"Welcome, sister!" Nimueh was but a slim figure, high on a parapet, yet Morgana could hear her voice clearly as Aithusa landed. "Oh... my." She laughed sweetly, and the faceless soldiers standing between the newcomers and their mistress began to move. They linked limbs, lifting each other higher and higher until they made a 'living' staircase. There was an occasional tearing sound and limbs would fall to the ground, only to be assimilated by the nearest soldier. Nimueh walked gracefully down the newly-formed staircase without ever glancing at her feet. "Merlin really did a number on your face, didn't he, pet?"
Self-consciously, Morgana touched her cheek with her fingertips. With her other hand she had been gripping the scale, and she saw Nimueh's perfect face with a sorrowful envy. She had been that beautiful once. Nimueh tsked.
"A burn like that... I'm afraid that's beyond even my skills to heal. But between the two of us, I think we could conjure up a nice concealment spell, don't you?" She reached out, suddenly fixated on the scale around Morgana's throat, and the latter jerked back with a growl. "Use your words, won't you, sweetheart?" Nimueh chided, touching the pendant anyways. Her eyes glowed, and Morgana hesitantly focused on the scale, too. A moment passed, and then Nimueh stepped back with a satisfied smile.
"Did it work?" Morgana asked, and then she broke into tears. Her voice had none of the strange, lilted rasping she had grown accustomed to since the attack.
"There, there." Nimueh held out her hand and Morgana took it, and through Aithusa's eyes she saw herself as she had been long ago, before she left Uther's court. Even her robes were new, sleek and white as snow. "Merlin will be punished in due time. As will Arthur." She gestured at the soldiers, which by now had dis-attached themselves from the parapet and stood at attention. Morgana found them eerily expressive. The eyes were black pits that somehow seemed to focus on her (or rather, Aithusa), and their mouths gaped in deep frowns that might have been drawn by a child, with no apparent jaw structure. Had they been able to make any sounds, she had no doubt that they would be crying.
"What magic is this?" Morgana approached one of the creatures. It was swaying slightly, the head hanging to the side, and it pivoted its shoulders in a series of jerks to watch her approach.
"The best kind of magic." Nimueh joined her and, holding her fingers out daintily, pushed the creature's forehead so that it stumbled back. The frown widened but it made no sound, returning to its post. "The kind that happens right under King Arthur's nose."
Likmus had begun to attend to King Arthur less and less frequently. The king assumed that he was working on the drakalos tossa, and he wasn't wrong, exactly. It was only the method on which their understandings differed.
Gentle Arthur had been deeply disturbed on the subject of digging up the Dragonlord's bones. (What a happy coincidence, that Balinor happened to be a Dragonlord.) Likmus smiled to himself as he worked. He had no idea what other ruse he would have had to employ to gain access to the bones of Merlin's father.
The book he had conjured for Arthur was not all lies. He merely... edited some parts.
It was true that a man who had been doused in the breath and the blood of a dragon could control most dragons. Likmus had seen this firsthand. He was the only survivor of three llocidranae- dragon killers. Their work was not received well among most Druids. The trio saw themselves as noble warriors performing a service, seeking out and fighting only the dragons that ravaged villages. They fought with swords and rudimentary magic. The drakalos tossa- bathing oneself in the blood of an unborn dragon and allowing oneself to be burned by draconic flame- was a legend the men had all heard in their youth, but always ignored.
That is, until they met Krysa.
Likmus had heard the legend many times, and he hadn't put much stock in it until one of his companions, Risa, was killed. They were fighting the largest dragon they'd ever come across and their weapons just weren't enough. Likmus grew relentless. He no longer contented himself with hunting dragons that attacked Druids. He led his remaining partner Vys across Camelot, journeying through forests and mountain ranges in a deliberate search for dragons. He grew obsessed with finding a dragon egg. Word of his quest began to spread.
Krysa had abandoned his village a decade prior to Likmus's arrival, but the locals still remembered him well enough to tell his story to Likmus and Vys. He was the lord of a small dragon, Rhyos. The two had seemingly grown up together until, at the age of 35, Krysa had contracted an illness and died. Rhyvos, who was developmentally still a child, and therefore foolish, could not handle the grief. He performed the emἀνæγρnσιc, and Krysa awoke as the dragon Kilgarrah.
Krysa, well-versed in the story of Fayder, understood the dangers of skinwalking too often. His powers would have likely gone unused, and Kilgarrah forgotten, had the Druid not met the dragoness Bydraea.
Dragons mate only once, and that companion is for life. This event is exceedingly special. It is said that dragons are born knowing the scent of their partner, and so will know them immediately when they find them. Such was the case with Bydraea and Krysa, and the man willingly sacrificed that of him which was Druid so that Kilgarrah and Bydraea might be together. The pair had one egg; all dragons and their mates will only ever have one egg in their lifetimes, and that egg will lie dormant until a Dragonlord commands it to hatch. The Druids had all heard of Kilgarrah and Bydraea's egg.
Likmus had heard of it, too.
The dragons had made their lair high in the Isgard mountains. As Likmus and Vys neared, Kilgarrah emerged and engaged them in battle so that Bydraea, who was too young and too small to fight, might escape with their egg. Likmus, so close to his target, was blinded by desire. He abandoned Vys to pursue Bydraea, and Vys, although a good fighter, died shortly thereafter. He delayed Kilgarrah for an hour at most, but it was just enough.
Kilgarrah followed his mate's scent to the woods, where he discovered her corpse. In a clearing just ahead Likmus was clutching his coveted egg.
Upon tearing apart the dragon child and reciting the requisite spell as an enraged Kilgarrah doused him with flame, the triskele tattoo on Likmus's forearm grew scarred and destroyed with the blackness of his magic.
That part of the book, then, was true.
The grinding of the bones served another purpose entirely.