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

“Perfect. I’ll race you. First one to start to snore – zzz.”

“Didn’t hear you. I’m already asleep.”

After a fine afternoon’s investigating the interior of his eyelids – ahem, that might have been for about ten minutes before he nodded off – Dragon woke to the curious sensation that he was being watched by predatory eyes. The scaly one not being accustomed to any creature considering him for his edible properties, he flicked open his eyelids and checked the most important detail first. Azania. Compact fire going, roasting something on a stick that smelled delicious but was so tiny, it would not even touch the sides on the way down his gullet. Left, right, up … aha.

Tiger, meet Princess. Princess, run from tiger.

Only, the unruly non-conformist royal this girl had turned out to be, she was not running from anything.

“He’s been there for a while,” she croaked.

“The terrible predator has been there for a while, the extremely edible Princess said,” he corrected, stretching lazily. “Following which, the wise tiger bolted for the hills, yowling piteously …”

Unfortunately, this was not a wise tiger. He was young and salivating at the prospect of a royal dinner. Dragon showed him a very large mouthful of fangs, backed by white fire. This time, wisdom was duly communicated and the tiger leaped down from his low branch, skedaddling at a pace which would undoubtedly ensure a longer life than the one he had been contemplating a few minutes before.

“You didn’t run?” he purred.

“Show my back to a tiger?” she retorted. “Besides, I only noticed him a minute ago. In case you didn’t notice …” She held out her hand. Shaking like a leaf.

“You are stupidly brave, Princess. Emphasis on the ‘stupidly.’ ”

“Listen, you!” The left hand perched upon her hip, while the right aimed the skewer at his nose as if she planned to do some excavating with its red-hot tip. “Exactly how brave do I need to be with a fifty-foot monster guarding my back?”

“Good point.”

Helpful at this juncture not to mention quite how deeply he had been sleeping.

“To be honest, I really thought a tiger wouldn’t come within a mile of Dragon. The tiger’s the stupid one around here!”

“Followed by a second, equally excellent point. I hereby retract the adverb.”

“You are a lucky Dragon.”

“That I am.”

She blushed at his tone. “Stop that. Better still, save it for Aria.”

“She’d braid four leaves into a garrotte and murder me.”

“A third point, far more excellent than the previous two,” the profoundly wise and perceptive Princess pointed out. Narrowing her eyes, she said, “You were sleeping with one eye open a crack as you told me you always do, right?”

By his sire’s egg, she knew him far too well.

“Ahem –”

“Dragon! You …”

“I am embarrassed and deeply apologetic, Azania.”

“Apology accepted.” She blew on her meal to cool it. “For that, I graciously permit you to bear the royal personage unto the Kingdom of Mornine.”

“It shall so be done, and even with my eyes open.”

“Wings outspread?”

“Don’t push your luck, Princess.”

Flying at sensible times of the day and night, Dragon and Princess made mincemeat of the miles to Mornine. They practised island-hopping, flying as directly as possible between Fara’ane and their destination without taking the ever so slightly longer coastal curve. Their aim was a tiny island off the northernmost tip of Mornine, which Aria had clearly marked on her diagram as the launching point for her epic ocean-crossing feat.

From there, Aria had made two shorter hops before braving the perilous eight-hour unbroken stint that would land them on a tiny reef literally in the middle of nowhere. Then, a longer and a shorter hop should bring them safely to the lowest talon of Vaylarn Archipelago. Dragon recited the times in his head. Three, four, eight, five, three, two. Just over a full day on the wing, not counting the rest stops. A mere three hundred and fifty miles across fickle, windswept oceans infested with Sea Serpents.

One mistake … aye, better not be thinking that way.

Feeling strong! Gnarr!

The crucial part would be to find that tiny reef during daylight hours and at the start of the low tide phase, giving him enough time to recover before the next stint. Oh, and plead with the weather gods for perfect conditions. If a sea squall blew up, they might need to make a very quick decision to turn back or press on.

The final island on the sensible side of the mad crossing was a dry, low mound of sparse grass crowned with four copses of towering coconut palms. Pristine turquoise waters lapped upon white beaches. This was a foretaste of the Archipelago. Dragon understood that the climate up there was tropical, but the soils on the whole were not overly fertile. Aria had spoken about the King’s programmes to invest in soil conservation and enrichment, which were starting to bear fruit – literally. Tough climate and salty, sandy soils with little loam, however. Until the Sea Serpents had taken over, they had even been experimenting with importing compost from Hamirythe and Thobe.

The Isles Dragons had previously lived mostly off fishing. That was now far more dangerous. How were they coping? Speaking from a wealth of first-paw experience, hungry Dragons were not nice Dragons.

Nor were impatient ones.

Unfortunately, as they waited and rested from midmorning until their expected mid-afternoon departure, the northern skies began to darken. First, an artist’s smudge along the horizon with a piece of coal. Then came a freshening breeze. Over the course of several hours, the horizon turned a fetching version of gloomy green-black.

“You couldn’t pay me to fly into that,” Azania observed.

“No, and besides, your ransom is far too valuable to consider tossing you into that storm.”

“Did you have to bring up that