Violet Stormwing's Arc

Chapter 25 of 46

The hollow was safe, but safety was not proof. Violet stood in the green fold at dawn and watched the pink dragon crouch in the grass. It had chosen her once, in the cellar, when she offered berries and a promise. Yet every time she climbed onto its back, it would not rise. It let her sit. It let her stroke its neck. Then it folded lower and refused the sky. Without a flight, no one would believe the legendary wild dragon had truly bonded. The bond meant nothing if she could not show it. Theo came up the shelf with meat wrapped in cloth. He had lied to Kael's soldiers to buy her these days, and the debt sat between them. "You look like you slept in the grass," he said, soft as always, leaning close. "It still won't fly?" "It flew here on its own," Violet said. "But not under me. Something holds it down." Theo crouched and studied the dragon. "When we found the mother, force never worked. Only what she remembered." He pulled a torn scale from his pocket, crimson, edged like a fern frond. "I found this near the old cellar. A rider's saddle strap was buckled through it. Someone tried to break this one before. It remembers a rider hurting it." Violet took the scale and turned it in the light. The pink dragon watched her hands. Its eyes fixed on the crimson piece and it drew back, wings tight. So the fear was not of flying. It was of being ridden. She knelt in the wildflowers that filled the hollow and set the scale down before the dragon. "I'm not the one who did this," she said. She unbuckled her own riding strap and dropped it in the grass beside the scale. Then she stepped back with empty hands. "No straps. No chains. You carry me only if you want to." The dragon nosed the crimson scale. It sniffed the discarded strap. Slowly, it lowered a wing to the ground like a ramp. Violet climbed on without buckling anything. She held its neck loosely and said nothing. The dragon rose to its feet. Its wings spread wide across the flowers. Then it beat down and lifted, up through the gap in the trees, into open sky above the ridges. Violet felt the wind take them. Below, Theo stood in the hollow, watching, mouth open. The pink dragon circled once and settled back into the green fold, gentle as a landing bird. Violet slid off, shaking. She had her proof. The last wild dragon flew under her hand. But she had climbed the sky in full daylight. Theo pointed north, where the ridgeline broke. Two riders sat their horses on the far crest, staring at the peak where a pink dragon had just risen against the clouds. They had seen. And now they would tell Kael exactly where she was.