The seabed of the Precipice was dead quiet. Steam crawled off the wet pumice in thin grey threads, and the only sound was the hum of twenty-five thousand units of Dark Essence moving through my veins.
The mother of dragons had both hands cupped around my jaw. They were soft and heavy, like bags of wet sand. She leaned in close, and her wide, feral smile looked completely wrong on the chubby, clumsy human body she had just compressed herself into. Her huge red eyes burned into mine without blinking.
Speaking in that eager, broken voice, Tiamat asked:
"Do you know what you are, mine?"
'A guy who just wanted to survive a basement. But sure, let's do cosmic trivia.'
I left her hands where they were. All that Primordial mass packed into a body my size meant she wasn't going anywhere unless she wanted to. So I just sat there in the wet pumice and held her gaze. Meanwhile, my well fed Kassie, Celestine, and the Dark Elf at the same time, and my vessel didn't so much as creak.
