Chapter 15 #7
“I am inclined to believe the opposite right now, Drake,” I growled, my mind whirling with the truth before my eyes.
Perhaps I was mistaken, but that egg was just as the scriptures had described, and I would rather be cautious and survive than be wrong and find myself incurring the wrath of an ancient dragon.
“Don’t be a coward, mate,” he taunted. “That’s probably just some fat fire drake’s egg.”
“That is nothing of the sort,” I insisted urgently. “All who scorn a dragon will perish,” I recited part of the Dragon Lore my mother had taught me when I was a kid. “All who touch the priceless shell of the unborn will be marked.”
“Shut him up, will you?” Tattoo Brows growled. “Or I’ll stick him with my knife.”
My camel shifted side to side, stamping its front feet and letting out a noise of distress. I patted its neck, trying to calm the animal, and suddenly a name carried into my mind from its thoughts.
“Azurea.”
“Not possible,” I breathed in response to the name of that legend.
“Maybe if we break it, we can carry it easier?” Jador suggested.
“We shouldn’t touch it,” another man called in panic. “Dragons are the guardians of the gods.”
“There are no such thing,” Drake scoffed, but he still didn’t get down from his camel.
“A man of sin, and man of steel, shall form a fragile, fate-bound deal,” the powerful female voice whispered in my mind and the air stirred around me with some unnatural power.
The wind picked up and somehow the stifling air grew hotter, and my gaze lifted to the empty sky as I feared what was approaching.
“We have to move,” I hissed.
“And where would you go, man of steel?” an ethereal female voice spoke inside my head like a caress against my soul. I stopped breathing, hunting for the source of it as my pulse drummed inside my ears.
“Who are you?” I spoke aloud and the others looked at me in confusion, though Drake’s brows were raised as if he’d heard her too.
“I have been known by a thousand names. Keeper of Shadows, Bringer of Death, Nightwing of the Fallen, Gallus the Great, but you know me as Azurea.”
“We mean you no harm,” I called, my eyes falling to the arsehole still touching this divine being’s egg. “Get away from there,” I snarled and Drake started nodding.
“Back up, Heston,” he barked, but the man seemed possessed as he stabbed his knife against the ruby shell, trying to shatter it and a roar echoed through the sky in response that was like a thunderclap.
The camels let out frightened honks and one of them went flying past me with two men on its back, tearing across the open space which held the nest and galloping up the other side of it into the ravine.
I raised my sword, spurring my camel forward and driving my boot into the back of Heston’s head to force him away from the egg.
He turned his knife on me and I saw a possessed demon in his eyes, reminding me further of the Dragon Lore.
Those with unworthy hearts shall be maddened by the hallowed power of the dragons.
A shadow cloaked us in darkness as a giant beast flew overhead and screams of alarm rang out behind me, but by the time I looked up, the sky was clear again.
“Just a piece.” Heston wetted his lips, slamming his knife into the egg again. “One little piece won’t be missed.”
“Stop,” I snapped and Drake steered his own camel to the man’s other side, booting him in the shoulder.
“Get away from it, motherfucker. I’m not gonna get eaten by some storybook monster because of you,” Drake growled.
“Monster?” Azurea laughed mockingly inside our minds, a threat lacing the word. “ Yes, I can be a monster, man of sin. Would you like to see?”
By the gods, we’re fucked.
“No thanks, we just wanna pass through. We’ll leave your egg right here, okay? All tucked up in this lovely little nest,” Drake called and Jador frowned at him as he moved closer on his camel, sweat beading on his brow.
“Who are you speaking to?” he demanded.
Before either of us could answer, Azurea swept down from the sky, landing before us with a tremendous thud as her taloned feet hit the ground, sending a quake right through the earth and into my bones.
She was as big as two houses, her scales jet black and gleaming like diamonds, looking just as sharp and unbreakable too.
The tips of her wings were blood red and as she folded them against her sides, she raised her long neck and regarded us through two moss green eyes that were so full of wisdom and age that it made me feel like nothing but a speck of dust, about to be cast away on the wind.
The camels were startled, shifting foot to foot and honking as we all fought to keep them from running. Because if there was one thing all Fae remembered of the Dragon Lore, it was the final line. Those who run from their majesty will die by tooth and claw and fire.
“Stay as still as you can,” I hissed at Drake, though why I was warning the thief was beyond me. The men behind us were in a panic, fighting to keep their animals under control while I kept my gaze firmly fixed on the beast of gods before us, my heart hammering in my chest.
Azurea’s face was one of terrifying beauty, her snout long and her eyes wide, but sharp teeth peeked from within those powerful jaws, and I knew I was standing before my death if she chose it. And it would be a bloody, merciless thing.
In a sudden movement, she lunged at Heston as he clung to her egg, her wide jaws clamping down over his head and shoulders, silencing the terrified scream that left him. In the next bite, she’d swallowed him whole and blood seeped between her teeth as the men behind me wailed.
