A thousand years. It had been a very long thousand years.
Among the Demon Clan, the creature's name was spoken with equal parts fear and reverence. Cunning, ruthless, and monstrously powerful, it was one of the Demon Lord's Eight Guardians, the infamous Six-Headed Twin-Winged Serpent.
For an entire millennium, it had failed.
No matter how it raged or schemed, it had never managed to break the seal Lyanna cast upon the Mist Veil Palace. It had never laid its coils upon the Divine Artifact known as the Dragon-Horse Lyre. And now, with the Demon Lord stirring from slumber, the serpent could already imagine the inevitable question.
Where is the artifact?
Its massive wings beat violently against the air, each stroke cracking the sky as it forced itself beyond its usual limits. The seal had fallen, that much it could sense. But who had broken it? Had the Dragon-Horse Lyre already been taken?
It did not know.
