Violet Stormwing's Arc

Chapter 10 of 46

The dragon climbed, but the riders below did not slow. Violet watched the banner cut through the valley toward the empty cave. In minutes they would look up and see the mother in open sky, hatchlings clutched to her chest. There was no cover. The mountains stood bare. She had won the dragon's trust only to hand her straight to Kael's men. "Turn her east," Theo called from behind. He clung to a spine ridge, hair whipping. "There's forest. Deep forest." Violet pressed her palm to the warm neck and leaned. The mother banked hard, wings hammering the air. The hatchlings shrieked. Below, a rider pointed up. A horn blew, thin and sharp. They had been seen. Violet drove the dragon lower, into the treeline, where branches scraped her boots. The canopy swallowed them. She scanned the ground for anything—a hollow, a ravine. Then she saw steam rising through the leaves. "There." She guided the dragon down toward the mist. Stone steps climbed from the forest floor to a pool ringed with mossy rock. Warm water bubbled at its center, breathing white vapor into the cold air. A hot spring, hidden deep, found only by those who pushed far enough. The mother landed at its edge and folded her wings. Steam curled over her scales. Violet slid down and understood at once: the rising vapor climbed through the trees and blurred the sky. From above, the whole hollow looked like mist on a mountain, nothing more. No rider would spot a dragon in that. "Stay," Violet whispered, pressing the gold-horned hatchling to its mother's flank. The dragon coiled around her young beside the warm water, low and still. But the hatchlings would not settle. They cried in the cold, and their cries carried. Violet needed warmth without smoke. She dug through her pack and found the small ember creature she carried for lighting fires—a flame sprite no bigger than her fist, its glow bright and gentle. She set it on a flat stone among the hatchlings. It gave off heat but no flame, no plume to rise and give them away. The little ones crowded close and quieted. Hooves thudded on the ridge above. Voices called through the trees. Violet crouched behind a mossed boulder and pressed her hand flat against the dragon's side, willing her to hold. Steam drifted up and up. The voices moved past, faded, and were gone. When the forest went silent, Violet let out her breath. Behind the boulder her fingers brushed something carved—a standing stone half-sunk in moss, its grooves glowing faint blue with old symbols. She wiped the moss away. She could not read the marks. But someone had hidden this place long ago, and hidden it well. The riders had lost her. The dragon was safe for now. But Kael would learn his men had failed, and Violet still had to reach his fortress—or find another way out entirely.