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

Wavewhisperer will come, you’ll see. Thank you for this gift you chose to give an old woman. May it be returned to you tenfold. Take care of that girl for me, alright? She needs you more than she will admit.”

He stroked her cheek with the tip of his sheathed talon.

His Princess muffled a sob.

“Don’t weep for me, my precious Azania. I will depart the shores of Solixambria a happy woman.”

Yarimda spoke with him a little longer as she had strength, her mind wandering to her love of the ocean, and riding upon Wavewhisperer’s back. See? She was the first Dragon Rider. What he listened to most of all, was her heart. No Dragon hoard in the world could compare to this treasure.

At last, he managed to choke out, Yarimda-mah Ociane, may you soar evermore.

I have already with you, my wonderful Dragon.

When they turned their faces to the rising sun and flew out of Hamirythe, he began to grieve so helplessly, Azania rightly asked him to put down on a quiet hillside before he crash-landed somewhere. They held one another.

“I only hope Wavewhisperer will hear her call. I could not bear it if she did not,” he managed at last. “Fate should never be so cruel.”

“She has faith.”

“Aye.” He shook his muzzle slowly, and shivered with feelings he could no longer understand. “A lesson for this Dragon, for certain.”

“And for this girl. Come on, Dragon. We’ve a ways to fly.”

“North until Mornine,” he said lightly.

He flew hard and steady for the green coastal mountains of Hamirythe, reaching them mid-afternoon against a wind rising toward gale force. It thrashed the towering heads of the tall bamboo forests mercilessly. After resting a couple of hours, they beat across a short but windswept stretch of ocean and put down on a tiny, sandy islet on the edge of the Tariboli River Estuary, where the ocean ran brown from silt and grey riverine sharks jagged hungrily through the brackish waters. Azania eyed up the busy feeding grounds and suggested she would rather play with the nice Dragon than those evil beasts.

“They aren’t evil, they’re just animals obeying their instincts,” he protested. Phew. This coastal wind was something special. Spray blasted off the ocean, stinging his still-soft scales.

“I prefer your instincts.”

Grrr.

“You’re such a sweet, kind Dragon,” she said, patting his neck. “Besides, you’re my Dragon.”

GNARR!!

“What, I get to be your possession but you don’t get to be mine? That is not how this relationship works.”

Ooh, cross, was she? Stamp of the little foot there?

He purred, “How does it work, Highness? Would you prefer to tell the story?”

“Why, so I would. Once upon a time, a sweet Dragon was innocently painting flowers in his lair, when who should happen along but the wickedest Princess in the land. She took one look at him and cried, ‘Ah, this talented Dragon shall be mine!’ Mwaa-haa-ha harrr!”

He fell over laughing.

“Nice. Stay there,” she grinned. “You make a wonderful windbreak.”

“I abase myself before your dainty slippers, o mighty Dragon-kidnapping Princess.”

“Ah, my day just improved.”

The wind dropped during the night, but the following day dawned blustery and dull. They scooted across the estuary, labouring against freshening winds, and decided to make directly for Fara’ane on the far side of a wide bay. Bad idea. Five hours of non-stop gale-thumping later, he put down on the beach at the far side. His wings threatened to fall off. Lungs burning. Body on fire.

“I vote for walking. It’s easier.”

Azania agreed, “Well done, Dragon. I’d flap my arms if I thought it would help.”

“You are very streamlined.”

She gave him a beady-eyed glare. “Is that a sizeist joke?”

“Would I tease a shrimp?”

“Oh my, the colossal granite boulder has gained the power of rudimentary speech. The science of evolution is real.”

“I just evolved into a ruthless Princess-snapper,” he chortled, clacking his fangs near her knees.

She dodged smartly. “Hey, go ooze back into your primordial swamp, will you?”

One Princess in fine fettle! They strolled up off the beach, searching for fresh water. Azania wanted to refill her gourd and to relieve herself. Scenting wood smoke drifting on the breeze, he circled her position a short ways away – protection balanced against privacy. Humans even had private rooms in their dwellings where they produced their waste, whereas for Dragons, the matter was always purely functional. Pit, river or airdrop, who cared where it landed? What little survived the digestive process emerged as pellets with almost no smell whatsoever.

A soft harrumph of breath made his paws freeze. Soldiers? Knights? What he had heard was one of their mounts blowing air from its nostrils.

Azania’s voice carried to his ear canals, “Were you spying on me in the bushes, sir?”

“Never, milady. Merely waiting for you to finish so that we can have a little … chat. You and me.” A voice with enormous slug factor. High, arrogant and far from as charming as the man imagined he was. “You’re a long way from home, girl.”

“Am I?”

“I wouldn’t try to run, if I were you. My men have you surrounded. Wouldn’t want to hurt you now.”

Dragon drifted through the bushes, low and silent. Every sense on the alert. Drawing his magic around him to blend in with the sounds of the forest, the whisper of leaves, the soft birdcalls. Not a twig must be disturbed. Softly, he hooted the call of a Tamarine night owl, twice – their agreed signal so that she would know he was near and alert to her need.

“Do you know who I am?”

“Obviously, you are the surpassingly beautiful Black Rose of the Desert,” said he, sounding puzzled. “Where are your companions? How came you to be trespassing on Fara’ane land?”

“Oh, I flew here.”

“You will fetch us a very fine ransom. We were hunting