Dragons #2
As she helped me to my feet, a towering man with a powerful build approached. His calculating dark brown eyes sized me up as he took a few steps closer to me, invading my personal space and making even the roost feel small.
“Lord Everett is going to take you to the palace healer.”
“Really, I’m fine. I don’t see the need to go to a healer for this,” I said, absently turning away from her to find my dragon. Not liking my answer, Lord Everett tried to use his sheer size to intimidate me, and I was trying not to show it was working.
Queen Mary grabbed me and whispered harshly in my ear. “That was not a request. A baby dragon’s bite contains lethal venom. It’s their only defense until they grow old enough to breathe fire. A black dragon is bad enough for this kingdom without it killing you.”
I felt my face drain as I realized what she’d said. My dragon could have just killed me? Is that what the feeling of fire was a moment ago? How could this be happening to me when things were going so well?
Dumbly, I nodded to the queen and let Lord Everett lead me off the sand and back toward the door.
Just as I was about to leave the roost, I heard a crooning sound as if something was crying.
I looked over my shoulder and saw my black dragon on the edge of the sand, watching me walk away from him.
All the other pair-bonded were still on the breeding grounds with their dragons.
One was bathing his dragon, another was feeding her dragon, and the blue dragon and her pair-bond were simply spending time together.
“Should I leave him so soon? All the others are staying with their dragons,” I asked, feeling that I would be abandoning him if I left now.
“The others didn’t have a black dragon that bit them. You should be writhing in pain. Normally, the venom hits fast and hard,” Queen Mary said, looking questioningly between my dragon and me. “Regardless, you must go to the healer quickly.”
I looked back at my dragon, trying to tell him with my eyes that I would be right back just as soon as I got my arm looked at.
As if he understood, he curled up in a little ball and heaved a heavy sigh.
Seeing that I wasn’t going to move quickly, Lord Everett picked me up and carried me through the garden, down a long hall, and into a room filled with herbs and plants hanging from the rafters.
“Alto, are you in here? I need you to look at this young woman who just got bit by her own dragon,” Lord Everett barked.
“A baby dragon bite, you say? Well, that is serious. You don’t get to treat that every day,” said a chipper feminine voice from somewhere in the room.
I peered around the room, trying to find the person the voice belonged to, and I didn’t have to wait long for the woman to come bustling up to the front.
She wore a simple light blue dress with a white apron over it.
Her tidy brown hair was pulled back into a bun, showing off her beautifully angled features.
“Well, hello there, I’m Alto, the palace healer,” she said, smiling at me.
“I will leave her in your hands,” Lord Everett said, bowing to me before he left the room.
“Let’s have a look at you, shall we?” she said, leading me over to a simple sheet-covered bed.
I unclasped the overdress and with Alto’s help, slipped off the tight sleeves to see my injured arm.
We both gasped in shock at what we found.
Instead of the bite mark we’d been expecting, I had what looked like a fresh brand, my skin raised in angry red welts arranged in a fractal swirling pattern.
“Well, this is most certainly not a dragon bite,” Alto said, her eyes shining with excitement. “I’ve never seen anything like this before. The good news is that you’ve clearly not been poisoned and are in no danger of dying.”
“I’m thankful for that, truly, but what happened to my arm?” I asked, worried. “How am I going to explain this to my family when they see it?”
“From what little I know of black dragons, they play by their own rules. This could be how he marked you as his pair-bond. That would be my best guess, though I’m not really sure,” Alto answered, shrugging her shoulders. “It’s been, oh, a hundred years or so since the last black dragon.”
I tried to keep up with everything, replaying what happened when my dragon hatched. The voice that echoed in my head, I knew without a doubt, was his. Did all dragons do that? I’d never heard of anyone else being able to hear their dragon talk. Maybe it was a secret they kept to themselves.
“Do dragons speak to their pair-bond?” I asked.
Alto blinked at me, caught off guard by my question. “No, I’ve never heard of dragons speaking. Did your dragon speak to you?” Alto asked, clutching my hand in hers, eyes wide with excitement.
Not wanting to admit it but knowing I should, I nodded my head once and quickly looked down at the floor, waiting for the reaction. The room was silent for a few heartbeats, making me want to run back to my dragon.
