A helicopter rescue team arrived at the dragoman's bedside. She certainly had broken ribs and one wing was at an abnormal angle. A Kobold priestess accompanied the humans, but the Kobold dragoons had been sedated to remove the pups under their supervision.

Sarah held Kate by the mouth. "Hold on, Kate. It's not us...forgive us...it's the Ummites...Don't be discouraged...we'll get them back... As long as I'm alive, I'll do anything...

Kate's eyes were open and she moaned more with sadness than with pain...

Sarah: "You have to fight and set an example... that you are a nice creature and that your children will be as nice as you are...I am sure they will listen to you. You didn't do anything to the elves...you just stood up for yourself... We will all plead for you but you have to hang in there...you have to show the Ummite Empire that you have a right to your place among us too."

Kate sighed... "This is so hard... Poor Hans... he was so nice... What have I done? Sarah? tell me???"

Sarah sighed.. "Yes, we all owe him our lives...but you have to survive, your children too and us too... It's the nature of things...Let's respect his sacrifice... If the elves hate him, we don't!..."

Kate: "I betrayed him...I should never have agreed..Yuri is a monster.... "

Sarah:" Yes, I know.."

She continued to caress and draw attention to herself as the doctors readjusted the bones of the battered dragoness and the Kobold priestess gave her the first magical treatment.

But the latter said to her discreetly in draconian: "I will remain faithful to you, mistress dragon, but you have betrayed us all. We will continue to pledge our allegiance to you if you honor our former master, but our hearts are no longer with you. We will all leave the village and find the faithful dwarves. Warn the humans and elves that from now on, when we have prayed to our God Hans, we will be gone forever. And don't try to find us... you are enemies now and we will hunt you as such. The mountain, the mausoleum and the underground kingdom of Cranedur are off limits to you! "

Kate let out a squeak ... she didn't know how, but the priestess had treated her minimally but had omitted any painkiller part. The bones were repairing themselves but painfully.

Suddenly, the one meter high Kobold grew to the size of a carnotaurus. Almost 4 meters high and, with a claw, left a gash in Kate's face "For HANS!", just before she ran off towards the mountain, the humans and soldiers, having seen nothing coming.

Immediately, bandages and biological glue were applied to save the dragoness' face.

She looked terrible.

Doctor: "Tomorrow she will be better and her regeneration will have to take over but she should stay under sedation but with the little red monsters...it is dangerous. What a waste..."

Sarah: "We would have ended a day like that. The elves, we could have held on with Hans but the Ummites...this is the result. He went too far and paid the price. We could have negotiated a truce, started diplomatic and commercial relations and lived all in peace but he wanted to give us back the old world... "

A few days passed and Kate slept, recuperating at the edge of the volcano, in a military tent that looked more like an airplane shelter.

She had long drops of sweat and was shivering.

She was flying over the sea of storms again... and... still the same dark, shifting, impassive landscape. The storm was permanent.

With aching wings, she finally arrived at the foot of the ruins of the "forgotten castle".

Everywhere, the rough sea and only the stones of the castle could offer a simple shelter

In the distance endless steep cliffs, where no foot or paw could land.

The stones were black and the castle, without sunlight, also blackened and eventually merged with the night and darkness.

Kate felt that she was not alone, that someone was watching her, scrutinizing her, and this gaze was malevolent, as if it was the height of her betrayal.

The waves didn't really have the sound of water but sounded more like breathing.

The sea was breathing, blowing, and, if you paid attention, you could hear... To hear a moan, a plea...

As if by magic, Kate then found herself facing an underground passage inside the forgotten fortress

Then, she entered the cave.

It was the entrance to a maze but also the access to an inner world with its sea, its beach but also a single access forbidden to mortals.

On the wall, one could guess the skulls of long-fossilized creatures. Mammoths? Giant humanoids?

It was sinister.

Then Kate arrived in front of huge statues.

Impossible to pass, there was like an invisible wall...

They were sphinxes. Absolute guardians.

The shadow marked the limit... but of what? of whom? Why?

