46. Aurora
AURORA
Up in the Hatching Grounds, everything was controlled chaos. Cadets were rushing to get to their eggs, many of which were rocking violently back and forth on the shiny black sands.
It felt like someone had turned the heat up too—I started sweating almost as soon as I stepped through the golden door.
Master Yarsmouth was there, of course, directing everyone to their eggs.
At the edge of the sands a huge table had been set up.
It was filled with bowls of raw meat—chunks of mutton and goat for the newly hatched drakelings which would be ravenous when they first emerged.
At the end of the table two of the women from the kitchens were chopping more meat off a couple of bloody carcasses—there had to be enough to go around or the drakelings could get agitated and start fighting each other.
Master Yarsmouth saw me as soon as I walked in. He came over, frowning and laid a hand on my arm.
“Your ‘egg’ hasn’t so much as twitched, lad,” he said to me, a frown of disapproval on his face. “Let me urge you to leave right now—it will spare you the shame and sorrow of having an unhatched egg.”
“I’m not going to have an unhatched egg,” I said, frowning. “Now please step aside—my drakeling needs me.”
“No.” Master Yarsmouth frowned. Crossing his arms over his chest, he stepped directly into my path. “I can’t let you sully this day—the Hatching is too important to—”
“Step out of Auri’s way, Master Yarsmouth.” Ryse stepped up to him, frowning. “Let him get to his egg.”
The Master of the Hatching Grounds looked up at him in surprise.
“You’re helping him? For shame! You’re a Wing Leader, Skoren—how can you encourage this delusion?”
“Auri’s not delusional—if he says he hears a dragon in that egg, then I believe him,” Ryse growled. “Now please step aside and let him get to his egg.”
He didn’t make any kind of verbal threat—he didn’t need to. The way he was glaring made Master Yarsmouth step out of my way.
Feeling relieved, I rushed through the shifting black sands, which seemed to suck at my boots and slow me down. I was worried because I couldn’t hear L’eesha.
Back on Impression Day, she’d called to me and though her voice was faint, I’d heard her from the front of the vast room. But now I heard nothing—not even a peep. I didn’t feel anything either and usually her impatience was the first thing that hit me when I walked into the Hatching Grounds.
I finally made it to the back of the grounds where all the abandoned golden eggs were piled like forgotten treasure. There it was—the smallest golden egg—but as Master Yarsmouth had said, it wasn’t moving a bit.
The other eggs were all rocking as the drakelings inside started chipping their way out.
They were born with one extra sharp tooth at the front of their muzzle—an egg tooth—which they used to break the shell when it was time.
But though I could hear the sound of shells cracking all around me, my egg wasn’t even moving.
“L’eesha?” I panted, dropping to my knees and putting a hand on the smooth golden shell. “Sweetheart, are you all right?”
For a long, awful moment, there was nothing but silence. Then I heard the tiniest whisper in my mind.
“so…tired.”
“L’eesha, sweetheart!”
I nearly cried from relief. She was there—she hadn’t died trying to break the shell! Which happened sometimes, unfortunately when a drakeling used every last fraction of its energy trying to get out and tired itself to death before it could break free of its egg.
“Come on,” I urged her. “Come out to me!”
“been…trying.” Her voice was still dreadfully faint in my head. “shell…too…thick.”
“What is it? What’s wrong?” It was Ryse, leaning over me with an anxious look on his face.
I looked up at him, feeling like I was going to cry.
“She says she’s been trying to get out, but the shell is too thick. She says she’s tired.”
He frowned in concern. We both knew that a drakeling could die trying to be hatched—it wasn’t even that unusual. However, helping a drakeling out of its shell was strictly forbidden. The Academy believed that any dragon who couldn’t be born on his or her own wasn’t worth having.
I thought it was a stupid policy myself, but it hadn’t worried me before. L’eesha always sounded so feisty whenever I talked to her, I had never doubted she would be able to get herself hatched when the time came. But now she sounded so faint…so terribly exhausted.
“please, my Auri…help…so tired…” she whispered in my mind.
Every muscle in my body ached with tension. I wanted to rip open the shell and cradle her in my arms, but I was forbidden to!
Ryse was still frowning.
“Sometimes the smaller eggs have thicker shells,” he murmured. “The drakelings have a harder time getting out.”
“I’m not supposed to help her…but I’m so afraid she’s going to die,” I whispered to Ryse as tears stung my eyes. “She’s calling for me—she needs me!”
“Look back and tell me if Master Yarsmouth or anyone else is watching us,” he murmured.
I cast a glance over my shoulder. Earlier the Master of the Hatching Grounds had been frowning at us in disapproval.
However, now he was crouched over a bright green egg that was rocking wildly in the sands.
No one else seemed to be watching either—they were all engrossed in their own hatching eggs.
