I didn’t want to reveal this. Taking out something so very personal and sharing it with the man felt fundamentally wrong, but there was something about the general’s intent gaze that had me telling him anyway. Perhaps because now he sat back in his chair, looking like the cat that got the cream.
“Well done, Lieutenant. So, during this trip of yours. Did anyone else end up… sampling the lady’s charms? I’m going to need a full briefing on what happened while you were away.”
This was to be expected. I’d prepared for this meeting over and over in my mind on the whole trip back to the keep. Somehow I still felt unprepared. I took in a shuddering breath, ready to report, when the office door was flung open.
“What is the meaning of this?” the general snapped at the officer standing in the doorway. “The keep better be on fire to warrant this kind of interruption.”
“Thought you might like to know, sir.” The honorific was tacked on hastily. “Two of the silver riders got into it in the foyer. We tried to drag them apart, but the minute we thought we hadthem settled, they’d lay into each other again. Something about the lady dragon rider?”
“Did they?” Rex was on his feet, a sharp smile on his face. “Fighting in the keep? That’ll earn a cadet a night in the stockade. I think I’ll deliver that information myself. Lance.” I stood up. “Stay here.” He glanced down at his desk drawers, then shook his head. “I’ll be back shortly and you can tell me exactly what happened.”
Leaving me unattended for some minutes as the general went to deal with the issue.Slate and Brightfang’s riders did this deliberately, Viridian said.They told me to tell you to?—
Investigate the general’s office, I thought.
Kael had to have instigated this to buy me some time. I saluted politely, then sat back down, right up until the point the door closed behind the two men.
Rifling through a man’s personal space sat badly with me, but if Rex was conspiring against us… Some part of me was still the idealistic boy that had been transported from a life in the poorer areas of the Wyrmpeak to a Royal Rider. I didn’t want to believe it of him, until I inspected the pile of books.
It was now apparent why the library was closed.
Text after text on dragons, their history, even the archaeological studies of human inhabitation of Nevermere, were included in the stack and it wasn’t the only pile of books. There were more piled up on the sideboard, the bookcase behind the general’s desk. Slips of paper poked out of their edges, indicating where the man had found something of interest. Far too many for me to look at them all now, but I could make a start. I flipped the first one open and then started to skim the page.
Some have surmised that the gods and goddess from our pantheon were actually based on ancient dragons of the past. When our primitive ancestors saw the terrible powers these massive beasts were able to wield, it is understandable that they would deem them gods. Statues unearthed around Wyrmpeak support this theory. The triple dragon statues that are now displayed in the royal museum are so similar to the depictions of the DreadSisters as to suggest that the dragon works were the inspiration for the form of the triple goddess…
I slipped the bookmark back in, opening to the next tabbed page.
Legends speak of the White Death, a dragon of such immense size as to blot out the sun itself. We have reason to believe that rather than a singular dragon, this was actually three dragons. It was always assumed that Drathnor was a male dragon, but archaeological records have revealed that she, as well as her sisters, Skael and Tharla, appear to be continental dragons that travelled across the channel periodically. This is evidenced in the relics found beneath Wyrmpeak which seem to mark the reproductive cycles of the beasts. We believe they visited what is now the mountain adjoining the keep of the Royal Riders to birth their eggs in the hatching sands…
My teeth ground together. I wasn’t the audience for a scholarly thesis on the origins of dragonkind, but an internal voice shouted at the writer, wishing they’d just get to the point. But it wasn’t an academic’s thoughts on ancient dragons I needed, but the general’s. What the hell was he reading all this information for? I flipped through the book faster now.
Dragons have been hunted aggressively on the continent since time immemorial, with only the far smaller beasts that can be used for domestic purposes being allowed to reproduce. It is for this reason we think that Drathnor and her sisters travelled so far to bear their young in Nevermere.
Not helpful, I thought, reading on.
Skael and Tharla appear to have been brought down in a coordinated attack by the chromatic dragons that are the forebears to the beasts that fly the skies of Nevermere. This may be due to the fact that there is little evidence of chromatic dragons mating with the white-gold queens.
I paused for a second, thinking about Viridian.
What were once thought to be fertility idols, appear to be representations of the mates of the dread sisters. Each dragonstone sculpture was clad in a beaten layer of silver metal.
Silver mates with gold, I thought.
Initial thoughts were that these were painted, to represent the different colours that naturally occur in chromatic dragon scales. However, no pigments have been found in or around the excavation other than malachite.
A copper ore that was characterised by a pattern of radiating circles, I knew it well. Someone had tried to sell Dad a sword with it inlaid into the grip, but my father turned it down. While the hilt was a truly beautiful shade of deep green, he’d made clear such a sword would shorten a man’s life through the absorption of the chemicals through the skin.
Green…? I blinked. The only pigment used at this site was green? That had me wanting to read more and discover why, but that wasn’t why I was here. If we were allowed to access the books, I could’ve pursued the reason why at leisure, but I couldn’t right now. Where in Wyrmpeak were these sculptures dug up? Were they around the keep hatching sands? There was unlikely to be anything left of Drathnor standing there. The mountain had been turned into a military compound hundreds of years ago, but we could easily check.
The antipathy other dragons express towards the green of their kind could–the book continued.
Brother. Viridian’s voice was like a poke in my ribs, demanding my attention.
Just a moment, I replied.
The general, that human, and all the others with him are almost at your floor, he said.
Shit. I flipped through the pages faster and faster, looking for something, anything that might help. Pages and pages of dry history, finely drawn images of sculptures that resembled the one in the foyer of the Centre for Dragon Studies. Dramatic renderings of what I assumed was a war fought between dragons.
