Epilogue.

"Are you sure you don't want to come with us?" Ridley asked as he stepped up onto the horse as the rest of his comrades were already seated. Jereez smiled and shook her head.

"I have my bar to look after," she told them, taking a hold of Damon's hand as he was standing beside her, "and a bard to keep out of trouble." Though no one said anything, they though it were more likely the other way round, but Damon tried to look unimpressed anyway and rolled his eyes instead.

"We wish you the best of luck," he told Ridley and the rest of the group from Sumdall. Ridley nodded, and decided not to say goodbye. In this world, who knew, they might meet again.

"Give the mages in Parthax a slap on the backside for me," Jereez told Marina, who laughed glad that now she could, and the group turned their horses to ride away. They were headed for Parthax, a city to the north that Jereez had told them was a hive for mages, philosophers and those with scientific minds in this region. Now that they had no dragon's eye, they had no way of knowing if they would find a way back to their real home, Sumdall, in Izmer, but if help was to be found anywhere, it was with the mages.

Jereez pulled a small red glinting object from her pocket and held it up in the palm of her hand for Damon to see.

"What's that?" he asked, studying the thin sliver of dragon's eye.

Jereez smiled, "Well, I couldn't let it all go to waste, could I!" Damon, too, grinned now.

"Are you going to sell it?" he asked. Even one sliver would probably fetch a large sum of money.

Jereez pondered it for a moment, "No, I don't think so. I don't really need more wealth." She looked up at the bard and he laughed.

"What are you talking about, you always need more wealth." Damon pulled her into an affectionate hug.

In the distance, their friends from Izmer stopped their horses to make one last farewell, waving to the new friends they'd made. Then they rode on and disappeared from view.

"You know what I'd like to know," Marina told Ridley as they rode, "is what happened to the Dragon's breath once it left the Empress where did it go?"

Ridley shrugged, "I guess we'll never know."

In the mountains of DarkVeil, deep in a crevasse within the dragon's cave, there was a slight cracking noise and then the tiny cry of a newborn. A small dragon pulled its way out of the egg it had just hatched from and looked up to the night sky. It fluttered its small wings gently before finally gaining the strength to fly upwards.

In the dark shadows of the trees, a cloaked figure watched the adventurers from Izmer leaving. It had long, poisonous looking talons, but when it drew back its hood, a bizarre mixture of snake features, and those of Raelis, stared back. The reptilian eyes had a dull, dead look within them as it blinked.

THE END