Dragons
“So soon? I thought we had two weeks to send out invitations to the families,” the queen said, sounding worried.
Apparently, this hatching was happening a little sooner than expected.
“Very true, My King. We must make the most of what we have.” Queen Mary looked around the room as if she were searching for someone. She then leaned over and whispered something in the king’s ear, and he nodded in agreement.
King Edward stood and addressed the room. “New firstborn additions to court are invited to the dragon hatching.”
I was shocked.
I never thought I would be accepted into court and have the chance to bond with a dragon on the same day. One of the other girls gasped and covered her mouth quickly, knowing that was very unladylike. The boys grinned, patting each other on the back and puffing out their chests.
“Send out messengers to the families that are in the city. Thank goodness dragons take their time getting out of those eggs,” Queen Mary said to the steward at her side before she turned her bright green eyes on us. “Follow me as we go to the dragon’s nesting area.”
Still slightly stunned at the turn of events, the whispers of the people around me faded into the background.
As a firstborn, it was never about you—no, it was about getting into court and finding a husband or wife.
Yet somehow, I managed to be born and presented to court at the right time to be here when a dragon clutch was hatching early.
As we left the throne room and the other court members behind, it finally hit me that this was really happening.
“Now, what do you know about a dragon hatching?” Queen Mary asked the group as we walked briskly down the hall. “Traditionally, we have those chosen tutored in dragon history, but we will have to make do under the circumstances.”
“I know that firstborn children of any age can be present if they’ve never had a chance to be at a hatching,” the young woman beside me said.
“Correct. What else?”
“A dragon does not have to bind itself to a human and can choose to be on its own,” I said, remembering what little my father had told me.
“Yes. It seems that at every hatching, fewer dragons pick someone, but such is the nature of dragons,” Queen Mary confirmed.
“There are six kinds of dragons. The common ones are brown, green, and blue. Then the less common are red and purple dragons, and finally, there is the rare golden queen dragon,” a young man piped up.
I started to zone out of the conversation, distracted by all the paintings on the corridor walls.
My eye caught one that seemed slightly different than the others.
The woman depicted wasn’t royalty, or at least she wasn’t dressed like one.
The woman was dressed in leather and looked more like a warrior.
That wasn’t what caught my eye, though—it was the fact I felt like I was looking into a mirror.
Her amber eyes flashed with determination, and her wild black hair whipped around her head like she was in a windstorm.
Trying to take it all in, I stepped on the hem of my dress and tripped, running into one of the other girls.
“Lady Cassarah, is everything okay?” Queen Mary asked.
“Yes, Your Majesty, my foot just slipped from my shoe.” Blushing, I made a show of moving my foot around as if putting my slipper back on. “My apologies for causing a stir.”
“All is well. I’m just glad you didn’t hurt yourself or others,” Queen Mary said, believing my little story. “Now we must hurry, or we will miss the whole thing.”
With that, we headed off at an even faster pace and dispensed with the talking, exiting through a large wooden door and swiftly walking through a manicured garden. That placed us in view of the dragon roost, the oldest building in the kingdom.
The roost was an impressive structure, but seeing it from afar was nothing compared to walking inside.
The rough-hewn stone walls stretched high into the sky and were interspersed with large, arched openings that allowed the dragons to fly inside.
Its domed structure was large enough to hold six fully grown dragons—which tended to be about the size of a large draft horse with a twenty-foot wingspan—as well as several hatchlings.
In the middle was a sandy arena where the queen’s golden dragon was laying, watching over the eight eggs wobbling from side to side.
The king’s blue dragon was perched in one of the hollowed-out cubbies in the side of the dome, watching over everything.
“You will wait here until I lead you out onto the sand. My dragon will kill anyone who enters the sand without me present,” Queen Mary said before she bustled off.
“Can you believe this? We’re here at a dragon hatching with a chance to have our very own dragon!” a young man burst out. It seemed as if he’d been holding it in for a while.
