"I smell death!"
Callum and Rayla try to sneak past the dragon guarding Xadia, while Amaya and the soldiers on the border consider their options.
This episode contains examples of:
- Affectionate Gesture to the Nose: Rayla playfully taps Callum's nose when explaining to him how to evade Sol Regem's senses.
- Beam-O-War: Subverted, Ziard's fireball and Sol Regem's breath pass through each other, causing both to be hit.
- Beef Gate: Sol Regem guards the entrance to Xadia and the heroes have to find a way to get past him.
- Big "NO!": When Ziard refuses to give up dark magic, Sol Regem flies off towards Elarion to burn down the whole city along with its citizens. Comes with an added Futile Hand Reach.
- Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: Ziard was Reduced to Dust against Sol Regem, but he at least threw a fireball strong enough to permanently blind him.
- Cassandra Truth: Like Rayla's allies at the start of the series, Sol Regem doesn't believe that the Dragon Prince is alive until Rayla holds Zym close enough for the larger dragon to smell him.
- Chekhov's Gun: Callum's scent seeps into his scarf since he hasn't bathed in a while, allowing Rayla to exploit Sol Regem's blindness and strong sense of smell.
- Did You Just Scam Cthulhu?: Rayla and Callum stand no chance against Sol Regem so, rather than punch or hit him, they use Callum's human scent trick him long enough for them to finally enter Xadia.
- Doesn't Trust Those Guys: The last time Sol Regem dealt with a human using Dark Magic, he was rendered blind. He'd rather not allow another one who had a taste of Dark Magic (in this case, Callum) to live.
- Exact Words: Ziard reminds Sol Regem that he was promised safety if he agreed to the meeting. Sol Regem assures him he'll remain safe on the hill, far from the city Sol Regem will burn to the ground if Ziard doesn't give in to his demands.
- Not that Sol Regem's promise means anything after Ziard reneges on his side of the bargain by conjuring a huge whirlwind of dark magic.
- Eye Scream: Ziard's fireball fries Sol Regem's face, rendering him completely blind.
- Friendship Moment: Rayla standing up to Sol Regem and refusing to let him kill Callum, calling the prince her best friend.
- Held Gaze: Callum and Rayla share a moment of eye contact when he moves to adjust his scarf on her, when he smiles assuredly at her Rayla turns away, still embarrassed over her Aborted Declaration of Love last season. They're then loudly interrupted by the roar of the still angry sun dragon.
- Help, I'm Stuck!: During their fight against Sol Regem, Rayla gets stuck between rocks and has to get rescued by Callum.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Both Amaya and Rayla attempt to do this in their respective storylines. They both survive.
- Hypocrite: Sol Regem hates Dark Magic and has zero tolerance for it because it causes the deaths of innocent magic creatures and also because Ziard used it to blind him. This is completely understandable... yet he is perfectly willing to slaughter innocents himself if they refuse to yield to his demands. In the past, Sol Regem threatened to destroy an entire city of innocent people in an attempt to pressure Ziard into forsaking Dark Magic, and in the present, he threatens and attempts to kill Rayla, Callum, and the infant dragon prince Zym, even before he learns that Callum has used dark magic.
- Ironic Echo: Sol Regem's words "I smell death" refers to those delving into Dark Magic. The flashback has him say these words to the Dark Mage with contempt. He later says this again at Callum with malice, accusing him and the rest of humanity to be no different from Ziard.
- Kneel Before Frodo: The whole court kneels before Ezran when he gets handed the crown.
- Magic Staff: Ziard claims that his staff was a gift from one of the "Great Ones", a claim that enrages Sol Regem.
- Necessary Drawback: The fact that Sol Regem is only able to breathe fire every couple of minutes gives our heroes a fighting chance.
- Once More, with Clarity: The opening scene of the series depicts a human mage using dark magic to absorb the magical energies of several magical birds, killing them, in order to cast a fireball. It is then described that this evil power incited the elves to unite against the humans and banish them. This episode shows this event again with greater context. The mage, Ziard, had just been told that the Dragon King of the time, Sol Regen, is going to incinerate a human city in response to their use of long-standing use of dark magic and cast the spell to try to stop him. Instead of a callous man killing for power, Ziard was a desperate man using the only power he had to save hundreds of thousands of people and the conflict between humans and elves and dragons was far more violent than the initial description indicated. However, context is still missing. Judging by his hair, Ziard has used a lot of dark magic, which means he, by himself, has killed many magical creatures, and he has followers. This is not the first incident of dark magic.
- Outrun the Fireball: Callum and Rayla have to outrun Sol Regem's fire breath twice.
- Save the Villain: Despite facing her in combat multiple times, Amaya decides to save the Sunfire Elf leader after destroying the Breach.
- Seal the Breach: Amaya and her troops are tasked with protecting the human realm by sealing the Breach with explosives. It eventually works out but also keeps Amaya Trapped Behind Enemy Lines.
- So Much for Stealth Rayla's plan to bypass the blind Sol Regem is using stealth. The plan gets foiled by the noisy Dragon Prince who has no concept of stealth.
- Talking Your Way Out: Subverted. Rayla tries to persuade Sol Regem to let her and Calum pass peacefully. At first she seems successful in speaking for Callum, but it falls apart when he senses the human having traces of Dark Magic.
- Throwing the Distraction: Rayla throws a rock to divert Sol Regem's attention away from the Dragon Prince.
- Unplanned Manual Detonation: The humans try to Seal the Breach to the Elves' realm by remotely detonating explosives but the Sunfire Elf leader cuts the fuse. Amaya then decides to go on a Suicide Mission to trigger the explosion manually. She succeeds and survives at the cost of getting captured by the enemy.
- Would Hurt a Child:
- When Sol Regem threatens to destroy the human city of Elarion, Ziard pleads that the city is full of innocents and children.
- Later on, Sol Regem also has no qualms against trying to kill the young Callum and Rayla, or even the infant Zym. Since the dragon has dealt with those with Dark Magic, he attempts to kill Callum since the human had delved into it last season, and threatens to do the same with Rayla and Zym if they don't leave him be.
