His hand moved, passing between the arcs of her ribs, and when his hand closed around something white and rounded, I knew what it would be. Some called them Tanis stones, but they were just eggs carved from dragonstone. The white rock was useful for storing memories in, or amplifying psychic abilities. I was born in a nest of them, but sometimes dragons carried them to record their experiences. The earth began rumble in response to his movement, something that drew the other humans forward.
“Dain, no!”
I didn’t bother to work out who was shouting. When Dain’s hand closed around a crystal egg, drawing it out of the dirt and rocks, I was moving and so was Fern. He shouldn’t have been the one to retrieve it. The knowledge it possessed, it was a feminine wisdom, not masculine. Perhaps that was why the earth itself began to shake.
The answer is in the earth!Viridian cried, but he and everything else fell away the moment my claw, Fern’s hand, slapped downon the egg. I pricked her fingertip, then my own claw pad and then pressed it to the stone’s surface.
I am Drathnor.Her voice boomed inside my head, making my brain ache as she rose from the ground. Not in reality. A memory of her was trapped inside the stone, ready to be recalled.They call me Dreaded Drathnor or the White Death.Her jaws opened as she let out little pants, her whole side convulsing. That had blood oozing sluggishly from one of the many wounds that marred her side.I am the last of the white-gold queens and you will bear witness to my fate.
My eyes ached as I stared, unable to look away.
I am one of the few ancient dragons left. They forced me to take refuge here.
Who did?I wanted to ask, but there was no arguing with a memory. What she had put into the stone was what we would see.
Her fangs glittered, stained with blood.
Attacking my den when I was heavy with eggs.Her sides heaved again as they sought to expel her young, I now realised.Because they knew they would not be able to stand against me at my full power. Find…Her body, the memory, it was weakening, I could fee it.Find my nest and you’ll know the truth. Find?—
“We need to go now!”
Viridian’s rider broke the spell we were under, trying to wrench Fern free, and it soon became clear why. The entire cave system was shaking, pebbles and rocks falling to the ground.
“No…” Argent’s rider muttered. “Get Fern out of here! Get her out now!”
As the humans barked orders at each other, the rest of us moved.
Male dragons stepped forward, their wings outstretched to protect the lot of us. I went to snarl at them because they were blocking our escape, but the four of them looked upwards.
The answer is in the earth.
Why do you keep saying that!I snapped at Viridian.We need to get?—
Back.
Slate’s command would not be denied. Every single one of us moved to the perimeter of the cave as the male dragons all clustered closer. My wing went around Fern as rocks began to pelt us.
“Acid breathers…” Viridian’s rider said. “They’re going to?—”
“Melt a hole in the roof.” By Kael’s smug expression, you’d think he was the one to create an escape route for us, not Slate. “Everyone needs to get back. One drop of their spittle and it’ll burn a hole right through you.”
Fern—
I was about to clasp her against my chest, wrapping my wings around her, when she darted out from under my wing.
“Fern!”
Her name echoed throughout the cavern, shouted by every single human throat. As silver acid splashed against the rock above us, she darted around them, making for Drathnor’s bones.
Because another crystal egg that had rolled free.
I looked down at the one in my claws, sure it had to be the same one, only to find it still held tight.
“Gods be damned, no!”
Dain raced across the floor, his grimace, then the red blood blooming where his armour was burnt away, made clear he had been stung by the acid. As the earth, the rocks, everything above us, dissolved, revealing the sky, he plucked Fern from Drathnor’s bones.
Which meant I needed to rescue them.
