends, captain," Lolo said, "but you've proven that you care about your people, that your heart is in the right place. We intend to back your claim as the new Dragon King when the battle is over."

"I don't want to be the king! I don't know the first thing about running a tribe!"

"We won't abandon you, captain," Lolo smiled. "We'll see to it that you have all the help you need to be successful. I've already informed the main tribe leaders of this plan, and they've all pledged their support."

"And you didn't even bother to ask me if I was willing to go through with this?"

"Can you think of a single person in the Dragon Tribe that you would even want to see as your king who has a reasonable skill set and a legitimate claim to the position?"

Tamkhee racked his brains trying to think of someone, anyone else to fill the role besides himself and came up empty. Lolo watched him deflate. "You're right. There isn't anybody else."

"You have a long road ahead of you, Crown Prince Yudha," Lolo teased gently, "but you are not alone."

"And neither are you, Queen Tragen," Tamkhee took her by surprise by suddenly digging his heels in. "You want me to be the Dragon King? Fine. But I'm coming with you to face my father. This is my fight too."

She couldn't argue with that, so, hesitantly, she agreed.

***

“That’s everyone,” Fortus sighed in relief. “Jadu, how many men does that make?”

“The armies from the small tribes combined make up about thirty thousand troops. The Bear Tribe came up with another twenty-five thousand. The Wolf Tribe has forty thousand men. The Lion Tribe came with forty-five thousand, and the Phoenix Tribe came with an impressive fifty thousand. So one-ninety in all, give or take.”

“Let’s hope that’s enough.”

“You’re worried about the size of the toy army.”

“The Bear Tribe battle alone resulted in a total death toll of around eighty-five thousand men, and we still don’t even know if we can kill the toy soldiers. That, and Lolo and Standig are both leaving the battle. They have the crowd control ultimates.”

“They plan to help with some of that initially before starting their hunt. You know Lolo won’t leave until we’re in a decent position.”

“I’m worried about that too. We may be hopelessly outnumbered right from the very start, but the fight won’t end until the Dragon General is killed. It’s going to be quite the dilemma for our favorite wolf.”

Jadu sighed in quiet agreement.

“Et’zana?!” Zhongyan was somewhere between shocked, giddy, and horrified to see his favorite sphinx sitting on a rock, sharpening her sword in preparation for the battle the next day. “You’re-you’re…. What are you doing here?!”

“I’m the military leader of the sphinx tribe. There’s a reason I went to the exchange and studied swordsmanship, you know.”

“You never told me that!”

“And you never asked.”

Zhongyan stared at her awkwardly, so Et’zana returned to sharpening her sword. “Et’zana,” he knelt down next to her, “promise me you’ll be safe tomorrow.”

She looked up from her sword to meet his gaze again. Her magically tinkling laugh sounded somewhat jaded. “You know that I can’t promise you that,” she apologized in a whisper.

Her words, soft as they were, hit him like a slap across his face, and in that moment, he wanted nothing more than to protect her, comfort her, tell her that everything was going to be alright. But he couldn’t. “I… Et’zana….” He wasn’t sure what possessed him to do it, but he caught her face in his hands and kissed her deeply. To his relief, she kissed him back.

“What are you guys studying?” Philige asked, taking a seat on the ground across from Lolo, Tamkhee and Standig.

“Durfein’s schematics for the Dragon General’s armor,” Lolo said, still staring intently at the book in her hands.

“Anything promising?”

“Yeah, actually,” Tamkhee sounded impressed. “Durfein built a critical weakness into the armor. It will require a fairly precise hit, but it’s there. I didn’t realize that the badger prince was so cunning!”

“He wasn’t cunning,” Lolo replied somewhat stiffly. “He was kind and straightforward and loyal and brilliant, but he was not cunning.”

“Secretly building a flaw into someone’s armor doesn’t count as cunning?”

“Not the way I see it,” Lolo finally pulled her nose away from the sketchbook to look Tamkhee in the eyes. “He did it to protect the people he cared about. To give them a fighting chance.”

“Bear Queen, being cunning isn’t a bad thing. In fact, I meant it as a compliment.”

Lolo studied the dragon’s expression. He would consider being called cunning a compliment, but in her mind, the word was insulting, especially when applied to one of her dearest, most trusted friends. “I’m going to bed. You can keep studying if you’d like.” She stood up and handed Tamkhee the sketchbook.

As he watched her walk away with Philige, Tamkhee turned to Standig. “Did I say something wrong?”

Standig smirked. “No. Durfein Anam is a bit of a touchy subject for her, and she’s a little extra worked up at the moment.”

“I knew that they were friends, but I didn’t realize they were so close.”

“Lolo doesn’t do friendship halfway," Standig explained. "Once you are her friend, you also become a part of her family, and as the most pack-minded wolf I’ve ever met, that’s significant.”

Tamkhee nodded pensively.

“It makes it obvious when someone isn’t her friend,” Standig continued gruffly, “which begs the question, why hasn’t she accepted you yet?”

“Me?” Tamkhee snorted. “I’d have thought that was obvious. Up until recently, I was her mortal enemy.”

Standig shook his head. “Lolo is impossibly forgiving and quick to adopt the friendless.”

Tamkhee shrugged. “You clearly know her better than I do.”

“If I were guessing, she probably already offered you her friendship. Did you reject her?”

A little taken aback, Tamkhee floundered. The truth was, his frenemy relationship with Huo Lohse, built on a fragile, mutual respect and trust, was probably the closest thing he’d ever experienced to true friendship. “I suppose, in a way, yes. A long time ago.”

“How long ago?”

“During your Dragon Tribe exchange.”

Standig's laugh was rough and guttural. “Of course, she would.”

“She would what?”

“Even then, even when you were her enemy, contributing to the horrors of that summer, even when all the rest of us were certain that you were nothing but cruel and evil, she saw something in you and deemed you worthy enough to be a member of her pack.”

“Cruel and evil,” Tamkhee repeated a little bitterly. “And what do you think now?”

“I’m not like Lolo,” Standig admitted. “I can’t forgive you for everything you put us through, put her through. But, after we end all of this, we might be able to start over.”

Tamkhee wasn’t sure why, but the thought of having real friends made him feel hopeful.

***

Fortus and Tamkhee got up at five in the morning to climb the mountain on the north side of the pass into Dragon Tribe territory. The peak gave them a reasonable view of the valley below as the sun started rising behind them.

“Alright Captain Yudha, tell me what you see.”

“The pass isn’t being guarded at all which seems odd, but doesn’t surprise me, actually. We could probably march right in and make it most of the way to the palace before meeting any resistance.”

“I agree, but I don’t know that we want to march on the palace. The goal is to keep their forces occupied far away from where the Black Dragon will be hiding himself to give you guys the best chance of killing him without unnecessary resistance.”

“The deeper we go into Dragon Tribe territory, the harder it will be to retreat if it comes to that too,” Tamkhee agreed. “Practically speaking, there is really only one way in and one way out.”

“Do you think we could bait them into coming to us?”

“Perhaps. But you’d have to have some pretty juicy bait.”

“Let me worry about that,” Fortus grinned. “Any sign of the automatons? Where is The Barren Expanse from here?”

Tamkhee pointed towards the southeastern end of the valley to a vast stretch of desert that sat in the rain shadow of the southern mountains. “From this distance, I can’t tell what’s there and what’s not. Maybe you have sharper eyes?”

Fortus squinted in the direction Tamkhee had pointed. “I’m afraid not. We should have brought Ulana with us. She has incredible eyesight.”

“Well, what’s the plan from here, Fortus?”

“Send in that juicy bait, and see what we hook.”