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

“Very funny.”

“I know, I’m in stitches.”

“Sew what?” he guffawed. “Keep needling me until you find the right thread.”

Contrived, one had to admit. Worth at least half a snort.

Up and away they flew. The route was northerly at first, skirting the foot of The Anvil, before the Dragons were able to swing their muzzles to the northwest for the straight run to the Kingdom of Dorline. With Yarimda taken moderately ill, they flew four short stints during the course of the day, crossing the Rillimis River on the second leg. Dense forest cover stretched to the horizon, a beautiful sea of summery greens and a few patches of deep burgundy leaves to break up the monotony.

Dragon worried over his passenger. Ninety-four was a ripe old age to be gallivanting around the kingdoms as a Dragon Rider. Far from being daunted, Yarimda alternated between dozing in Yardi’s arms and telling him she was having the time of her life.

She said he was a gift.

He actually blushed in all of his fires. Grr. Giving the elderly license was one thing. Having to put up with compliments, however well meant, was quite another.

The next day was Yardi’s turn to be taken ill – in her case, in bouts of alarming violence that started during the night. All the worst of Human illness, too, with nasty, offensive things coming out of both ends, sometimes at the same time. Yarimda distracted her Dragon companions by telling them story after story. She had lived a full and exciting life, she claimed. By sundown Dragon was more than convinced, but the old woman talked beyond midnight. He did not grow bored, not even once. Fascinating! Especially her descriptions of Sea Dragon song language. Experimenting with his new bugle, she agreed that it sounded similar to what she remembered from her beloved Wavewhisperer.

He might have a built-in capability, with not the foggiest notion how to speak a single word in their tongue. Perfect.

Blank slate. Clay to be moulded.

He grimaced. All he needed was his long-lost mommy, to put it in the Human way. Azania had lost both her parents. What right had he to feel unfortunate in any way?

With Yardi doing her best impression of a limp but recovering dishrag, they journeyed on into the Kingdom of Dorline. Human homesteads appeared to be few and far between, but they stopped at a likely-looking place in the late afternoon to inquire after herbs to help Yardi’s upset stomach. With the Dragons standing a short ways off and out of sight, so as not to upset anyone, they greeted Azania by setting their pack of hounds upon her.

It could have gone badly. So badly.

He did not understand the pack’s baying until the last second. Chalice was already streaking ahead, but the thought had been in his mind that the canines intended to greet his Princess.

His roar hit a shattering peak that threw the dogs into confusion for long enough that the charging Dragoness was able to blow fire in their direction and keep them at bay. She skidded to a halt above Azania, somehow managing to keep her great paws from stomping her flat.

He remembered charging, too; and an incongruous moment when the jet stream of his fire picked the hounds up and flung them away in the blink of an eye, so fast that only a couple were actually engulfed in flame. After landing in a smoking heap, the rest were able to run away, yowling in fear. Then he was at Chalice’s side, panting, snarling, wondering what to do with all the fire churning inside of him.

A sense of knowing shook him to the core: The flash of a fang, and her life could have been much shorter.

Emerging from behind Chalice’s paws, Azania gasped, “I think they thought I was a ghost. Or a corpse.”

He turned slowly toward the wooden house.

“Dragon. Dragon! Don’t –”

“Don’t what? Give them a piece of my mind?”

“They’re just … frightened.” She said it as if the realisation had only just struck her. “They’re frightened of me. My blackness.”

Staggering up to them, Yardi said, “People are often afraid of – blugh!” She threw up. “Sorry. Differences. Let me go and knock at the door. Maybe I’m white enough not to earn the dog treatment.”

He stared at Azania.

“Look, as you can tell, not all black peoples’ experiences are the same, nor are they the same in different places,” she muttered. “I’m alright, Dragon. Shocked and … sad, I suppose.”

“Angry?”

“Spitting mad. They’re so ignorant, yet I understand why.”

“Aye. The woman inside just said she’s never seen a black person before.” Nudging her shoulder gently, he said, “And here I thought you had earned your very first mob of pitchfork-wielding peasants. Doubtless you can look forward to that pleasure in the future, Princess.”

“Hopefully not. I’m not a big, stinky, fire-stuffed reptile, after all.”

“Almost, but I have noticed a few differences.”

“A difference in scale?”

“Me being upscale and you, downscale?”

They shared a gloomy chuckle together. Amazing to him – he should not be amazed, but even so, he was – that at this most shocking juncture, her spirit shone. Bravery was not always what he expected it to be.

She said, “Inzashu said I should share this joke with you: ‘Why do Dragons make such great musicians?’ ”

He frowned. “No idea.”

“They know their scales inside out.”

“Groan.”

“I told her that’s what you’d say.”

Half an hour later, they shared the Dorline tradition of an afternoon cup of bark tea and ginger biscuits with a family of seventeen, sitting beneath a huge, spreading tree in their front yard. Following Dorline culture, the husband, wife and five children lived together with his brother and wife and their three, plus various other relatives that Dragon never did get straight.

They all stared