CAUTION: Spoils aspects of Innocent Hopes, Twisted Realities, as well as aspects of When Nothing Remains, and aspects of Usurpation of the Darkness through chapter 53.

Seriously, major spoilers here.

Assuming you wish to continue, read on…

Background: Simply put, Lily's point of view is limited. She misses a lot of the drama of Ember's intervention in chapter 53 of Usurpation of the Darkness, seeing it from afar and then being carried away from it. So, here's an optional, alternative viewpoint from someone more closely involved, one that also gives some insight into one of our more important characters after a long time away from him.

Blades had to be tested before they could be considered well-made. A faulty work might appear strong up until it shattered at the slightest impact, imperfections in the metal ruining it from the inside.

Ember knew this principle well; he had made weapons in one of his childhoods, and though nowadays he made more interesting, less violent things when the mood struck, he remembered how it was done. The idea could be applied to more than physical objects, too.

That was likely why it had come to mind now, as he flew out toward a menacing fleet of ships in the distance. He was, in essence, about to test a metaphorical blade. Would it hold, or would it shatter?

"I am going to smack our scouts so many times that their scales turn red and fall off," a young female growled coarsely from nearby, though only a faint blur in the air marked her presence. "They are right there. How in the world did we miss this?"

"They're moving faster than most ships would," Ember noted. He wasn't about to excuse this pack's scouts, he didn't know whether they were slacking off or not, but he would offer insight into the human side of things. "This fleet might have been much further out as of last night." He was fascinated by the smoke rising from some of the larger ships, and by what that meant…

But all of that was secondary to the mingled fear and apprehension in his heart. He was flying out to rescue his mate and test a set of rules that had never been tested before, not since his entire family had come up with them at his behest. Academic interest in the evolution of warships was not a priority compared to all of that.

"And we did pull some of them in and shorten the range of the rest," the combative young female conceded, sounding angry with herself. In the short time he had known her, she had always acted either angry or proud. To be fair, he had only seen her showing off what Beryl taught her, ordering people around, or freaking out about the alpha being kidnapped right under their noses. Those were situations that provoked certain emotions.

They flew on in silence, and Ember stared out at the distant fleet. Somewhere in that array of ships, Pearl was waiting. The same could be said for Lily, but he definitely had a bias as to which of them came first to his thoughts.

She would be hopeful. She knew he was going to come for her, and if anything, she might be annoyed that it had taken an entire day for him to wade through the mess the attack had left behind, find out that she had been taken, and find out where the enemy had gone.

She wouldn't be too scared, but she would be worried for him, and for the blade about to be tested. He didn't consider that much better, though it was certainly an improvement over abject terror or despair.

Assuming she was able to feel anything at all. He snarled and shook his head, driving out that parasitic fear. The enemy had proven capable of killing, so taking someone alive meant wanting them alive. She would be alive and safe.

And if she was not, he might just end up smashing his metaphorical sword over his knee before going to war, though she wouldn't want that.

"I am going with you," Cara said, breaking the silence with a simple statement of defiance.

"No, you have agreed to fly ahead and scout out their forces as I approach and draw eyes, to decide upon an appropriate strike force size, and then to return to the valley in order to retrieve such a force in the event that I fail," Ember reiterated, speaking as if she was just in need of a reminder, not acknowledging and ignoring said plans.

"I want to see what you do," she said bluntly. "How you think you are getting anyone out on your own."

"It's not something that can be imitated or learned," Ember growled, guessing that Beryl teaching her had given her a reason to think she should watch and learn.

"I do not care," Cara huffed. "You cannot make me go back, and you will not even know if I do until afterward. I am just being polite by letting you know instead of saying nothing."

Ember sighed and resigned himself to one more person knowing his secret. He was glad bringing Cara herself along with such plans had at least dissuaded half the pack from coming too. "Fine," he growled.

"So what am I going to see, that you do not want known?" Cara asked. "How are you going to get them back?"

"I am going to make an entrance, turn into one of them, and bargain with their lives as collateral," Ember said. He was also going to either be bluffing, or proving the metaphorical sword faulty, but he saw no reason to tell Cara that.

