Of course he was.
“We need to talk about the crystal egg,” Lance said, drawing closer. “What possessed you to go back for it, Fern?”
Her cheeks pinked prettily, but her expression made clear this wasn’t a happy response.
“Auren seemed to think the eggs were important. I saw another one rise up out of the dirt as the cave started to collapse and grabbed it.”
The gold dragon stalked closer.
It is.Her claw opened to reveal a twin to the one Fern fished out of her pocket. The woman placed hers into her dragon’s palm. A quick flick of Auren’s talons and a bright ball of blood formed on the tip of one claw.This egg showed me Drathnor, the last of the white-gold queens.
White-gold…?I stared at ‘Fang.I thought females only came in gold.
Gold now, he said.Before? The ancient ones were different.
How were they different? I wanted to ask. Usually he’d talk my head off about any given topic, but on this he was curiously close lipped. Before I could push for more, Kael stepped forward.
“Then we need to see what it contains. You use blood to activate the magic, correct?”
A nod from Fern had his belt knife out, and he’d pricked his fingertip before handing it to me. I did the same as Lance used his own knife.
“You don’t have to,” I said, as Fern looked expectantly at me. “We can tell you what we see.”
“Nonsense.” She pulled the knife from my grip and pressed the tip of her finger to its point. With a wince, she drew it away, a ball of blood now forming. “So we just…”
Her voice trailed away and so did the entire campsite, because as Auren moved closer, we all reached out and pressed our fingers to the egg. The field, the trees, even the stars above were replaced by a familiar cavern and a massive dragon.
Find my nest, she insisted, her sides heaving.
They convulsed in a way I recognised, having seen my own sisters birth children. This was the moment when ‘Fang and his brothers were born.
Yes.
Auren’s voice rang in my ears, but Drathnor continued.
It’s there you’ll find out the truth,she said.Go, my sons and seek…She let out a hacking cough, bright red blood splattering the stones.They succeeded. My strength is waning. I don’t have enough to…Another cough and I knew this was bad. Seen it myself when a man got crushed by an oncoming carriage. Heart’s blood, that was what was hacked out.Silver mates with gold, she said finally.Remember that, my sons. Silver mates with gold.
I stumbled backwards and so did the others as the world abruptly resolved itself around us.
“What nest?” I recognised that tone as Kael paced back and forth by the fire. “And where?” We’d survived on the streets because he was always quick to find a plan of action, but there was hell to pay when he couldn’t work out the next step. “And who were they?” His focus shifted to Slate. “Do you know?”
You don’t, do you?I asked ‘Fang, already knowing the answer. There was no way he’d have been able to hold back information like that.
His head thrust itself under my arm, leaving me almost hanging in the air beside him. Didn’t know his own size, the idiot.
Silver mates with gold, he said in a far quieter tone.I remember that, but… We were born in our mother’s bones, not her nest.There were memories we should’ve received, knowledge we needed to know.
Don’t worry, brother.I raked my nails along the side of his head to the sounds of his grunts of pleasure.We’ll discover it together.
And that’s when my mind started to race. Dain liked to call me an idiot most days, but sometimes it felt like my brain was a net. It spent its days scooping up all of this extraneous information, only for things to come together in ways others couldn’t replicate.
“Wyrmpeak!” I said.
“Yes.” Kael’s sigh was long suffering. “We have to return to Wyrmpeak at some point.”
“No…” My finger shook as I pointed to Fern. “Remember that book you read? There was something about three sisters and they had overlapping territories around what is now Wyrmpeak.”
“Gods, yes.” Her eyes went wide as she smiled up at me. “The book that said Drathnor could freeze oceans and raise mountains.”
