Of Blood And Fire by Ryan Cahill (best classic books of all time .txt) 📕

The egg sat there, just as it had been, except now it sat in a small, charred crater. The ground around it was as black as night, the twigs and leaves burnt to a crisp. The smell of charred ash wafted in the air. What just happened?

The voices flooded in. Dann’s was the first to reach his ears.

“Calen! Are you okay? What in the gods just happened?” Dann knelt beside Calen and grabbed his hands to assess the damage. A look of utter confusion spread across his face when he saw that there wasn’t a mark anywhere. “How in The Father…”

“It is done,” Aeson said.

“The first free Draleid in four hundred years.” There was a warmth in Therin’s voice.

Calen did not know what to say. His brain felt fuzzy, and his eyes were hazy, as if he had drunk one too many meads in The Gilded Dragon.

Out of nowhere, that sensation that had scratched at the back of his mind erupted to the fore. It was like a second voice in his head, but… it wasn’t a voice, not really. It was more of a feeling – or an emotion. He felt it so deeply, but at the same time, he knew it wasn’t his own. It was a need to escape – not a panicked or a frantic need, but a determined one.

He heard Dann and Erik talking to him, asking him questions, but he couldn’t make out the words. His brain just wasn’t interested. That feeling required all his attention.

Then he heard it – a sharp crack, followed by another and another.

Calen looked down at the egg, his eyes snapping into focus. A series of deep fissures marred its pearlescent scales. It was breaking.

Calen’s heart skipped a beat.

Dann leapt to his feet. “Is it me, or is that egg… hatching?”

Calen didn’t hear anyone respond. He wasn’t listening. All his attention was focused on the egg and that feeling in the back of his mind. That determined need to escape.

The fissures in the egg’s armoured surface lengthened, spreading out from the tip of the egg like the roots of a tree. Finally, a loud crack emanated from the egg’s scaly armour. A small fragment split off, tumbling down the side and landing with a clink on a nearby stone.

Calen had experienced a lot in the last few days. He’d felt emotions on levels that he never thought possible. He’d done things that he was still worried might swallow him whole one day, things that he would have to face eventually, whether he wanted to or not. This… this was different.

His throat was dry, his breathing deep. It felt like small butterflies fluttered around in his stomach. He was excited and terrified in a way he could never describe, and he wasn’t sure which of the two emotions was the more prominent.

He leaned forward, stretching his neck out to get a better look at the small gap left by the fragment of fallen eggshell. There was a thin membranous layer underneath the outer shell. There wasn’t much light, but he was sure he saw something wriggling around inside.

The thin membrane spiked upwards, out of the confines of the shell. It stretched as whatever was inside tried to force its way out. As it did, more cracks appeared, and more fragments broke off as the armoured shell gave way to the life that it had been protecting.

Calen’s eyes widened in awe as the membrane began to tear. It gave way to a small, scaled snout with two thin slits for nostrils. The snout was covered in tiny, thumb-sized scales that flowed into each other, exactly how the scales had covered the egg. And just like the egg, the scales were a brilliant white, like the purest snow, growing darker at the base.

As the snout pushed its way farther out of the membrane, Calen found himself staring into a mesmerising pair of pale lavender eyes. They coruscated in the dim firelight, each one bisected by a black slit, like the eyes of a kat. They glimmered with intelligence, momentarily freezing as they studied him. That feeling scratched at the back of his mind again, but this time, it was different. It was a rumble of recognition.

Following the snout, a small head and neck emerged from the shell, pushing its way through the thin membrane. Its head was not dissimilar to a lizard’s. Ridges of small horns framed the edges of its angular face, running along its jawline and back down along its slender neck.

Two forelimbs followed, pushing free of the membrane and clasping onto the cracked frame of the eggshell. As the small dragon heaved itself free of its shell, Calen saw that its forelimbs were joined to its torso via a thin but sturdy layer of skin that fanned outward as it extended its arms. It was pure white, with veins of black running through it that extended back to the dragon’s forelimbs. Calen remembered seeing a similar feature on the bats that made their homes in some of the caves near Milltown. Wings.

Once its forelimbs were free of the shell, the rest of the small dragon’s body followed within seconds. Its legs looked strong and oddly muscular compared to its spindly forelimbs. At its rear, a long tapered tail swished back and forth in the air, spreading out into a barbed spearhead-like tip. Two sets of frills ran the length of the creature’s body, stretching from the back of its neck and right down its spine.

It cocked its head to the side, its pale lavender eyes still fixed on Calen’s own. For a creature of legend, feared and awed by so many, it seemed oddly… vulnerable.

“Beautiful…” Therin said. The words sounded muffled, as if they had come from underwater.

Calen couldn’t shake the feeling that kept scratching at the back of his mind. It was ever-changing, growing clearer by the second. It was a need to escape, followed by a sense of recognition, a sense of longing.

The dragon suddenly stepped forward,