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

HALT, DRAGON!

Chapter 10: Fires Burn Bright

HIS TALONS CLENCHED INVOLUNTARILY in the grey sand as his sire’s bellow cut through the hubbub. He did not turn. Could not. Had his paws been welded to the ground, he would have been no less effectively immobilised.

Blaze called, Brother Dragons, I too know this Dragon. I have spoken with this Princess. I cannot believe that either would lie. If Dragon says he breathed fire, then he breathed fire.

But, sire – Brand began.

But, indeed. Just as the young Princess gave us a demonstration, Dragon –

No! I will not.

Do you refuse to offer proof?

Trembling, he bade his wings still and his fires withhold. Please. Anything but this! At last, he turned to face his sire. Did he not know? Could he not imagine what this might do to him?

Eyes so dark with emotion they appeared almost fireless, fixed upon him across the short space that separated them. Blaze seemed on the point of speech, but the words must have stuck in his throat. Strange, unknowable colours played upon his scent senses, a brew too complex to evaluate immediately. He understood. He wanted this, but feared it, too. That acrid scent was clear. After the longest, most fraught hiatus he had ever known, his sire’s head bobbed up and down.

A fire bomb imploded inside his chest. No! He could not mean …

Truth. Was there any force more brutal, any light that shone brighter beneath the suns? His sire could not mean it. Surely not!

As he dithered, Princess Azania jogged over to Blaze. He lowered his great muzzle to attend to her whisper; after a few seconds in which no Dragon dared shuffle so much as a wingtip, he nodded again and whispered something back to her. His talon tapped the top of her right shoulder, just once, a draconic signal of acknowledgement of a service rendered. Then, the orange Dragon raised his head to the stars as if seeking answers from the cosmos.

The congregation stilled.

He said, What a Dragon chooses to do with their own honour, is a matter for them alone. However, when a Dragon chooses to sacrifice their honour that another might remain blameless, then that is a demonstration of integrity – which is, I believe, one of the highest forms of honour known to the Dragonkind. We might even call it a true expression of love.

Perhaps there were Dragons here who did not understand, but many did. The way Azania gazed at him, he knew her heart wept for joy as only a Human heart could.

The very night air took a collective inhalation.

This Dragon was the son of my loins, Blaze added. One day, I believe he still will be, and this imperfect sire can only wait and hope for the honour such a day will accord him. Now, Dragon. Have you fires?

I … do, he croaked.

Then, please. Show us all who you are.

His sire genuflected respectfully. Beside him, Azania wiped her eyes. For his part, his head had just come disconnected from the rest of his body, feeling as if it were floating mysteriously above the ground according to a process hitherto undiscovered by science.

Was this an apology? Fury shaped the fires suddenly come alive in his chest.

Best clear the way, Yarimda called out suddenly. Her aged tones quavered in her throat, but the motion of her walking stick was more than firm. You Dragons, step aside, please. Make a path.

They gaped at her.

Right to the back! I mean it – shift a paw there, younglings. Only respect for an elder kept them from grinding their fangs in her direction. Now, young Dragon, see that tree?

He nodded. Not terribly well, but an outline in the darkness was enough.

I’d like a nice big bonfire, please.

Every Dragon around them measured the distance with palpable incredulity. Eighty feet? No Dragon could expel his fire that far.

Glittering of eye, his brothers looked on as Dragon tried to remember how to breathe. So queasy. The incident with the stomach full of oil played in his memory. He had never been the best performer under pressure. Too dreadful to imagine if the fires chose this moment to disappear once more!

A cane thwacked him in the knee. Dragon, pay attention. Imagine Jabiz Urdoo over there – now, paint him for me!

He did not.

What he painted, was that moment the Jabiz had lifted Princess Azania by her hair. He evoked the way the man’s lips twisted as he spat into her face. Then, he deliberately threw him against the electric machine. Man-toast. Ah, the sickly-sweet stench of flesh roasting upon a spit of his own making. The epitome of justice.

A crackling akin to a bonfire spitting to its full height emanated from the depths of his chest. For want of a better description, everything tightened up – every muscle in his body scrunched up painfully, and his strange ignition stomach or organ spread white heat through his chest, causing his heart rate to double. Even his scraggly hide sucked against his body, perhaps drawn close by the electric potentials building inside? The sensation was uncomfortably close to the idea of wearing clothing. Pah!

Dragon picked Yarimda up and placed her out of his firing line. Excuse me, honoured elder. It is safer for you over here.

Cracking open his jaw, he willed the blaze forth. What joy! What incandescence! Like a wave rushing toward the shoreline, the power built inexorably to a peak that threatened to consume his being. Rumbling. Roaring. Frothing with turbulent abandon. Then, with the same force a wave carried to its apex before crashing to its end, it could no longer be denied.

His throat reverberated. Stretched. Opened!

GRRRAAAOOORRRGGGH!!

White flame jetted out of his maw. So sharp and ready were the magical and physical processes, the muscular squeezing