“Holy fuck,” Drake breathed and I had to agree – not that I pitied the arsehole of his fate.
Only a fool would touch something so precious and assume he would not pay the price of it.
And as I had been trained to look death in the eye without blinking, my pulse rate barely rose in response to it.
It was the dragon who brought on a rise in it though, her magnificence something I had never encountered before, the air seeming to hum with her power.
This here was a boy’s dream, one I’d had long, long ago before I’d been moulded into an empty vessel of a man.
And it stirred something in me that had been lost for many years.
Her gaze moved from me to Drake and a plume of smoke trailed from her nostrils, her chest glowing as hot as embers, speaking of the fire that lived within her.
“You seek the treasure of Kalir,” she spoke within my mind again, her face not moving as she did so, and Drake scored a hand down the back of his neck.
“It’s not your treasure, is it?” he asked, though not like he was deterred by the possibility of that, more like he was planning how he might deceive a dragon so that he could still steal it.
But if Azurea had laid claim to that trove, we may as well give up hope now of ever securing it.
And in all honesty, I would sleep easier at night knowing she guarded it, because Magdor surely wasn’t powerful enough to take on a dragon.
She moved towards us with as much grace on land as she’d had on her wings, her clawed front foot raising to rest on her egg.
Then she rolled it away from us so it stood upright in the heart of the nest once more, taking her time to nuzzle the sand up around its base to hold it there.
She breathed against the shell and a wave of heat rippled in the air around the egg as she warmed it with the fire in her belly.
“I cannot enter that place. The treasure I crave can never be mine, a final insult from the gods. But this…this is my treasure, man of sin,” she answered at last, nuzzling her egg.
“Are there others like you?” I asked as my gaze fell on that egg.
“Are the dragons returning?” The stories of old said that most of the dragons had left with the gods, flying with them into the never realm, and those who’d stayed behind had died off many years ago after the Fae had turned against them, hunted them to the edges of the world in anger over the gods abandoning them.
“No, man of steel,” she said, her words full of sorrow as she gazed at her egg. “ But there will be one more soon.”
“Er, not to bring up the obvious, but how did you make a baby dragon without a daddy dragon?” Drake asked and I cursed him under my breath for his lack of tact.
“She is a gift,” Azurea breathed, her eyes sparkling with hope. “ I do not know what it means yet, but now I see a thief and a guard travelling together, and I believe I am starting to understand.”
“What do you mean?” I asked in confusion as the dragon regarded us.
Her eyes narrowed, her wings flexing a little at her shoulder blades and that fire in her burning brighter in her chest, making her scales glow red hot at the source of all that power.
“I was abandoned on this plane, left to rot alone for century after century.” Anger rippled through her words and I fought the urge to reach for my sword.
“Now the lost gods are playing games and perhaps I do not wish to play along.” She bared her teeth at us and I gripped the reins tighter, ensuring my camel didn’t make a bid for freedom, because we could not escape her hungry jaws.
“Wait,” I gasped, seeing our deaths in her eyes as wrath took root in her.
She sneered at me and I knew I had only seconds to come up with the words that might save us, and the only thing I could think of was her desire for the treasure we sought.
“We’ll give you the treasure, all we want is one sack full,” I offered. “The rest, we will remove from the cave so that you can claim it.”
Her eyes lit up at the thought of all the gold in that place and my throat thickened as I felt Drake giving me the side eye.
“The word of a Fallen Fae is nothing,” she said suspiciously.
“It is when our lives hang in the balance,” Drake pointed out and she narrowed her gaze on him. “What have you got to lose? If we don’t keep our word, you can just come hunt us down and bite our heads off.”
I nodded, though I was concerned by how easily he was going along with this. I presumed he understood that this promise must be kept, or we really would incur her wrath.
Azurea thought on it for a long moment then inclined her head and stepped aside to let us pass.
I shared a look with Drake, unable to believe we’d talked our way out of our deaths as we walked the camels towards her.
“Here, man of steel.” She dragged the claw on her thumb against her chest, peeling off one of her scales and dropping it at the feet of my camel.
She was so close, I could feel the warmth radiating from her, heating me through to my core.
I dismounted from the animal, picking up the scale which was the size of my hand and looking up at the immense creature before me.
It was warm and as smooth as silk, but the edges were as sharp as a blade.
“To summon me, you only need lay this in your palm and think my name. I will be waiting.”
The threat was there, hanging between us and speaking of the violent death promised to us if we broke our word to her. I nodded, pocketing the scale and climbing back onto my camel, taking in a slow breath as I followed the others out of the nest and deeper into the ravine.
As we left the scent of fire and ash behind us, I was sure we had just cheated death, and I prayed my lucky streak was not about to run out.