Violet Stormwing's Arc

Chapter 42 of 46

The hunter fled at dusk, but Violet knew he would return with a wing of dragons. She could not turn a dozen. She could not hide a valley they had already mapped. All night she watched the empty branch where the crystal once hung. By dawn she saw only one path left. She would fly to Kael before he came to her. She left the wild dragon coiled on its crystal hoard, the dark bloom keeping it quiet. She whistled the pale wolf to the rim and set the marked deer at the cut. Then she mounted the pink dragon and flew south for a full day, until the clifftop fortress rose on its wind-battered stone. Guards let her land in the courtyard. They remembered the bonded dragon from before. Kael came down himself, dark beard trimmed, gold chain heavy on his chest. He looked her over the way a merchant weighs a coin. "You saved me the ride," he said. "My men found your valley. They found something in it." "You found nothing your riders can hold," Violet said. "That dragon killed no man only because I stand between it and them. Send your wing. It will burn them out of the sky." Kael smiled, but his eyes did not soften. "Then I lose good riders and gain a corpse. You offer better terms, I take it. That's why you flew here." "I bonded it," she said. "No one else can. Chain it and it starves itself against the rock. But a bonded dragon that answers your call is worth more than a dead one in a ditch." He circled the pink dragon, careful of its jaws. "You already answer my calls. Now you want me to leave a second beast to you and call it mine?" "Call it yours in name," Violet said. "It stays in the valley. It flies for your banner when you need it seen. Your riders stop searching. In return I keep the bond and the beast lives." Kael stopped before her. "And if I refuse and send the wing anyway?" "Then you get nothing but ash and fewer riders," she said. "Your choice is a dragon or a grave." He was silent a long moment. Then he laughed, short and sharp. "You bargain like a lord. Fine. The valley dragon flies my banner. My riders leave your western hills. But you owe me a flight whenever I raise the horn, and you bring proof it lives each season." "Agreed," Violet said. They clasped hands. His grip tested hers and found it strong. She flew home under a cold moon. The wolf howled her in. The wild dragon lifted its head and settled again. She had saved it, and the valley, and her own name. But now Kael owned a claim to the last wild dragon. He would want to see it fly, up close, and soon.