Chapter 6 #2
The rattling train clacked closer to the platform where I sat, knees bouncing.
The summer heat had waned once the sun set, but nerves were making my clothes stick to me nonetheless.
I’d brought two knives tonight, not enjoying the task of sneaking through Treston after dark, but not for a minute too scared to miss out on meeting my dragon again.
Waiting until nightfall, though risky, would give my dragon the protection of darkness, but the delay was agonizing with me thinking every minute that my dragon would be caught and our secret would dissolve all too soon.
Fairfax had been clear: the dragon would find me. All I had to do was get to a place where no one else would intercept him. The woods directly outside the city were too dangerous. Someone would spot him, sound the alarm. If he was still hovering near the city, they likely already had.
I picked absently at the skin around my nails as I watched the people line up at the edge of the platform.
Businessmen with briefcases and pocket watches, women with gloved hands wrapped around children’s shoulders, keeping them close.
I’d lived in Treston my whole life, but I’d never ridden the trains, never once left the city.
I was too alert with adrenaline to fall asleep on the gently rocking train as we made our way out of the yellow-hued streets of Treston into the surrounding countryside.
West Haven, a small hamlet a two-hour ride outside of Treston, was my destination.
The train wound its way into the foothills of the Nevrons, surging under one tunnel and back out again.
As we neared West Haven, the moon rose, washing the undulating foothills with pale silver light.
This station here was eerily empty compared to Treston’s bustling platforms. Only one lamp glowed on the open-air platform, and the night had a slight chill to it, no stone buildings trapping in the heat.
I kept one hand on my knife in my pocket as I walked to the road, hoping beyond hope that Fairfax’s plan was a smart one.
He was already waiting at the lair whose address I carried in my pocket.
I was to lure the dragon there, where the owners likely wouldn’t have heard of the search taking place in Treston, and if they had, Fairfax assured me he could take care of their concerns.
After asking a tavern keeper for directions, I only had to take a few turns down cobbled roads laid between wood-and-plaster buildings before I saw the tall whitewashed walls of a dragon lair. It didn’t take long before wingbeats sounded in the night.
A swell of joy filled my chest.
The black dragon, flecked with gold, landed gently on the road before me, wings spread wide. His bright golden eyes fixed on me, and I grinned. Judging by how quickly he’d found me, he’d been following me all the way from Treston.
“Well, that was easy,” I said. The dragon snorted, and two lone sparks twirled from his nose through the thick darkness. A gasping laugh leaped from my mouth. “No, wait! You can’t…um, you can’t do that.” I propped my hands on my hips, utterly at a loss as to how to speak to a dragon—my dragon.
“You need a name.”
The words came as a whisper. Then, unable to contain my smile, I said again, louder, “You need a name.”
The dragon planted his back legs on the ground and reached his long face toward me.
He was smaller than the racers I’d watched yesterday, his neck thin enough that I could wrap my arms around him.
His back was ridged with spikes, and two long horns curled away from his black and gold face.
When his nose was only inches from my own, he paused. His breath was hot.
Heart thundering, I reached for him.
His eyes pinned on my hand. I yanked it back.
Then he knocked my arm, pushing me sideways. As I stumbled, he moved with me, claws clicking faintly on the cobblestones. His long tail whipped around, his eyes wide as he gave a small sideways hop.
His joy bubbled up as a laugh from my own mouth. “You’re playing,” I breathed, still so shocked I had a dragon. I’d seen the young dragons at the Covingtons’ lair play, but not usually with people.
“So, about your name,” I said, staring him up and down. “What do you think? Do you care what I call you?” I didn’t know anything about naming a dragon. That part hadn’t been in the few books I’d stolen.
The dragon lifted his chin.
“Well, fine. Tell me what you like. Onyx?”
He snorted.
“Okay. I didn’t like that either. Obsidian?
Okay, not that either,” I said as he thumped his tail violently.
“Let’s see. You’re not supposed to be able to bond at all, and yet you did.
I’m not supposed to either, by the way. I guess we’re not really supposed to exist.” He turned a golden eye on me, lowering his face closer.
“So, you’re a rebel, a secret, a fable. Or… Myth?”
He tilted his head slightly, his eye pinned on me. Then he twitched his nose and knocked it playfully into my stomach, tipping me forward. I was slumped against his face before I knew what was happening.
“Was that a yes?” I barked, trying to regain my footing. He lifted me up and waited until I wasn’t wriggling like a fish before edging backward. “Myth? Is that it, then?”
He puffed out a single spark that lifted into the air, turned a few circles, and burst like the smallest firework in the world.
“Myth,” I breathed, clutching my hands at my chest so I wouldn’t explode from excitement. I bounced on the balls of my feet, grinning like an idiot.
A little hesitantly, I edged around Myth. He snuffled my hair as I walked past, and I giggled.
“Cardan Lott might be a nightmare, but getting to know you is going to be so much fun,” I said to him as I walked down the empty street, my dragon walking softly beside me.