Cara didn't need to know exactly what he was capable of if he fully exploited the abilities Vithvarandi had burdened him with. She also didn't need to know that his whole family had come up with a simple rule for him to follow, so that he knew he was not turning into a monster like Vithvarandi. Nor did she need to know that he wanted to set a good example for Thaw, and to be able to live with himself, and to rescue Pearl.

There were a lot of things she didn't need to know, and though she immediately began asking the obvious, incredulous questions, she didn't touch on any of those things. Those concerns were for him and his family, and nobody else.

O-O-O-O-O

Ember knew he had not been spotted yet. He had taken great care to ensure as much, flying through the lower layers of the clouds, making himself cold and wet in exchange for being almost impossible to spot.

Cara would not have been seen either, camouflaged and scouting around right about now. They were alert, aware of what they were sailing toward, but the alarm had not been sounded. Not yet.

He intended to be in and making an impression fast enough that the enemy, whoever they were, would be reacting too slowly to make much of an impact. This plan had its flaws, and not knowing how his dramatic entrance would be received was definitely one of them. But it was fast and didn't endanger anyone but himself, and he didn't have any obviously better options, so he was going to go through with it anyway.

Thankfully, he didn't have to guess which ship held the leader of this armada; only one flew a red and black flag at the top of its squat, smoke-belching form. That was as good a sign as any that their leader would be there.

He inhaled, squinted, and dove.

The wind screamed by him, and he roared as loudly as he could. The largest ship had a metal exterior and deck, another oddity he would love to get a closer look at, and he was headed at it far too quickly to pull out even if he wanted to.

But unlike most dragons, he didn't need to pull out. Especially not with a ship this sturdy under him. At the right moment, a couple of heartbeats away from smashing into the deck of the ship, he called up the unnatural fire that had reshaped his lives years ago. It would not hold, he had lost the ability to do that, but it would exist for the time needed to change his form, and that was more than enough-

He stopped, a strange, unnatural sensation akin to being suddenly slowed to a standstill by an impossibly stiff breeze, except without even the pressure of the wind on his body. The fires resisted the impact in the same way that allowed him to bend iron, punch out dragons, and otherwise break the laws of the world around him, and he felt nothing except a much gentler pressure and a sudden absence of movement.

His body continued to change in the heartbeat that followed, and when the blue flames receded he was human…

And, he noticed, standing in a crater. The metal sheet covering the deck – which, he saw, was designed quite ingeniously with grooves to provide traction and sluice away water – had buckled and scorched at the impact. The wood under it, if there was any, had fared no better, leaving him in a waist-deep hole as wide around as his dragon form's torso.

Sailors of various ethnicities, some of which he didn't recognize, stared in the sort of shocked surprise that precluded action. A few were reaching for weapons, but they stilled when they noticed him watching.

Already, he was certain these were not dragon hunters, not of the sort he knew. Hunters were not, as a general rule, disciplined. Not in the face of an attack, or whatever they thought this was. Hunters were Vikings, and that meant fighting, not waiting to see what happened.

"I am here to negotiate with whoever leads this fleet," Ember called out, remaining where he was until he was sure he had been heard and understood. Then he climbed out of the crater he had made, because threatening people while his head was lower than their waists just felt wrong. "Bring him here, or I will be forced to find him myself."

Nobody questioned his right to summon their leader; falling like a comet out of the cloudy dusk sky did have its uses as an intimidation tactic. A few of the ones closest to the ship's multi-level cabin slipped inside, presumably to spread the word.

Others subtly palmed knives or more obvious weapons, but none made a move. He suspected that nobody wanted to be the first to find out exactly how he would react to being attacked. That would stop being important if everyone attacked at once, but nobody present had the authority to order such a thing. Or so he assumed; maybe they were all peaceful cool-headed individuals who just happened to have sent out mute dragons to attack an isolated nest of light wings.

There was a scuffle of boot on metal behind him, and he spun around, instinctively bursting into flame. The transformation could not be held in place, not anymore, but it could be reversed at any time, and doing so provided him with short-lived protection.

The sailor behind him hastily put away his sword and backed up, making distance. Ember stared at him as the flames, only barely out in the first place, receded into his palms. "Don't try it," he warned.

"Wasn't going to," the sailor said quickly, his voice rough and displaying an odd accent Ember didn't recognize.

