Violet Stormwing's Arc

Chapter 32 of 46

The wild dragon's head hung low over Violet, close enough now that its breath stirred her hair. It was curious, not angry. But she could not speak. Odette's oath sealed her tongue. She had won every dragon before with patience and, at the end, with soft words. Now words were forbidden. The wild one waited for something, and Violet had only her hands and the field around her. She searched the flowers at her feet. Pale moon-blooms threaded the grass, the kind she had fed the pink dragon. But the wild dragon barely glanced at them. It had slept underground for years. It did not know these small pale flowers. Violet needed something older, stranger, something that matched the beast itself. "You'll want the dark one, not those." The voice came from the slope above. A woman stood there in a black gown, red hair loose in the wind, purple flowers dried along her sleeves. She smiled too wide and did not blink. Violet had never seen her, yet the stranger watched the wild dragon like an old friend. She came down the slope without fear, stepping between the blossoms. "Kira Plum," she said. "I follow sleeping dragons. This one I've waited on for years." She knelt and cut a single bloom with a small knife. Its petals were storm-dark, edged in violet, unlike anything else in the field. "It grows only over dragons that sleep in the earth. They remember its scent from before the long sleep. Give it that." Violet hesitated. She could not ask if this was a trick. She could only choose. The wild dragon's eye fixed on the dark bloom in Kira's hand, and its nostrils widened. That told Violet enough. She took the flower. She stepped forward, slow, her palm open, the dusk-colored bloom flat on it. The great head dipped. Warm breath washed over her arm. The dragon smelled the flower, and a low sound rolled through its chest, not a growl but a hum. Its huge nose pressed the bloom, then pressed her hand beneath it. Violet held still and let it lean its weight against her. The trembling in the field seemed to leave the world. The wild dragon lowered its head to the grass beside her, calm, tame under her touch. She had reached it. Without one word, she had reached it. Then she remembered Odette. Her oath had been to bond the wild dragon and leave it in peace. She had done the first half now. The dragon trusted her. But it was awake, huge, and drawn to her, and it would follow. Kira watched, still smiling. "You've woken it and won it," she said. "Now you must decide what you owe the elf who made you swear." Violet stood with the tamed dragon's head against her side and knew the peace she promised Odette was already broken.