The awe was genuine and he didn't try to contain it.
'The abilities of an ancient dragon keep surprising me,' he thought.
And then another layer arrived.
He looked at the frozen wolves. Then back at Kael. Then at the smoking corpses of the alpha and the first wolf, and the dead dog further back in the trees.
Kael had used the black fire. He had used those strange dark portals. He had used the black slash.
He had done all of that — the full performance, the demonstration of darkness element and shadow manipulation and whatever category the severing slash belonged to — when he could have simply issued a Dragon's Order at the start and ended the entire engagement before it began.
He had chosen not to.
Not because the Order was unavailable to him, not because the situation had required something else — but because this was a demonstration.
Noah understood exactly why Kael hadn't started with the Dragon's Order.
