'Exactly,' said Dalia. 'There's a footnote towards the end of the Chronicles where the writer describes a race of creatures known as Fomorians that were said to control the fertility of the earth.'

'Let me guess,' said Zouche. 'They were defeated, but not destroyed, because their continued existence was necessary for the good of the world.'

'Got it in one,' said Dalia.

'So what does all this mean?' asked Severine. 'It's all very interesting, but why does talking about dragons need a vox-blocker?'

'Isn't it obvious?' asked Dalia, before remembering that her friends didn't possess the innate faculties for data recall that she did. 'It's clear that these defeated forces, these dragons, were still considered valuable, and it follows that these early writers understood that the conflict between dragon and dragonslayer wasn't a contest of genocide for one or the other, but an eternal struggle. For the good of the world, both sides needed to have their powers expressed and the balance maintained. Even these ancient enemies needed one another.'

'Your logic being that it is the struggle, not the victory, that supplies the needful conditions for the world,' said Mellicin.

Dalia beamed at Mellicin. 'Yes, it's like summer and winter,' she said. 'Eternal summer would burn the world up, but eternal winter would freeze it to death. It's the fact that they alternate that allows life to grow and flourish.'

'So I ask again, what's the point of all this?' said Severine.

Dalia looked into the faces of her friends, unsure of how to phrase the next part of her confession. Would they believe her or would they think her proximity to the flaring energies of the Astronomican had unhinged her? She took a deep breath and decided she had come too far to back out now.

'When I was in the coma after the accident I think… I think I became part of something, some other, much larger, consciousness. It felt like my mind had detached from my body.'

'An out of body hallucination,' said Zouche. 'Quite common in near death experiences.'

'No,' said Dalia. 'It was more than that. I don't know how else to explain it, but it was as if the Akashic reader had allowed my mind to… link with something old. I mean, really old, older than this planet or anything else we can possibly imagine.'

'What do you think it was?' asked Mellicin.

'I think it was the dragon that Jonas was talking about.'

'The dragon he said the Emperor slew.'

'That's just it,' said Dalia. 'I don't think it's dead at all. I think that's what Jonas was trying to tell me. The Dragon of Mars is still alive beneath the Noctis Labyrinthus… and I need your help to find it.'

He opened his eyes and tried to scream, feeling the heartsick spike of agonising pain in his chest once more. He thrashed his limbs, palms beating on slick glass surfaces, his movements glutinous. His world was a blur of pink, and he blinked in an effort to clear his vision. He reached up to wipe his eyes clean, the sensation of movement like swimming through thick, gluey water.

A shape swam at the edge of his vision, humanoid, but he couldn't focus on it yet.

His head ached and his body felt unutterably heavy, despite its apparent suspension in buoyancy fluids. He felt weightless pain from every portion of his body, but that was nothing in comparison to the crushing weight of sorrow in his heart.

He remembered sleeping, or at least periods of darkness where the pain was lessened, but nothing that truly eased the abominable, unfocused sadness he felt. He knew he had woken here before, having heard fragments of distant conversations where words like ''miracle'', ''brain-death'' and ''infarction'' were used. Without context, the words were meaningless, but he knew they were being applied to his condition.

He blinked as he heard yet more words, and fought to get the sense of them.

Forcing himself to focus on the voice, he swam through the jelly-like fluid of his world.

The shape spoke again, or at least he thought he heard its voice, the words soft and boneless, as though filtered through faulty augmitters.

He pulled himself forward until his face was pressed to a pane of thick glass. His vision swam into focus, and he saw an antiseptic chamber of polished ceramic tiles and metal gurneys beyond the glass. Spider-like devices hung from the ceiling and a number of fluid-filled glass tanks were fitted into brass sockets on the far wall.

Standing before him was a young woman robed in blue and silver. Her form wavered through the liquid, but she smiled at him and the sight was pathetically welcome.

'Princeps Cavalerio, can you hear me?' she asked, the words snapping into sudden clarity.

He tried to reply, but his mouth was full of liquid, bubbles forming on his lips as they worked to form sounds.

'Princeps?'

'Yes,' he said, his facility for language returning to him at last.

'He's awake,' said the young woman, the words said to an unseen occupant of the chamber. He heard the relief in her voice and wondered why she was so pleased to hear him speak.

'Where am I?' he asked.

'You are in the medicae facility, princeps.'

'Medicae? Where?'

'In Ascraeus Mons,' said the woman. 'You are home.'

Ascraeus Mons… the fortress mountain of Legio Tempestus.

Yes, this was his home. This was where he had formally been awarded his princepture nearly two centuries ago. This was where he had first ascended the groaning elevator to the cockpit of…

Pain surged in his chest and he gasped, drawing in a lungful of oxygenated fluids. His conscious mind rebelled at the idea of breathing liquid, but his body knew better than he that it could survive the experience and gradually his panic eased, though not his pain.

'Who are you?' he asked as his breathing normalised.

'My name is Agathe, I am to be your famulous.'

'Famulous?'

'An aide, if you will. Someone to minister to your needs.'

'Why do I need a famulous?' he demanded. 'I am no cripple!'

'With respect, my princeps, you have just awoken from what must have been a traumatic severance. You will need assistance to adjust. I am to provide that for you.'

'I don't understand,' said Cavalerio. 'How did I come to be here?'

Agathe hesitated, clearly reluctant to provide an answer to his question. Eventually she said, 'Perhaps we might discuss that at a later date, my princeps? After you have had time to adjust to your new surroundings.'

'Answer me, damn you,' yelled Cavalerio, beating a fist against the glass.

Agathe glanced over towards the unseen occupant of the chamber, her prevarication only serving to enrage Cavalerio even more.

'Don't look away from me, girl,' he snarled. 'I am the Stormlord and you will answer me.'

'Very well, my princeps,' said Agathe. 'How much do you remember?'

He frowned, bubbles drifting upwards past his face as he sought to recall the last memory he had before waking.

The towering monster of Legio Mortis bearing down on him.

The furious beat of Victorix Magna's heart as it ruptured under the strain.

The death scream of Magos Argyre as he perished with it.

A yawning black abyss that pulled him down into darkness.

Hot, agonising pain surged in his chest as Princeps Cavalerio relived the death of his engine, weeping invisible tears in the blood-flecked suspension fluid of his amniotic tank.