"Good," Ember said, not believing him in the slightest. He still turned his back on the man a moment later. This was, at its core, a lot of posturing and misdirection. So long as he acted confident and far too dangerous to be messed with, the odds were that he'd go unattacked until someone higher up ordered otherwise. Even if in reality he didn't have much more protection than it outwardly appeared.

The door to the ship's cabin swung open and a white-haired man with a thin face and a haughty face strode out. There was an odd look to him, like he was disappointed in something.

"It is not everyday someone manages to dent my ship," the man said coldly. "I have half a mind to demand repayment."

"Which is more expensive, repairing a dent or replacing a score of men?" Ember asked in a similarly cold tone. "This achieved the same effect."

The white-haired man nodded. "Intimidation," he assessed. "Clever. That won't stop you from being riddled in crossbow bolts the moment I say so."

"No, but other things will," Ember said calmly. "We are not here to bargain with my life."

"Then what are we here for?" the man asked. "I don't even know who, or what, you are."

"Angry," Ember replied. "That is what I am. You're going to appease me, and in return I'm not going to demolish this entire fleet."

Not that he wanted to do as much, even though he probably could. That was the path he ended up some sort of monster, if not exactly like Vithvarandi then terrible in his own unique way. Even if it was for a good cause, slaughtering hundreds of men wasn't something he could just forget afterward.

"Assuming you are capable of that," the white-haired man said, "and that is assuming much regardless of your display of force, what would be needed to appease you?"

"You took two captives this morning, two white dragons, one crippled and one not," Ember said. "I want the able-bodied one freed right now, and I want the injured one returned to the nearest shore." He wasn't stupid enough to bargain for Lily's freedom without also getting her a way off this fleet. Beryl had told him that carrying her was a bad idea, so this was the easiest solution.

"A large price," the white-haired one said. "But we're getting ahead of ourselves. I am Grimmel the Grisly, leader of the Grim Hunters."

Ember tilted his head. "I'm sensing a theme," he said dryly.

He was also sensing trickery, especially as he could see movement on the ships all around them. Grimmel was stalling for time, because every passing moment only increased his bargaining position, letting his men and possibly dragons position themselves to better attack if the word was given.

"My name is my own, and my epithet twice earned," Grimmel said defensively, scowling at Ember. "What is yours?"

"Ember," he said simply. "Are we done stalling, or should we boast of our achievements to waste more time on your behalf? I gave you my demands."

"You did not tell me why I should not have you slaughtered," Grimmel said angrily.

"Because you do not have the strength in ships, men, or dragons, to accomplish it," Ember said coldly. "That is not an option. Your options are give me what I want, or suffer the consequences. This is not a bargain so much as a demand."

"I could have the dragons you want slaughtered," Grimmel threatened.

"Could you really?" Ember asked, hiding his relief. Such a threat meant they were both still alive. "Could you do it before I found them? Before I killed you?"

"Yes," Grimmel said without hesitation, though Ember suspected he was either overestimating himself, underestimating the danger he was being threatened with, or bluffing. "So give me something in return."

"What would that be?" Ember asked.

"You flew in as a dragon," Grimmel stated. "It looked like a Night Fury."

"It was," Ember conceded, seeing no reason to hide what they had somehow already deduced. He was reluctantly impressed that anyone had identified his species in the extremely short time he had spent diving and thus little more than a roughly cylindrical blur.

"Allow me to see it up close in addition to sparing my fleet, and I will consider it a bargain struck," Grimmel offered.

Ember noticed the surprise that showed on the majority of the sailors silently watching their confrontation. Some of them frowned, others glanced over at Grimmel in disbelief, and others still scowled angrily. He didn't quite know what to make of that, except that they believed Grimmel was serious in offering such a thing, and that it wasn't a fair bargain from the average sailor's perspective.

"I will let you look, and only that, for a short period of time once the injured dragon has been carried to shore, and the uninjured one freed," he offered. "I am not so stupid as to pay up front."

"Acceptable," Grimmel agreed, smiling widely. "Make yourself comfortable, it will take me a short time to arrange as much, and I of course would prefer you stay here in the meantime, as an assurance that you will keep your part of the deal."

"Of course," Ember said carefully. "I have your word on all of this, correct? They will be released as I specified, unharmed and unhindered, and I will not be attacked or trapped while I am here?"