“What did your dragon say to you?” Alto asked.
“It doesn’t really make any sense to me. He said he’d been waiting for me.” I looked at her face, searching for answers. “What does that mean?”
“To me, it sounds like you and your dragon have a job to do,” Alto said, her face turning serious.
“Seems like you’re the reason the eggs hatched so early.
Your dragon knew you were here in the city and you needed to be present at the dragon hatching.
Now let’s get you back to him. A newly hatched dragon is not very friendly to anyone but its pair-bond.
” She glanced once more at my forearm before I put my overdress back on.
We made our way back to the roost in silence, neither one of us knowing what to expect once we got there.
A small crowd was still milling around the outside, talking about the hatching and the strange events that happened.
Once they saw me, I could feel their furtive glances, and I tried to ignore the gossip, entering the roost to find my hatchling.
But I didn’t see anyone in the hatching area or surrounding alcoves. I couldn’t even find my dragon.
“I don’t see my dragon anywhere. Would they have taken him somewhere?” I asked an attendant.
“It's here somewhere. It’d be most unusual for someone, even another pair-bond, to interact with another’s dragon,” the attendant answered.
Just as I was going to search deeper in the roost, I heard a loud, hissing snarl coming from deep in one of the alcoves.
I raced over to the other side of the hatching ground, instinctively knowing it was my dragon making that sound.
I was filled with panic—I had no idea what was going on, but I could feel his pain and anger.
I halted in front of the opening and gasped at what I saw. My dragon was crouched in the back of the alcove, cornered by three guards with spears trained on him. Blood seeped out of the wounds that covered his body, where their spears had already pierced his skin.
Anger welled up in me at this outrage. What right did they have to harm my dragon?
“What do you think you are doing to my dragon?” I demanded.
One of the guards looked at me in surprise. “You’re still alive?”
“Of course I’m alive. Why would you think otherwise?”
“Lord Everett said your dragon bit you. We couldn’t let your dragon live if his pair-bond was killed. They go crazy when that happens.”
“Did he go crazy before you started jabbing at him with your spears?”
“No... he was sleeping,” he answered, his unease growing.
“Then why, might I ask, did you feel the need to corner my dragon and kill him?”
“I ordered them to,” a voice boomed from behind me.
I whipped around to see Lord Everett.
“Too bad your dragon didn’t take care of killing you.
Now I’ll have to deal with you as well. It truly is fitting that a person of your lineage would end up with a cursed dragon.
Yet another mark against your family that is trying so hard to hide their past,” he said, letting his disdain for me drip from every word.
How had I missed this hatred when he’d brought me to the healer? My guess was the only thing that had kept him from killing me then was the queen’s command.
“What does any of this have to do with my family?” I asked, my anger pushing aside my fear of him.
He chuckled a little before he answered. “Everything, you stupid girl. Did they teach you nothing?”
He knew full well my family never spoke of our ancestors. He was just saying this to anger me. “Feel free to explain to me what that’s got to do with you killing my dragon.”
“The black dragon is an abomination,” he snarled, “and should be disposed of swiftly before it can work its evil magic.” He looked past me at his three men, watching our exchange. “What are you staring at? Finish the job.” Then he turned back to me. “I’ll deal with you myself.”
Anger flooded my body at that statement. Who was he to decide if I should live or die?
Lord Everett shoved me into the alcove, almost knocking me over. I stumbled a few steps and found my feet again, trying to come up with some way to keep this man from killing me. Lord Everett drew his sword and marched toward me as I backed closer to my dragon.
I had no way to defend myself or my hatchling. I was helpless. Nothing I’d been taught for the past twenty-one years would be of any help to me now.
Taking a deep breath, I gathered what little courage I had and screamed as loud as I could.
When I ran out of breath, I screamed again and again.
Lord Everett stopped with his arms still raised in readiness, but the other men dropped their spears and took off, not wanting to get caught.
I tried to hold onto the courage that was quickly fleeing away with the look of contempt that Lord Everett directed my way.
“I will not let you kill me or my dragon! You have no right to do so. If I have to draw the whole kingdom here with my screaming, I will,” I said resolutely, backing up the rest of the way until I shielded my dragon.