Chapter 4
Liz
I’ve had functional wings for two weeks or more now, so I suppose I shouldn’t be too alarmed that there’s a magical rock the size of my fist lodged in my chest.
I cough a time or two, but the pressure I’m feeling doesn’t diminish.
Pity.
I’m sure it’s like anything else, like cutting my hair short, or getting fake nails put on. Eventually I’ll grow accustomed to it. Everything like this has a learning curve.
My wings, for example, take forever to clean.
The bottoms are constantly getting dirty—which makes the whole feathered mess look a little dingy.
I really should’ve asked for an upgrade the last time I hit the volcano.
Leathery or even tiny-scale covered wings would be so much easier to keep clean, and then Azar and I could coordinate.
As it is, I look like a dove to his pterodactyl.
It’s hard enough dating the king of the dragons. I don’t need to look like the mascot.
If I were making a list of all the things I dislike about life right now, the heart in my chest wouldn’t even be near the top.
That’s definitely Thunar, Daddy’s horrible envoy.
He has temporarily stood down, but only because he doesn’t want to attack all the blessed he brought with him who don’t want me killed thanks to the miracle they’ve witnessed.
Really though, more than helping me, they all want a miracle of their own. Humans aren’t the only greedy ones.
It was pretty draining to power up the hundred of them who crowded me before stupid Thunar flew back, alone, and scared me half to death.
All I was getting out of the bond was hazy, dark, and overwhelmed, so seeing three leave and one fly back.
. . I disliked that quite a bit. It seemed like a no-brainer to try and grant the newbie dragons’ request for wings and more, but I’m not sure how much I can replicate or how fast.
A manual on all of this really would have been nice.
If I ever meet this Jore in person, or her stupid boyfriend, Veraldan Radian (why does he get two names and Jore just one?), I’m going to have a lot of things to complain about.
The mess they left us to clean up is worse than assembling an entertainment center from Ikea.
But that’s not even our worst problem.
Azar tells me, the second he gets Thunar to relocate to another dwelling a few miles down the coast, that we need another ten thousand brights.
“I’m not going to lie,” I say. “That’s a lot.”
I’m worried we’ll need more than that. Azar explains what Thunar told him. All the blessed back home are unable to eat now, even the non-upgraded earth blessed. It looks like the ones who weren’t close got the bad part of my deal, but not the good part.
“But you can still get them wings, right?” Sammy asks.
I startle. I had no idea he was even listening. “Hey, sweetie.” I spin around and force a smile. “What are you doing in here?”
Sammy tilts his head and frowns. “Getting food. Coral said I had to hide until just a few minutes ago. Were Hyperion and Azar fighting with the new red dragon?”
“He’s their older brother,” I say, “and I’m afraid he’s not a very nice one.”
Half-brother, Hyperion says. His mother and ours were different, and he has always seen us as.
. . He pauses, and it makes me a little happy to see him acting like he cares about how Sammy deals with this information.
Coral’s been a really good influence on him, though I’ll never admit that.
I’m still sore that all my siblings ignored me and bonded dragons in spite of being very young.
“He thinks you’re annoying?” Sammy asks.
Something like that, Azar says. But he’s the kind of dragon who likes to kill things that annoy him.
“Me too,” Sammy says. “Mosquitos and ants. I kill them both.”
“To him, they’re worse than ants or mosquitoes,” I say. “Thunar sees his younger brothers and their prophecy as a threat, and when he got here, he didn’t like me much, either.”
“You’re just alive because you shoved the heart into your chest,” Coral says. She sneaks out from behind the edge of the wall connecting our main room to the hallway.
“So were you all listening in?” I lift both eyebrows.
Jade slinks out, biting her lip. “We weren’t listening in. We can already do that with our bonds, you know. We wanted to see you and make sure you’re alright, now that you have a big old rock stuck in your body.”
“It’s a pretty big rock, too,” Coral says. “It’s cool you did that, but also kind of weird. Does it hurt?”
About five seconds later, like she was waiting until she made sure no one was in danger of being eaten, Fluff Dog shoots around the corner, her fluffy tail flying straight back behind her, barking up a storm.
“You’re a little late to defend me.” I crouch down and she rockets upward into my arms. As I pet her little body, I’m aware that there’s nothing she can help.
There’s no situation that’s better now that she’s here, but my brain disagrees for some reason.