“No—no one’s watching,” I told him.
“Good.” Reaching into his pocket, he drew out a familiar object. It was a small but heavy paperweight in the shape of a dragon I’d seen on his desk earlier, beside the ancient texts he’d gotten from the library. It was made of stone and it was just the right size to fit in the palm of his big hand.
My eyes widened as I realized that he’d brought it along on purpose—probably just for this reason.
“Keep an eye out,” he muttered to me. “Tell me if someone starts looking.”
Then he reached out and hit the apex of the golden egg with the dragon paperweight.
It was a precise and controlled blow—just enough to make a tiny, hairline crack appear in the golden shell.
“Hang on, L’eesha,” I whispered to my dragon, sending hope and strength to my little one. “Hang on—I’m coming!”
Ryse hit the golden shell twice more, until a spider web of cracks was running through the whole top half of the egg. Then he slipped the paperweight back into his pocket.
“That’s as much as I can do,” he murmured to me. “I’ve weakened the shell but your drakeling has to break through herself. If she doesn’t, her blood won’t circulate right, and her wings might die so she’ll never fly.”
The thought of a flightless dragon was terrible and heartbreaking. So though I wanted to beg him to actually break the shell all the way open, I knew he couldn’t.
Instead, I put a hand on the cracked shell and pushed as much strength as I could into the tiny drakeling within.
“Try again, sweetheart!” I begged. “Try again—we’ve weakened the shell. You should be able to get through.”
“so…tired,” I heard her whispered piteously.
“I know you’re tired, but I have some delicious meat waiting for you,” I told her. I nodded at Ryse who went to get a bowl from the table. “So tasty and juicy. I know you’re hungry, but you have to come out to get it.”
I felt a flare of interest from the little drakeling inside the egg.
“will try again,” she informed me.
And then I heard a tapping—faint but audible—coming from inside the shell.
“That’s right—good girl! Come out to me!” I urged. With all my might, I pushed strength and encouragement and love, cradling the golden egg in my lap as she pecked at the inside.
At last, just as Ryse returned with a bowl of fresh raw meat, I saw a small triangular piece of shell fall to the sands below.
“That’s right—that’s right, you’re doing it! Don’t give up!” I exclaimed.
Ryse frowned as he crouched beside me and picked up the piece of shell, which was about half the size of his palm.
“I was right—this is twice as thick as the other eggs’ shells! No wonder she’s having a hard time.”
“She’s doing it, though,” I said hopefully. “Come on, L’eesha—don’t give up!” I urged. “Can you smell the meat?” I picked up the bowl and waved it around near the small hole in the egg.
At once, a tiny wet snout poked at the hole, and I saw two teeny nostrils flare as she inhaled. I felt a surge of hunger from her and then the egg began to rock in my lap.
I watched with pride as my drakeling began to fight her way out like the double thick shell was her mortal enemy. As soon as the hole in the shell was big enough, I pushed a gobbet of meat into her little mouth.
“so good! so fresh!” I heard her little voice nearly moaning with hunger in my mind. She gobbled the meat and begged for more, which I gave to her.
But after three or four pieces, Ryse stopped me.
“No more—she needs to come out of the shell. Keep the meat for a reward.”
“more! more!” L’eesha demanded imperiously.
I was glad to hear her bossy tone returning.
“Not until you break through and come out to me, sweetheart,” I told her. “Come on—you’ve got more strength now. Break through to me!”
The meat had given her strength because a few moments later, more pieces of shell fell off.
They were coated with a thick white membrane that must be the egg sack.
It was slick with moisture and almost impossible to tear—my poor drakeling, no wonder she was having such a hard time!
Between the sac and the double thick shell, she was really having to struggle to be born.
I ached to rip the shell apart myself, but I knew I couldn’t. Instead I kept encouraging her, sending her love and strength and support and letting her know she could have as much meat as she wanted as soon as she came out.
I still wasn’t sure if she was going to make it. All around me drakelings were breaking free and falling into their rider’s laps. All around me, bonds were forming. But I couldn’t pay attention to any of that—I was completely focused on my own drakeling.
L’eesha, meanwhile, was getting irritated.
“bad shell!” I heard her say, as she fought to get out of it. “keeping me in. let me go! no more use for you!”
And then the egg in my lap started practically vibrating. I heard her thrashing wildly inside, hissing with anger.
“let me go! LET ME GO!” I heard her shout.
Outside the dragons’ song had grown so loud it was nearly deafening, as though it was rising to some kind of crescendo, yet I barely heard it.
“Watch out!” Ryse exclaimed. “It’s going to blow!”
Just as he spoke, the rest of the shell practically exploded with chunks of it going everywhere!
And there, sitting in my lap, was a perfect miniature Pure Gold dragon no bigger than a large puppy.