I am Dragon (Dragon Fires Rising Book 2) by Marc Secchia (famous ebook reader TXT) 📕

to offer help. Indeed, word of the search had even spread overnight. The royal cavalcade gained cheers and admirers everywhere, but to their frustration, they unearthed plenty of rumours – helpfully offered – that always turned out to be fruitless.

They paused on a remote beach to take stock.

“Far too imaginative, you Humans,” Dragon growled at Prince Gathazim, who skipped out of his way with aplomb.

At six feet and five, he was the tallest of the brothers. He was also the most skittish around Dragons. A brave and bluff warrior, he talked a good talk, but was desperately worried about the youngest brother, which Azania quietly told him was very sweet. Harazim was a quiet, studious lad, not at all the warrior type. Tahluzim openly hero-worshipped Azerim. He had very moist eyes by the end of the afternoon, when Aria started to talk about needing to return around suns-down.

All in all, these boys were no perfect family, but their care for one another shone. How he wished he could have enjoyed the same with his siblings.

Dragon clacked his fangs at no-one in particular.

Gathazim jumped again.

“Stop tormenting him, Dragon,” Aria growled.

“I wasn’t –”

“Relax! Stop trying to steal the limelight. Just be a normal male for once.”

Normal? Something inside of him shrivelled.

Was that what she wanted?

No, don’t you ever try to be normal, Azania’s thought interrupted.

Nausea spread through his stomach. Aye, but to some, different was not cause for celebration, it seemed. An accident of birth, a dam he had never met and a heritage he was still grappling with. Normal was the thing he would never be, not around this Archipelago, nor in his native Tamarine Mountains. Nor among the Sea Dragons, he suspected. What if he was overcome with the desire to migrate with them? Leave behind everything he had here?

Enough misery! He sent Azania a mental picture of him pulling up his big-Dragon trousers.

Her giggle made Aria round upon them. “What! What exactly is so funny? We’ve a lost Prince to find and not enough hours in the day to find him!”

If only she knew you as I do, slipped through Azania’s mind.

Aloud, she fibbed royally, “Dragon and I were just outbidding one other. He said ten, I say twenty more hamlets. What say you, Prince Tahluzim?”

“I will do thirty on my own!” He punched his chest. “Uh, if Valyrielle is willing, that is?”

The orange Dragoness grinned. “Lightweight. We’ll do forty, minimum.”

Drawing a steadying breath, Aria ordered, “Let’s go. Spread out and keep going – the moons will be full tonight. Let’s not leave a single stone unturned.”

Her look aimed at Dragon was unreadable.

Normal. He feared he’d be sick.

Tracking south, the Dragonwing spread out from the coastline to the mountains, rising and falling in regular cadence as they visited different hamlets and homesteads. The suns dipped behind the mountains, sending long fingers of shadows searching across the thick jungles. Since he was too large to land easily amongst tall, creeper-covered tropical thickets, Dragon and Azania had drawn the coastal strip. Many times, the hamlets were within walking distance of one another – he ran – and often tucked up along streams that reached the coast. It struck him that people were not afraid of Dragons here. Not like on Solixambria’s mainland, where the arrival of a huge paw-stomper was so often cause for fear and panic.

Azania questioned the villagers efficiently. Each time, after finding out that the young Prince was not present, they found out where the next hamlets or houses were.

Move on.

As Ignis poured down beneath the horizon as if the land or ocean were glugging away the enormous red sun, they encouraged one another. One more. Another. Rinse and repeat. There came a false alarm that brought everybody winging over in great excitement, only … he was not the Prince. Startling resemblance, but no.

He and Azania returned to the coastline as the moons rose, turning the shallow ocean waters as silver as a Princess’ jewellery. They searched now by candlelight, lamplight, firelight and scent. Digging his talons into the white beach sand, Dragon rushed from house to house. Always the same.

“Shall we fly over that headland?” Azania asked.

Dragon peered ahead. A rocky jumble rose sheer out of the waters – isolated from the beach by a rising tide. A few tropical bougainvillaea tufted the top like a very bad Human haircut.

“There’s a boy – look,” she said.

“I just smelled him. What’s he doing?”

“Taking a load of driftwood out to those rocks …” she mused. “Someone lives there? Scent the –”

“I’ll scent the –”

They chuckled quietly. Same thought. He shrank back into the cover of a dune. They watched the boy wading along until he disappeared into the darkness around the boulders, holding his bundle of bleached sticks high to keep them dry. He was not the Prince. Too old. He had a Dragon sense about that place, however. Danger? Too far for his senses to detect anything.

Drawing his magic about them, he stalked up the beach. Just a large patch of white. No. Why not use the water, his supposedly native element? Changing direction, he waded out into the waves about a quarter-mile from the rocks.

“What are you doing?” the Princess asked.

“Making sure you don’t stink when you see Azerim again,” he said, submerging until only his head and hers showed.

“Wow, thanks for the compliment.”

“Scrub those armpits, my dear Princess. Festering cesspits of nastiness.”

She took pause. “Are you smelling infection?”

Dragon said something very rude. “Aye! Sorry, I didn’t add one talon to the next … I believe the salt water immersion should help. Are you alright, Princess?”

“I don’t feel great. The water’s cooler than it ought to be, if that makes any sense at all.” She wriggled against his neck. “Oh … it’s my breast. Hot