Petting her makes me feel better. I pivot on my heel.
“We’re bonded to you. Are we like your dogs?
Do we calm you down for no good reason?”
Hyperion snorts from where he’s sitting, just past the porch.
Asteria, who was apparently also lurking around the corner, laughs, and it’s a silvery sound that I can hear echoed in my brain as well. Dragon communication is peculiar.
But Gordon’s guffaw is about the strangest sound ever.
“Are you laughing?” I scowl at him as he finally slithers around the corner.
He has bigger legs now, but he almost never uses them, preferring to move like a serpent. Gordon can’t shrug very well, thanks to his squatty legs and serpentine body. Even so, when he tilts his head a bit and his tiny legs bunch up, I get the idea.
“I’m actually serious about this. Do you look at us like I look at this little dog?” I’m still petting her, and it has helped my anxiety level quite a lot.
“Yeah,” Coral asks, pinning Hyperion with a baleful glare. “Am I a dog to you? Is that how you think of me?”
I sense that yes is the wrong answer. Hyperion sounds nervous, which is strange. But you care for that small creature, though you could easily destroy it. It brings you joy, based on how you feel when it is near, and you do things to protect it, things that otherwise make no sense.
Yep, we’re dogs to the dragons.
The Australian Prime Minister approaches, Asteria says.
He wanted to bond a flame blessed, but with Azar and Hyperion both taken, he settled for a strike blessed. I had Asteria summon him the moment Thunar seemed to calm down for a moment.
“That was pretty fast,” I say.
Not nearly fast enough, Asteria says. Hess will get a talking to. He should be much quicker when summoned by his princess. Sometimes I forget she’s a strike blessed princess. Unlike her nasty sister Ocharta, she doesn’t wield her position like a blade.
Once good old George, the Prime Minister, lands nearby, I don’t waste any time. “You heard there’s a new player—an older brother of the flame blessed princes, and he’s not much of an ally to them or to the rest of us.”
George slides down from Hess’s back, and when he reaches the ground, his shoulders droop. “That’s not good.”
“We’ve reached a sort of ceasefire, at least for now,” I say. “But only after he nearly destroyed Hyperion and Azar. Everyone seems to think that if push comes to shove, our two boys would die.”
I didn’t say that, Azar says.
But no one else comments.
“The good news is that Thunar’s daddy is more powerful and he wouldn’t love our boys dying,” I say. “But he’s not here, so anything could happen if we aren’t careful.”
George has begun to pace. With my siblings, Gordon, and Azar all inside, Hyperion, Asteria, and now Hess just on the other side of our porch, there’s not much room for any quality pacing.
When I see him looking around for Hess, needing the visual reassurance from his own bonded, I know he’s at least as nervous as I am.
“Do we need to evacuate this area?” He’s doing something strange with his fingers, like tapping them all against his thumb in turn, over and over.
“It might not be a bad idea,” I say. “Though I think Thunar’s more intent on wresting control from his brothers than he is about harming humans. Even so. . .”
Now George is blinking. “I’m the one who pushed for this. What will they all say?”
“There’s another thing,” I say. “Along with Thunar, there are another, oh. . .” I cough. “Ten thousand or so dragons who have come to earth.” I scrunch my nose. “And they all need humans, too.”
Now his eyes bug out. “Ten. . .ten thousand more?”
I cough again. “And apparently there are more that may be coming.” I bite my lip.
“See, now it seems like all of them are kind of unable to eat back home—something I did here sort of changed things, and now they’re all dying a lot faster, which has probably made them crabby.
I’m hoping once they’re here, if we get them a human to bond, they’ll be fine. ”
“Because if not. . .” George straightens, seemingly recalling he’s the Prime Minister of an entire country.
“I’m sure they’ll be fine. We have been asking Australians to be tested to see whether they’re brights—my Hess has done quite a lot of screenings himself.
” He’s beaming, like he’s taking credit on some kind of news channel, gearing up for reelection.
I suppose once you’re a politician, you’re always a politician.
I do find myself looking around for a drone or something that might be recording this, but if there’s something nearby, I can’t spot it. “Good for him.” I say, hoping to get him to focus.
I decide that he must have just fallen back on his politician persona to handle the news. Maybe he always goes into Prime Minister mode when he’s stressed out. It takes a special person to go into politics, and a very special person to make it to the top, I guess.