“But… that’s a real dragon. A real one!” Her mind clearly can’t accept what she’s seeing.
“Very real. Except he’s just an alien. But what a spectacular alien!”
“But…” She gives up and shakes her head as though deciding there are some subjects too strange to investigate.
Around us, the Plood mill around, arranging their dead in strange five-pointed stars. Some of them are only injured.
I spot Clyde and hurry over. “Here. Use this to heal, if you can.” I hand him the little pot with the not-Vicks lotion.
Then I look back up.
High above us the dark speck suddenly plunges toward the earth. My stomach clenches even though he's far away. A heartbeat later he levels out and races across the sky so quickly that I almost lose sight of him. “You’re showing off.”
His amusement brushes against my thoughts.Of course I'm showing off. Why would I become magnificent and then keep it secret?
I laugh again. I think this might work out right. For a while I simply stand there and watch him.
The sky grows darker. The clouds deepen from gold to crimson. Vyrathion circles above it all like a creature that has finally escaped a prison. Every pass carries him farther across the horizon before he swings back again. He seems incapable of deciding where to go because everywhere is suddenly available to him.
Then something changes. I feel it before I see it. The wild delight remains, but another emotion slowly rises beneath it. Something calmer. More thoughtful. The sensation reminds me of watchinga river settle after a storm. The current still runs strong, yet the chaos begins to disappear.
The dark shape turns toward us. This time he doesn't climb again. He descends.
The girls notice it too. Their conversation dies away as the dragon drops lower and lower through the evening sky. By the time he reaches the hillside opposite us, nobody is speaking anymore. The girls are tensing up, the way I would around Praxigor.
His landing shakes the ground. Loose stones tumble down the slope. Nearby tribesmen throw themselves flat and cover their heads. Even after everything we've seen today, the sight of a dragon settling onto the earth remains almost impossible to comprehend.
Vyrathion folds his wings. Then he begins walking toward me on all four legs, somehow even more beautiful and perfect than before. Each step carries an effortless confidence that wasn't there before. The half-dragon always seemed constrained somehow, forced into a shape that never quite fit him. This creature looks complete. Every movement carries the certainty of something that finally occupies its proper form.
I find myself walking toward him as well. The distance closes quickly.
When we finally stop, his head lowers until one enormous silver eye is level with mine. I place a hand against the scales of his snout without really thinking about it. They're warm.
For several moments neither of us speaks.
Then his voice enters my thoughts.Morgan, I was wrong.
The statement catches me so completely off guard that I almost laugh. Of all the things I expected to hear from a fully restored dragon, an admission of error wasn't among them.
"About what?"
The great head shifts slightly beneath my hand.About Praxigor.
I stare at him. "About the gold? The hoard?"
For the first time since landing, Vyrathion hesitates. The pause lasts only a few seconds, but with him it feels remarkable.About everything. I thought he was hiding his treasure. I thought he was deceiving me.His gaze remains fixed on me.I understand now.
"What do you understand?"
The answer arrives immediately.I understand why he laughed at me.
I frown. That isn't where I expected this conversation to go. "You mean when he said Astrid was his hoard?"
Yes.The dragon's tail moves slowly behind him.At the time I believed he was hiding something. I thought he was speaking in riddles. I thought he was protecting his hoard from another dragon.His great head lowers.It never crossed my mind that he was simply telling the truth.
At the time Vyrathion dismissed it completely. Now he sounds almost awed by it.
"You believe him now?"
