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The last was a desperate little gasp, as though she could not help the bitterness that came from realizing that even her wisdom did not see the whole picture on the canvas.

“Should I tell you to know your place?” I asked. “Should I tell you to beg?”

Owl dropped to her knees, but soon enough she had no knees, her body turning into that of a bird, her feathers red and her beak stained with the sin of what she had done.

Ox stood staring at me, steam still rising from his nostrils, his lips twisted, his teeth hard enough to tear me apart all over again.

“You are no man,” he said at last, his expression had turned to fury.

And I looked down at the flesh exposed where they had torn at me. It should have been blood and muscle, but instead they had revealed scales and a sinuous body that my human skin could no longer contain. I could be seen now for what I truly was, what I had become from all of the trials I had been through.

I let go of the ocean of power, not worrying about being consumed, not worrying about my head dipping below the waves because I was the ocean. There was no need to keep myself separate, no more than there was a purpose in trying to keep breath separate from my lungs.

The ocean crested my head, and a voice echoed Are you ready? Only now it did not sound separate from me; it was me, I was the voice, the power was me, and I had to create a vessel to contain it.

So I reformed myself again, made my true form come into existence, finding soft human skin replaced with scales, my dull human teeth replaced with the sharp fangs of a dragon. I lowered myself to all fours, a long tail balancing out my body.

My scales shimmered in the light, nearly like Naî’s pale white ones, but they shifted colors, blue then green, then iridescent white. I was born from the power of the universe; I had given men and animalia alike their magic and I could take away what I had given just as easily.

The other animalia fled, fearful and horrified by what I had become. They screamed, running, but it was too late. When they reached their place in the spiral, their magic flowed back into the center, leaving them.

Ox stood alone, unmoving and horribly fierce, his expression growing darker and darker. He stomped his foot and the animalia flinched under his rage, but I had once loved that about him as I had once loved all of them.

“One Dragon,” he spat, and the words flowed over me, landing on my newly formed body.

It was the truth and I fell into the knowledge, the words coloring the ocean of magic. “Yes.”

“How dare you. How dare you come back now?” He stomped again, shaking the whole room. “We have been without you for so long, we have been waiting and you dare to come back and pretend that you deserve the throne we have saved for you? I have no need for you anymore. I myself will claim your throne.”

My body was new, and I was still learning it. I shivered in anticipation. “Try. Try to take the throne from me, try to claim the power you want, and you will find out who I am.”

He roared, pounding forward, his head lowered, his horns about to pierce me. He shouted, but I stepped aside, putting a claw on his forehead as he passed me, and pushing gently.

Ox hit the ground with my gentle touch, his body cratering the solid stone. I kept up the pressure even as he struggled until he was nearly embedded in the ground.

“You cannot win against me,” I said. “Do you understand?”

“You are not the One Dragon,” he said. “I have seen you. You are not.”

But it was the petulant whining of a child. I recognized it as what a toddler might say when denied their way.

“I am,” I said.

“You are some human, you are a creature of wants and needs, you are not the one who made us.” Ox tried pushing up again, tried forcing my hand off.

I released him, readying for another attack, but he merely sat up, bruised and bloodied, his expression devastating in its rage. He pointed at me, his finger trembling.

“How dare you come back now?” he demanded.

But I understood more than he did. Shaking my head, I began walking the circle, passing by all the animalia that now cowered away from me, not from fear but from shame.

The question was valid, but I didn’t have a way to explain that it was not the first time I had come back. I might not have their memories, but I knew that when she had been killed, the One Dragon had thrown her soul into the river and been reborn over and over again. I could feel the echo of those lives, human and animal, on my skin. And just as I had had no idea until this moment what the power that lingered in me was, they had not known either; they had had no idea who they had been.

My paws stepped over the shattered marble, my talons clicked on the ground, and the animalia trembled in my wake.

“Will you kill us?” Owl asked. “For not doing as you would have and helping those who worshiped us?”

“No,” I said, taking my place in the center of the spiral. I settled in it, putting my head on top of my paws and opening my eyes as a human again. I lifted my hand in front of my face, and looked at it. The familiar scars I knew formed on my knuckles. “But you must decide now.”