“It’s your body growing,” I told her. “You’re getting big really fast right now. I’m coming and I promise I’ll help you.”
How I was going to help, I didn’t know, but Ryse seemed to think there was something we could do to ease my dragon’s pain…and by extension, my own, so I was eager to get to her.
As soon as we reached the Dragon Caverns, the Cavern Master was there to meet us.
“We’re getting the sweet grass right now,” he said. “But she won’t take it from me—you’ll need to give it to her yourself, lad.”
I realized he was talking to me—I’d gotten used to being treated like a girl again while Ryse and I were together. Straightening up, I did my best to look masculine.
“Will the sweet grass ease her pain?” I asked him.
He nodded.
“Yes, but be careful with it. There can be side effects—for both the dragon and the rider.”
“Side effects?” I asked, but he was already shoving a bundle of what looked like long-stemmed dried flowers into my arms.
“Hurry—get over there before she wakes every last dragon in the Caverns,” he ordered. “I’ve never seen a juvenile dragon with such a loud mental voice—she’s going to get every last one of them riled up if you don’t dose her quickly.”
I hurried as fast as the terrible aches would let me, following L’eesha’s pitiful mental moans through the honeycombed maze until I found her.
My Golden Queen was a pitiful sight—she was lying on her side, crying weakly and though she was much bigger than me by this time, all I wanted to do was take her in my arms and cuddle her.
I did the best I could, sitting on the hard stone floor beside her so I could take her big head in my lap.
She opened her rainbow eyes and looked up at me.
“my Auri—i knew that you would come. it hurts so much.”
“I know, sweetheart.” I stroked her golden muzzle soothingly. “I know but I have some special medicine that’s going to make you feel better.”
I had laid the armful of sweet grass on the floor beside me and now I picked up one of the dried flowers—which had a shriveled, dark purple blossom at the end of its long stalk—and offered it to her.
L’eesha turned up her nose at it.
“no! smells nasty!” she declared.
“But it will make you feel better,” I pointed out.
“doesn’t smell good,” was her stubborn reply.
I looked up at Ryse, who had followed me and was standing there, frowning.
“She doesn’t want to eat it!” I said, waving the stalk she’d rejected.
“I’ll have M’alex talk to her,” he said. He got a look of concentration, and I knew he was bespeaking his dragon.
A moment later L’eesha’s rainbow eyes went wide, and she looked up at me.
“M’alex says that nasty smelling stuff will make me feel good. he says he had some before and it’s nice.”
“Then maybe you’d better try some,” I said. Coaxingly, I waved the dried flower in front of her nose again.
This time, she reached out with her long tongue and wrapped it around the stalk. She drew it into her mouth and crunched it between her teeth, making faces as she did so that would have been hilarious if her pain wasn’t still pouring through me.
“doesn’t taste very good,” she informed me.
“Yes, but it’s going to help you feel better—just like M’alex told you,” I said. “Here, have another one.”
