Dragon Breeder 3 by Dante King (e novels to read online .TXT) 📕

I ignored her for the moment, simply showing her the crystals as I held them up and looked from one to another. One was a gray color, with smoke swirling inside it. The other was a vibrant blue, with flashes of what looked like lightning flickering in its depths.

Briefly, I wondered whether the kind of crystal I bonded the dragonling to would affect what kind of dragon Wayne would turn into. Or was he already a certain breed or type and did the stone just cement it? It didn’t really matter, and I didn’t really give it much thought. All that mattered, all that I cared about right then was hurrying up and getting the whole process sorted so that I could save mine and Elenari’s son.

I held out the gray Etherstone to the tiny dragon.

With a pathetic slowness that twisted my heart to see, Wayne raised his head and regarded the crystal.

“All right, buddy,” I said, kneeling down so that I was on a level with the dragonling, “I’m just going to need you to do your thing—melt this crystal, hoover it up, and then you’ll be good to go.”

Wayne looked up at me and blinked. Even that blink seemed to cost the poor little creature almost more energy than he had left in the tank. He turned his pale gray head, no bigger than the end of my thumb now and regarded the stone that I held in my hand.

Motioning to Elenari, we set both dragonling and Etherstone on the floor.

“Go on, Wayne,” I urged. “You’ve got this.”

Elenari and I stood back a little, just in case Wayne overcooked it.

Unfortunately, it quickly became apparent that Wayne going overboard with his Etherstone melting was not something we had to worry about.

The dragonling raised his little head in its green bean thin neck and stared down at the Etherstone. He opened his mouth and wheezed in a breath. A few desultory sparks shot out of his little maw.

And that, it seemed, was that.

“Shit,” I said.

“Shit,” Elenari said, in a voice choked with worry.

Wayne looked at me. His eyes were tiny black gems set in his gray head, but small as they were, I could see the weariness in them.

I leaned down close to the little creature, putting my mouth right down near his head so that only he—not even Elenari—could hear my words.

“You can do this, Wayne. This is your all or nothing. You might be small, you might feel weak right now, but you are fierce. I know it. I see it. Everyone thinks that courage and toughness voice themselves as mighty roars and bellows from mountaintops but, sometimes, it’s the little voices whispering a few little words of encouragement that make all the difference. You might feel like you’ve got nothing left, but that’s precisely when you have to dig deepest and see this through.”

The little dragonling locked eyes with me, his tiny head weaving drunkenly on his scrawny neck.

“Just get on with it,” I said, “and then we can go sort out this world, you and I.”

I stepped back, crossing my fingers in my pocket.

Wayne turned back to the gray Etherstone, cocked his head to one side, and filled his lungs.

The beam of fire that poured from his maw was as bright and as intense as a welding torch.

Elenari and I, dragonmancers though we were, were forced to shield our eyes with our hands. Wayne let loose with every last ounce of power and flame that he had left. I could not see it, but I could hear the crack and bubble as the dragonling’s fire broke the crystal down, reducing it to a pool of melted glass.

When the glare had faded from the tent walls, I opened my eyes and looked down. To my relief, I saw Wayne slowly but steadily sucking up the melted gray liquid that had previously been the Etherstone, his throat contracting as he gulped the volcanically hot rock down. I watched the dragonling carefully as he licked the last remnants of the Etherstone off the dirt floor, curled into a tiny ball, and settled down.

“All right,” I said to Elenari, “you know what happens next. I think we best leave him be for half an hour or so.”

“Can’t we stay and make sure that he cocoons into rock like Garth did?” she asked.

“I think that it would be better if we just left him to his own devices for a little while,” I said gently, taking her by the arm and leading her to the tent opening. “Let’s go and sit with Saya. We’ll come back and check on Wayne later.”

Privately, I was thinking that I’d try and sneak back in on my own in a little while, while Saya distracted Elenari. If Wayne hadn’t made it… Well, I didn’t really want Elenari having to see that.

The two of us walked outside and found Saya waiting for us, her face a mask of tightly controlled worry.

“How did it go?” the blonde warrior asked.

Elenari hugged Saya, as I said, “He managed to melt and consume the crystal, but it looked like it cost him more than he had to give almost. We just have to wait now and see how he goes.”

Saya nodded, let Elenari go, and began to prod distractedly at the fire.

“You got any coffee on the go, Saya?” I asked.

Elenari shook her head. She looked at Saya and I, then said in a voice that was stuffed with bravado, “Coffee? I don’t think so. I do not know about the two of you, but I am in need of something far stronger.”

* * *

Less than an hour later, as I was just finishing off my third cup of the formidably alcoholic liquor known around the camp simply as ‘trooper’s brew’, I noticed the smoke