Violet Stormwing's Arc

Chapter 6 of 46

The next morning Violet came back with rope and no sheep. One farm animal a day had emptied her purse and calmed the mother for only a night. The dragon still coiled tight around her eggs, ribs sharp under her scales. Violet needed more meat, and fast, or the hatching would come before the trust did. She had six days left. Theo waited at the crystal cave mouth, arms crossed, his fine coat still clean somehow. Lord Kael's spy always looked like he belonged somewhere better. "One sheep won't feed a dragon her size," he said softly. "You're bleeding silver into a hole in the ground." "Then I hunt bigger," Violet said. She flew the black dragon to a ridge above the tree line. Below, a pair of bears fed on a deer carcass, one black, one brown, both wide as cart horses. Their claws could open a man. Violet marked them, then dropped fast. The black dragon struck the brown bear first. Claws met claws. The bear roared and swung, raking three lines down the dragon's flank. Violet pulled the reins hard and drove the dragon up before the second bear reached them. She circled, then dove again, low over the black bear's back. The dragon closed its jaws on the neck and lifted. The other bear charged empty air. Blood on her hands, Violet flew the kill to the cave. She dragged the carcass to the ground between herself and the nest, then backed to the wall. "For you," she said. "And the little one." The mother lifted her head. She smelled the bear. She smelled Violet's blood mixed in. For a long moment she did not move. Then, slowly, she uncoiled. Her body lifted off the eggs for the first time. She crossed the stone floor, took the carcass, and dragged it back. She ate beside the nest, not curled around it. The gold-horned hatchling squirmed free again. It stumbled straight to Violet. This time the mother watched and did not reach for it. Violet held still. The hatchling pressed its warm head against her knee and closed its eyes. While the mother ate, Violet noticed a vine growing from a crack near the crystals, threaded with pale moon-shaped blossoms that glowed soft in the dark. The hatchling had bedded down in a nest of it. Violet gathered a handful. "I'll bring the plant she likes," she said. "And more meat than one sheep." The mother finished. She looked at Violet for a long breath. Then she lay down across the nest, but left a gap, a space where the hatchling stayed near the girl. She had let Violet feed her from the open, and let her young sleep at a stranger's knee. The coil had loosened. But the eggs were shifting now. Violet heard the first crack. The rest would hatch soon, and a full nest of hungry mouths would need far more than she could carry.