"You have my word," Grimmel replied.

O-O-O-O-O

A short time later, Ember sat atop a coiled stack of rope. He hadn't expected to be lounging around an enemy warship, but he did his best to look like this was all part of the plan. The sailors all gave him an extremely wide berth, abandoning the midsection of the deck in order to avoid him.

It was much the same sort of treatment he might have received as a dragon lurking on their deck after bargaining with their leader, much to his amusement. It was not often that his human form was treated with such caution.

And best of all, he had held to the rules he wanted to live by. He had done nothing that a human and a dragon together could not have done. There had been no intentional killing for the purpose of taking memories, no outright slaughter, no immoral theft of bodies to use against their fellows. There would be no need to kill off stolen forms afterward, and he would not have nightmares about this night.

He had set a good example for Thaw, who might be in desperate need of exactly that at some point in the future.

Assuming this all went as promised, that was. He was not stupid enough to take that for granted yet. He eyed Grimmel, who had scrawled out orders on a parchment and had it catapulted over to the next ship, and was now watching him from the other side of the ship. They were both waiting, and neither of them felt like making small talk.

There was activity on the other ship, and two Deathgrippers emerged from the hold, stalking onto the deck. Ember watched with interest as two handlers followed them up. He hadn't seen them before, thanks to being asleep during the attack, and only knew they were apparently mute and unable to be reasoned with through hearsay.

A net was brought out and arranged on the deck, and men armed with spears formed a narrow corridor to it from the cabin. A light wing was dragged out-

Ember strode over to the side of the ship, ignoring the sailors who scattered to avoid him, and strained to see which it was. It was dark and cloudy, so there was no glint to help him identify her, but when she woke he heard yells about 'the cripple', among other things, which told him enough. They had already gotten the nets most of the way up around her in a fashion clearly meant to tangle as much as it was meant to distribute weight, and when she woke she struggled impotently.

Then she lurched back at just the right moment, and a man's arm was snapped like a dry twig. Surprisingly, there was no retribution from the man's comrades.

"I see one," Ember called out to Grimmel. "Where is the other?"

"All in good time," Grimmel assured him. "Since you see we are serious about honoring this agreement, maybe you will save us both some time and hold to your end now?"

"Not a chance," Ember said firmly. "Only once they are both safely out of your reach."

Grimmel said nothing more, and soon Lily was being carried away. As far as Ember could tell, which was very little given his current form was not good at seeing in the dark, she was alert and doing her best to stand upright in the swaying net.

The Deathgrippers, one carrying her and the other following it, flew over to their ship and circled above.

"Pearl might still be captive," Lily called down. It was all she had time to say; the Deathgrippers did not tarry, circling once and then flying onward, into the night and toward the distant mountains.

"It will be released on the shore, as promised," Grimmel assured him. "And there is the other."

Ember looked over, and his heart soared with Pearl as she leaped into the night sky and promptly flamed herself, disappearing from view. Lily's warning had been for nothing, though he appreciated that she had thought to give it, given Grimmel could have claimed they let her leave from somewhere out of sight and he would have had no easy way to prove or disprove it.

"Now?" Grimmel asked.

"Not yet," Ember growled, returning to his makeshift seat. "Not until they are out of reach." He would not risk anything, especially not when everything was going to plan.

"So be it," Grimmel sighed. "Might I ask why you care? One wonders what, exactly, your reason for doing this would be."

"You can ask, but you won't get an answer," Ember said. "What are your intentions here?"

He hadn't expected a reply, but to his surprise Grimmel answered readily enough. "We lost a ship here, and a Deathgripper. It is our custom to investigate losses, either to catch deserters or to avenge our fallen brothers and sisters."

"And it's the latter," Ember guessed.

"I hope you do not have any ties to the nest of vermin we're going to be exterminating in the coming days," Grimmel said coldly. "We will not be turned from that goal."

"I'm just passing through," Ember lied.

"It doesn't matter," Grimmel asserted. "We will not make a deal like this a second time."

"I'm surprised you made it once," Ember admitted.

"Is now enough time?" Grimmel asked, changing the subject rather abruptly. "Or must we wait until midnight, or dawn?"

Ember smelled a rat. Specifically, a white-furred one who was way too shifty about this. "And if I asked why you wanted to see a Night Fury?"

