Blood of Dragons

‘The ravine!’ he shouted, and she saw it wide before her. It gaped, a steep-sided crack in the hillside, possibly a scar of the same quake that had levelled parts of Kelsingra. She started to slow, to turn to elude him, but he was too close behind her. ‘Don’t be stupid!’ he shouted, but it wasn’t, she decided, it wasn’t stupid at all.

She snapped her wings open, managed two down-beats that nearly lifted her off her feet and then she leapt. For a dizzying moment, there was nothing under her feet save the sudden drop-off. In the ravine far below her, she glimpsed a narrow, rushing stream cutting its way toward the river. Three more beats of her wings lifted her and then, as she lost focus and altitude in amazement at what she had done, the meadow on the other side seemed to reach up for her. She landed running, caught herself, skidded to a halt on her knees and then turned. ‘Tats! I flew! I really flew, it wasn’t just a jump. I flew!’

Tats had halted on the other side of the cleft in the earth. He was staring at her, a very strange expression on his face. Abruptly, he turned away. He walked off and then, putting his head down and pumping his arms, he ran from her.

She watched him go. Her heart that had been beating so wildly with joy and excitement now seemed to pump coldness through her body. Too strange. She was too strange for him. She glanced down at the black claws on her hands that had set her apart since the day she was born. She had always been too strange, too Changed by the Rain Wilds. The wings and the flight had been too much even for loyal Tats. Tears stung her eyes as she watched him go.

A shrill keening turned her eyes upward. Yes. Mercor had caught Sintara. Joined, they circled high above her. She shook her head, tried to clear it of the dragon’s heat that she had experienced so clearly. Time to be practical. Her bow. Had she dropped her bow in her wild flight from Tats? Where? On the other side?

She looked back the way she had come and saw Tats coming at her. He had gone up the hill slightly and now was running back down it in silence. His teeth were gritted in determination. ‘The gully!’ She shrieked the warning at him, but it was too late. In two strides he reached it and flung himself forward in a wild leap.

He couldn’t possibly make it.

But he did.

He hit on his feet, tucked his head down, rolled in a wild somersault and came up on his feet again. His impetus carried him forward and he crashed into her. But as his arms wrapped around her and he carried her to the ground with him, she knew it was no accident. ‘Caught you,’ he said.

The impact had driven the breath from her body. She gasped in air and, ‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘You have. At last.’ She saw his eyes widen. Then, as she took a deeper breath, his mouth covered hers. She closed her eyes, feeling his weight on her, smelling him, pulling him closer. The sun was above them, warming the whole world, and the only sound she heard was the joyous trumpeting of dragons.

EPILOGUE Generation

Tintaglia awoke in mid-morning. She lifted her head and looked at the sun. Then she rose and stretched and limbered her wings. The same restlessness that had afflicted her for the last ten days filled her again. It grew stronger as the sun rose higher.

She had chosen to sleep high on a rocky ridge on the cliffs behind Kelsingra after her morning kill. She had felt an urgency when she had first awakened, but dismissed it as only hunger. But now, fed, rested and awake, heritage memories were stirring in her. She studied the sun’s position in the sky. Yes.

She smelled him in the waft of his wings on the wind. She turned to watch Kalo circling slowly down to alight beside her. The blue-black drake had grown since she had first encountered him and would continue to grow for all the days of his life. He took two steps toward her and extended his neck, snuffling the air around her. Today. He offered the word and waited for her.

Today, she confirmed. It was time.

IceFyre swept past them. He knew better than to attempt to land near her. Kalo had established that with him in several bloody battles. But the old dragon was within his rights and knew it. ‘Today!’ he trumpeted the word as he overshadowed them briefly.

Downhill of them she saw other dragons lift their heads from where they had been dozing on the rocky cliffs. Far below them, in the city, she knew that the keepers would be pausing in their coming and going, stopping their ant-hill lives to stare up in wonder.

Kalo stared at her, his eyes spinning possessively. Who flies with you? he demanded.