“I’m not sure I’m ready for this. I don’t know what I would do if I was pair-bonded to a dragon. I have a fear of heights,” the young woman beside me said, shivering at the thought. “I think I would be a terrible person to have a dragon.”
“What about you? Bet your family will be beside themselves knowing they have a chance to have a daughter who has a dragon,” another young man jeered at me. “Not bad for a fake noble’s firstborn, wouldn’t you say?”
“You know, I do believe that you’re great-great-grandfather killed the last duke and took his title,” I replied coolly, cocking my head at him. “Tell me, how does that really make us any different?”
The young man looked at me with fury in his eyes, then turned his back, ignoring me. Point for the more educated fake noble, I laughed to myself. I might not know exactly where I came from, but knowledge is power, and I was happy to remind them lest they forget.
I redirected my attention toward the dragon and the teetering eggs. The eggs themselves were larger than any other I’d ever seen. They would probably come just past my knee and would almost be too large to wrap my arms around.
“The first egg has cracked,” someone called out from a lookout post. “Two eggs have cracked. Three, four, five, six eggs have cracked.”
Queen Mary approached us with three other people—two men and one woman—who looked much older than us. “We must hurry now. If the eggs are cracking, then we don’t have much time.”
The queen brought us out onto the hot sand.
I was surprised by this because it was a cooler day for our climate.
They must heat the sand somehow to keep the eggs at a consistent temperature.
She lined us up in a half-moon a few feet away from the eggs, a safe distance in case any of the hatchlings became violent in their first disorienting moments free from the egg.
The first little dragon to be freed—well, relatively little, being the size of a large dog—was covered in slime and a little confused by its new surroundings.
It stumbled around, tripping every few steps as if looking for something or someone.
Finally, it headed in the direction of one of the men in our group, and as if the man knew the dragon was looking for him, he ran and picked it up from its most recent spill.
Next came a red dragon that paired itself with the woman who was brought in late.
Then a brown dragon hatched, walked up to its mother, and started to feed on the pile of meat left near her.
A few moments later, the young woman standing beside me cried out, raced forward, and started beating back a purple dragon attacking a small blue one.
“I’ve got you, little one. I won’t let them hurt you!
” she shouted as she punched, kicked, and clawed the baby purple dragon off the blue.
Deciding it wasn’t worth it, the purple dragon hissed and made its way over to its mother.
The newly hatched blue dragon curled up in the girl’s lap and started humming loudly.
The small crowd of family members in the roost gasped at this event, and the twittering of gossip buzzed off the rock walls.
I looked away from the girl and her dragon to see a green dragon and another brown dragon hatch. Each headed for their mother—only three had paired so far. I looked away from them to the last egg that was shaking violently. Could this last egg be mine? Could I even have a chance at this?
Suddenly, the egg burst open to expose a glistening black dragon. The crowd in the roost gasped and began screaming in fear, rushing for the exit. The black dragon turned its bright golden eyes to me, grabbing me with its gaze. I felt like it was searching my soul, looking for something in me.
Then it found it, and the next instant, I felt as if I was set on fire. I opened my mouth to scream, but nothing came out. I was lost in the swirling heat and pain.
“I have been waiting for you,” a smooth male voice said.
Finally, the heat cooled, and I was able to breathe again. When I opened my eyes, I found the little black dragon standing in front of me, biting into my left arm.
Once he saw I’d opened my eyes, he let go of my arm and sat in front of me, calmly looking into my eyes.
I looked up from his gaze and saw the queen running over to me with terror written on her face.
I turned my attention to my arm to see how bad the bite was, but surprisingly, no blood was seeping through the fabric, so it couldn’t be that bad.
I would have to take the over-dress off to get a better look at it, but I wasn’t too worried about it.
“Lady Cassarah, are you all right?” Queen Mary asked as she crouched by my side in a flurry of fabric. “Lord Everett, your assistance, please.”
“I’m fine. He didn’t bite me very hard… it just broke the skin,” I answered, not understanding why she was so worried.
“We need to get you to a healer right away if there’s to be any hope at all,” Queen Mary said.