Violet Stormwing's Arc

Chapter 4 of 46

The wild dragon filled the cave mouth. Heat rolled off its throat. Violet's hand tightened on the bell, but she did not ring it. A collar meant nothing to a dragon that had never worn one. She backed a step and felt Theo at her shoulder, still and silent for once. "Don't run," she whispered. "It wants us gone from something." She looked past the beast, not at it. Behind the nest of scorched bones sat a second hollow she had missed. Eggs. A dozen of them, red and blue and green, piled high and ringed by old bones. This was no lone hunter guarding a gem. It was a mother. The dragon's head snapped toward the eggs, then back to her. That was the whole story. It blocked the exit because they stood between it and its young. Violet dropped the bell. She raised both hands and stepped sideways, clearing the path to the nest. "Go to them," she said. "We're not here for the eggs." Theo grabbed her sleeve. "Are you mad? Move away from it, not toward it." His soft voice had gone rough. The lord's smooth spy was scared, and it showed. "Let go," she said. "It's watching what we do, not what we say." She pulled free and pressed her back to the crystal wall, making herself small. The dragon crept forward, low and coiled. It passed close enough that its scales scraped the stone by her cheek. It smelled of ash and blood. Then it reached the nest and curled its body around the eggs. One egg cracked. A white snout pushed through the shell. A hatchling tumbled out, scales soft as milk, gold along its horns and wings. It squeaked and stumbled. The mother lowered her head and nudged it upright. Violet did not move. But she smiled. The beast that killed riders was a parent, and she finally understood it. Force would never work here. Neither would the collar. Only patience would. "The exit," Theo breathed. The dragon had left the cave mouth open at last. They slid along the wall toward the light. The mother watched them go but did not rise. At the ledge, Violet stopped and looked back one last time. The hatchling blinked its wide eyes at her. Outside, her black dragon waited on the rocks. Violet climbed into the saddle, hands shaking. They had walked out alive. "You could have died in there," Theo said, mounting behind her. "For what? We ran." "We didn't run. We learned." She turned the black dragon south. "That mother won't bond while her eggs are unhatched. She'd burn the world to keep them safe." The answer was plain now, and worse than any fight. To tame the last wild dragon, Violet would have to win the trust of a mother guarding a nest. And her thirty days were already spent to twelve.