But at the foot of it, there was a black dragon... She looked like Kate like two drops of water, like a copy, but a negative.

She was crying and had her head above another creature... A wounded, bruised dragon, its head horribly burned, the front of which showed only bones, the flesh having fallen off, baked and charred.

Its chest was painfully rising and falling and its tail and one leg were missing.

The rest was only burns and tears...

The tongue, or at least the stump, was all that was left of the broken, burned mouth.

Kate immediately recognized Hans.

Hans was horribly mutilated, as if he had stepped on a mine and received shrapnel in his face, which was destroyed.

Instead of eyes, there were holes, bloody bones.

Kate began to moan and feel guilty...

But all that could be heard were the moans and groans of pain, as if the only way to end the suffering was to euthanize her.

The black dragoness turned her head very slowly, very very slowly, revealing a smile, a very sharp mouth of hundreds of crystal teeth and green eyes devouring the soul.

The head floated in an aura of darkness, black smoke and its claws were as long as Kate's width. Crystal claws lit by a green aura

XXX: "You betrayed! traitor!!!! take a good look at the father of your children..."

Hans: "HHHH HHHHHH HHHHH KK ....Pourquoi????HIIIIIII IIIIIII(agonizing pain)"

Next to the sphere of darkness that covered the remains of the battered dragon, 3 shapes could be seen...

The little ones.

Kate wanted to rush over but the black dragoness had grown in size and was standing between her and the cubs.

"MOM!!! why did you hurt daddy like that??? "

"Bad mommy!"

"XXXX, I'm scared of mommy...is she going to eat me like she ate daddy???"

Kate: "Noooo... Noooo... this is not possible!!! HANS, I'm sorry, I'll take care of you, wait!"

XXXX: "It's too late! He's already halfway to the other side... Finish what you started! Eat him!! gnaw his bones! So he can get through!

Kate: "Noooo noooo not HANS!"

The next moment, like a flash, the dark dragoness grabbed Kate by her mane, a kind of hair and her head could fit in the palm of XXXX's paw.

Her head was pushed to the ground, towards the horribly mutilated head of HANS.

"If you like it, eat it!!!"

Kate:" Noooo, noooo!"

Then she saw the little ones start to gnaw on the legs of the dying dragon, their heads full of blood, under the skin and sinews..

"Daddy, Mommy is here... we'll free your bones... you can eat her too!"

Kate did not understand, did not understand anything anymore. But the half-eaten body was still moving... as if the skeleton, freed from the flesh, could move...

And instead of the eye sockets there was a blue glow.

XXX pressed the dragon's snout against the skeleton's teeth.

"NAAAANNNN. I can't...."

"You have to, to redeem yourself!"

Then the black dragoness opened her mouth and bit Kate on the snout.

Her nose burst and the pain was such that she woke up.

It was all a dream that turned into a nightmare... But the pain was excruciating, as if the dragoness XXXX was still there.

Kate was covered with bandages and her muzzle was just a wound. The crash? or XXXX?

It was all so realistic. It was as if it had happened just a moment ago.

But she recognized the smell... the smell of the abyss probing her...

And, like a sigh, as if death was speaking in your ear, she heard: "You will pay!

Then, sucking with all her might, she let out a shrill cry of terror "SCREEEEEEEE"

Then a rover arrived and out came Waspy, Raven and Monty.

They rushed towards Kate but Waspy ignored her, and continued towards the volcano, then, let herself fall on her knees, crying.

"Hans... Hans...sorry...it's my fault!!!! I loved you... I love you. HANS... Lord Carnage...come back! forgive, forgive.... "

She wanted to reach into the lava but Monty held her back at the last moment

"Waspy, Hans really loved you... but he wouldn't want you to get hurt...."

She turned around and pointed at the dragoness: "It's her fault... She's a bad dragoness. She killed her husband!

And Hans was so nice to her.

"WHY!!??? WHY KATE??? "

The dragoness was confused, as lost, lost in her thoughts...

Only moans were what Waspy heard.