“Are you?” Sevrin asks, his gaze intense.
“Insolent little…” the advisor murmurs, but he trails off, stopping himself from saying something that may cause a lot of issues.
At last, Sevrin nods. “Alright then, everything seems to be in order.”
“Time to keep your end of the bargain then,” the king says. “How do we make more male hatchlings before it’s too late?”
Sevrin stands taller, and my princes observe him with a little trepidation. I truly wonder if they’re hoping the Hollowborn has the information or not. They’ve become friends in a short amount of time, but that still might not outweigh their hatred of his kind.
“The reason male dragon babies have stopped being born is because this war between the two continents was never supposed to happen.” Sevrin pauses, letting his words sink in. “Dragons are supposed to come to Volcaris. There, we have some lava pools that are sacred to the dragons. They are meant to bathe in them, and from bathing in them, the male babies are born.”
“How do you know that?” the king asks.
Sevrin doesn’t even hesitate. “We read some ancient texts that explained everything. They also made it clear that the Hollowborn were gifted with the ability to raise the dead, but they were never meant to raise dragons. Instead, our lands should be full of dragons.”
“Will that stop you from raising dragons?” Gareth asks.
The other man shakes his head. “For now, we need the bone wyrm.”
“So.” The king taps his chin thoughtfully. “Our dragons need to bathe in these sacred pools.”
“How convenient, something that’s hard to test,” the advisor says, glaring at Sevrin.
Sevrin seems to have already planned how to handle this. “My thought is that we bring Ebron, his mates, and some female dragons from the Island of Dragons, so we have a range of female dragons to test my words with, and then we see if they have male dragons.”
“Wait,” I say, my mind twisting. “Would that mean Ebron would impregnate all the female dragons?”
Lucien gives me a funny look. “I think a better idea would be to let the female dragons go free after we’ve brought them to these lava pools. They clearly know enough to be able to find the various male dragons spread about the world.”
Okay, well, thatisa better idea.
“That will takemonths,” Elder Thorne hisses.
Sevrin is unaffected by the angry old man. “As it will take us months to properly set up and use your lands.”
The advisor looks at the king. “You can’t possibly go along with this Hollowborn’s idea!”
Alaric steps closer to his father’s desk and taps the map. “Elder Thorne, I thought you were a smart man.”
He looks shocked. “I am.”
“Then surely you didn’t think he could magically conjure male dragons? The Hollowborn have powers, but that’s out of their reach. You should know that.”
“I did know that.”
“Then what’s the problem? He’s given us the solution to our problem, and is also offering an idea for how to test his words. It seems to me that the next step is assembling a crew to take the dragons to these sacred pools. And I may be speaking out of turn, but I’m certain that King Sevrin would gladly take us, and our dragons, to the sacred pools.”
“And what if it’s a trap?” the advisor asks.
Alaric shrugs. “I think we can handle anything that comes our way.” He glances back at his brothers. “What do you think?”
Lucien leans against his father’s desk. “Most certainly. But I’ll also say, I have faith that King Sevrin is being honest with us.”
Elder Thorne huffs.
The king rounds on him. “Enough!” Then he turns back to us. “Be ready. You leave in a week’s time.”
After dismissing us, our group heads out into the hall, and Sevrin links his fingers with mine as we let what just happened sink in. “Thank you for having my back in there,” Sevrin says.
