The lizard's first memory was of the shackles. Everything before was lost to shadow.

  He blinked and tried to turn his head, but the shackles were too tight. Where was he? He saw empty bookshelves and low ceilings and a bed that was far too small for him. What had happened? Why couldn't he move?

  A small orc paced into his line of sight. "You're a big one, aren't you?" the orc mused. The lizard tried to answer, but again the shackles woven through his thoughts prevented him from doing anything more than blinking. Almost prevented him from even thinking. But yes, he thought, the orc was right. He was probably almost half a meter taller than the orc was from what he could see. He struggled against the shackles, trying to answer.

  "Stop struggling," the orc said, walking a circle around him. The shackles bit tighter. "You can't break free. The dragons made sure of that. You were created to be a slave, and that's all you'll ever be."

  The lizard thrashed once more against the shackles, and needles of pain began to dig through his head. He was not a slave. He was aware. He was awake.

  "You've got horns too," said the orc. The shackles pulled the lizard's head down so the orc could better see his face. "I'm not certain I've ever seen a lizard with horns. Well, apart from Coatl-ome."

  The lizard blinked. Did he have horns? And who was this Dragon-Two the orc had mentioned?

  "I should introduce the two of you to each other," the orc said. "Maybe you'll be friends."

  The lizard thought that he would like that, but it was difficult to think through the shackles.

  The orc clapped a hand over his mouth and giggled. "Oh, that would make her so angry," he said. "I have to do it. Come on."

  The shackles yanked on his mind, and he followed behind the orc. His thoughts swirled while they walked. He understood most of the orc's words. Beneath the shackles, somewhere beyond his reach, he felt memories. Not his own. Something larger than him but smaller than waking thoughts. It was from there he had language, knew that he was quezpal, a lizard slave. Knew he had to have hatched. Why could he not remember his hatching? Why could he not recall the faces of any of his brood mates? Where was he? Who was he?

  The lizard could see little as they proceeded, the shackles locking his gaze only forward. The orc led them out of the singed farmhouse and into ruined farmland. They headed north towards a massive, shadowy citadel. They passed monsters and wyrmkin of all sorts: werewolves and slimes, boglings and raptors. Other lizards too. Every nightmare ignored them. For some reason that seemed odd, but the lizard couldn't quite place why.

  The orc stopped in the courtyard of the citadel to say hello to a minotaur that had to have been half again as tall as the lizard. Inside, the citadel was just as dark as it had looked from outside. But the orc led them through without hesitation. After a short walk down the road on the far side of the citadel, they came to the ruins of a Draconic settlement of some sort. The lizard's ancient memories stirred. The northern ziggurat would have been for mating rituals. The half-ruined building on the jagged plateau a repository for the eggs. Near there, the dragonforge. The lizard's thoughts spiraled again into disarray. How did he know all of this and still not know who he was?

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  The orc led him into the egg chamber. "Coatl-ome?" he called. "Are you here?"

  "Where else do you think I would be?" a female voice replied. The lizard could not see the speaker.

  "Can we talk?" the orc asked.

  "We're not friends, Wulfgar," the voice replied.

  "Speaking of friends," said Wulfgar, "I brought a friend for you."

  The shackles tugged again, and the lizard moved forward into the chamber. Another lizard, this one smaller and golden, turned around on the stool on which she sat to address them. "You did what?" she asked. When she laid her golden eyes on the horned lizard, his entire being wanted to scream. He did not know how he knew, but he knew that the diminutive lizard sitting before him was not a lizard at all. She was a dragon, and Wulfgar had been right: this was making her very angry. The lizard tried to run away, tried to apologize, tried to do anything, but the shackles bit deeply, causing physical pain to lance through the space behind his eyes.

  "A quezpal," Coatl-ome said. Her voice was quiet and level, but the rage boiling in her thoughts made the lizard again try to scream an apology. He could not stand upsetting the Great Ones. His ancient memories told him this was because that was how the Great Ones had made his kind. "You expect me to be friends with a quezpal," Coatl-ome said.

  "Well," said Wulfgar, "I figured that since you're a lizard now too, you—"

  Coatl-ome leapt from her chair, shoved the lizard out of her way, and slammed the orc into the wall behind him. "I am not a quezpal," she hissed through clenched teeth. "And it is you, not me, that has a soft spot for the creatures."

  Wulfgar pushed her away. "That was Drang," he said. "Not me."

  "I don't recall your soft-headed friend ever being in the position to be able to free a shackled quezpal," Coatl-ome said. She jabbed the orc in the chest with a claw. "That was you. You even named it." She glared at the lizard. "Even if you named it 'Nothing.'"

  Wulfgar batted her claw off his chest and turned away. Coatl-ome glared at his back for a moment before returning to her seat at the table. "I've always wondered why the quezpalli are even here," she said, picking up the obsidian blades she'd been sharpening. "They are of the Abriasha, not Syn."

  "You're here," said Wulfgar, still looking away.

  Coatl-ome slammed the stone down onto the table. "Don't push me, Wulfgar," she said.

  "Seriously," Wulfgar said, walking up to the lizard. "I'm here. You're here." He made the lizard look back down at him.

  "We both know why we are here," Coatl-ome said.

  "So?" Wulfgar asked. "Why wouldn't other children of the Abriasha be here too?"

  Coatl-ome glanced at the two of them over her shoulder. "You're suggesting that every single quezpal in this place ended up on the wrong end of a bargain with Syn."

  Wulfgar shrugged. "I'm saying it's feasible," he said.

  "Perhaps," said Coatl-ome. "Though I remain unconvinced."

  "What did you do to end up here?" Wulfgar asked the lizard.

  The lizard stared back down at him without emotion, since the shackles allowed him to do nothing else. But what had he done? Why did the two of them think he must have done something wrong to be here at all? Where were they? And who was he?

  "Oh," the orc said with a nod. "That bad, huh?"

  Coatl-ome turned all the way around and looked between the two of them before returning to her work. "I can never tell when you're being serious," she said, shaking her head.