"I would explain once I have," Grimmel offered. "So?"

"I suppose we can get this over with," Ember conceded. The Deathgrippers carrying Lily were well on their way now, and he would bet his best knife that Pearl was trailing them, ready to intervene if something went wrong. Maybe Cara too, though it was too early yet to expect her return with a raiding party.

He stood from the rope pile, shrugged his shoulders, and burst into flames. The last thing he saw before the fire covered his eyes was Grimmel's expectant face…

And the first thing he saw when the fire receded was a downright disturbing smile. Grimmel's hand twitched, and Ember immediately leaped upward, willing himself to shift. Several projectiles passed through the empty air below him, and as he reached the apex of his leap, four Deathgrippers took off from the ships around him. He was fully in flames by the time he felt his stomach lurch as his upward progress ended, and he landed blindly.

Using his flames like this was awkward; he had to time his transformations correctly, lest he throw himself out over the ocean and fall in while changing. He landed on the deck, denting it in a different place, and blindly lashed out around himself. The moment the flames cleared enough for him to see, he oriented himself and changed again. Arrows, crossbow bolts, and swords were shrugged off like rain on scales while his fire was up, but he was acutely aware of how vulnerable he would be the moment he stopped switching back and forth.

Not that he planned to sit around and let them attack him. He leaped up into the air and spun as the flames receded once more, now capable of flight. The Deathgrippers all dove, attacking him from above, and he took the opportunity to duck forward and put them between himself and the ship he had just left.

He had traded a momentary reprieve from human attacks for four unreasonably violent dragons and four riders, but he could deal with those more easily. He led them up into the sky, dodging talons and blasts of an odd sort of fire, and ducked into the clouds. From there, it was as easy as flying straight away in a random direction. They lost him almost immediately, to the point where it felt too easy.

He flew away for a little while longer, just to be sure, then ducked below the clouds and headed back to the valley. As he flew, he thought about what he had learned, and what it meant.

Obviously, in the future nobody should trust Grimmel's word, even in oaths given. Looking back, it was obvious that he had never intended on keeping it past obtaining what he wanted, a clear shot at a Night Fury.

That aim in itself was also telling; Ember knew all too well how prized his species was, but the enthusiasm Grimmel had displayed fit well with the prisoner's words on the subject. There was something personal there, a need or a desire.

But whatever the reason, it was also important that Grimmel's people weren't here for Night Furies. They were here to avenge their people, and they had already set their sights on the light wing pack. Beryl's presence, or the presence of the other dark wings Ember had brought, was not a deciding factor.

He hummed to himself, satisfied with those conclusions. They were not good things, but they were good to know, and Lily was a very smart dragon. She and Beryl would be able to put it all together and come up with some plan of action.

Really, he found himself to be in a very good mood. His mate was undoubtedly safe, and he had managed to keep to his morals. Admittedly through the use of threats and intimidation, and some very risky moments where he could have gotten hurt, but still. He had saved his mate, not killed a single person, and proven that his first solution to things did not have to be killing, stealing bodies and memories, and taking what he wanted.

Even if such things were perhaps acceptable against dragon killers set on wiping out a pack of his fellow Furies…

He shook his head, dismissing that thought. Even if it would have solved everything to massacre them all, doing so would be wrong, and he had an example to set. When Thaw asked about tonight, he was going to be able to say that it had been done without relying on immoral abilities, and he was going to ensure that lesson stuck with him. Maybe as a last resort, but never as a first one, and in a world as wide and full of options as this one, there were always alternatives.

He was a long way from the depressed, despairing dragon of five season-cycles ago, and he intended to stay that way; for his own sake, the sake of the world, and for his son, who might need as many good examples as possible in dealing with very similar problems.

Ember dismissed his introspection, bothered more than he would have admitted by the thought of Thaw dealing with the same worries and moral quandaries he was stuck with, and focused on the moment. Pearl was safe, Lily was likely to be dropped off safe and sound-

A thought occurred to him, something he had missed in the midst of escaping and then patting himself on the back, and he snarled, leaning forward to fly faster. Grimmel had planned this from the start, and that could also mean sending out orders to betray Lily once she and the Deathgrippers were out of sight.

Ember's satisfaction evaporated, and he only hoped that he would not be too late.