“How long?” My fingers traced the base of its skull, searching for pressure points, checking for fever signs. The creature pressed harder against me, knocking me backwards.
“Three months. Maybe four.” The man, Thorven, his name came to me from town gossip, he couldn’t stop staring at the way the wyrmling clung to me. “Been getting worse since that lady started visiting again.”
“The lady?” I asked.
“Lady Kelda,” he continued. “Comes near-daily now. Always closeted with Lord Stormgarde in his study for hours at a time. This one,” he gestured at the creature trembling in my arms, “used to be the lord’s shadow. He went everywhere with him. But ever since her visits started this year, he’s been wrong. Violent.”
My hand moved to the wyrmling’s chest, pressing gently. Its heartbeat hammered against my palm.
“Lord Stormgarde ordered him locked away after he attacked one of the sentinels.”
The wyrmling keened again, softer this time. I shifted my grip, supporting more of its weight, and it curled tighter, claws pricking through my blouse.
I tilted its head up, to check its eyes. The pupils blew wide, then contracted to pinpoints so small I could barely see them. Back and forth. Expanding and shrinking with no pattern Icould follow. My thumb found the soft scales behind its ear, and I started stroking in slow circles. The creature shuddered, its entire body going liquid for a heartbeat before tensing again.
“What did she do when she visited?” I asked.
Thorven shifted his weight. “Don’t know really. Lord Stormgarde always sends the staff away. But I’ve seen her leaving. She looks... satisfied. And the wyrmling’s always worse after.”
I worked my way down the creature’s spine, counting vertebrae, checking each joint. The silver markings flared brighter under my touch. The wyrmling made a sound between a purr and a sob.
“How did Lady Kelda get involved with your master?” My hands moved without thinking, mapping the creature’s body.
“She’s been an old friend of the family, but lately she offered her services. Hearthcraft specialist, she said. Supposed to help stabilize the estate’s enchantments.” Thorven’s voice went flat. “Instead, everything’s falling apart.”
The wyrmling’s claws flexed against my shoulders. I pressed my cheek to the top of its head, feeling scales catch in my hair. Its trembling had lessened but hadn’t stopped.
“This isn’t illness,” I said.
“What is it, then?” Thorven asked.
I didn’t answer immediately. The wyrmling’s heartbeat had slowed under my palm, but the silver veins still pulsed beneath its scales.
“I don’t know. It’s something else.”
The creature made a small questioning sound against my throat.
“Let me keep him,” I said. “A day or two. See if the symptoms change when he’s away from the manor.”
Thorven’s scarred hands clenched into fists. “Lord Stormgarde won’t like it. He sent me to fetch help, not surrender his familiar.”
“Then tell him I need time to observe.” I stroked down the wyrmling’s spine again. It pressed harder against me. “If it’s connected to the estate’s enchantments like you said, distance might help me understand what we’re dealing with.”
The silence stretched. Finally, Thorven nodded.
I couldn’t sleep that night. The infirmary’s kennel sat in the back room, reinforced with iron bars and Hearthcraft wards that should have held anything short of a full-grown dragon. The wyrmling lay curled in the corner, his breathing shallow and rapid even in sleep.
At three in the morning, he started whimpering. I pushed off the cot I’d dragged into the hallway and moved to the kennel door. Through the bars, I could see the wyrmling thrashing weakly, his wings twitching against the stone floor. His claws scraped at nothing. The silver markings along his spine pulsed erratically, bright then dim, bright then dim.
Then he started making broken, struggling, sounds, like something was trying to claw its way out through his throat. I unlocked the kennel and slipped inside.
The wyrmling didn’t wake. His eyes stayed closed, moving rapidly beneath the lids. Dreaming. Or trapped in something that looked like dreaming. I knelt beside him, reached out to stroke his neck.
Movement caught my eye. The water bowl sat in the corner where I’d left it hours ago. The surface was still, mirror-smooth. And in that reflection –
My hand froze. The wyrmling’s scales looked different in the reflection. An oily shimmer overlay the midnight-blue, like a film of something viscous coating his true form. The silver markings writhed in the reflection, alive and serpentine rather than static.
I looked at the creature beside me. It had normal midnight-blue scales, with silver markings fixed and beautiful. Exactly as they’d been all day.
