(Please note these are not edited and may or may not be included in the final works)
A blood-red dragon cut across the arctic sky. Her wings faltered, her tail drooped, and when a small island of ice appeared on the horizon she angled toward it and glided down to land. She skidded on the ice then rolled to a stop in a heap of limbs and wings in a pile of snow. Her sides heaved, her eyes closed, and the sun set.
Hours later, the dragon roused and cracked the layer of ice coating her body. Certain earthly creatures might have heard a sharp whistle echo across the still water. Steam rose from the dark red form. Slowly, she got to her feet, shook out her wings, thrashed her tail, and stomped her feet.
The whistled tune changed and the dragon slowly turned a circle. She hunted for a long lost cave, a long forgotten secret, hidden in this frozen wilderness. She had no trouble seeing in the dark but the entrance was carefully hidden from even the sharpest of eyes. Her triangular head swept from side to side then turned sharply. There.
Her Song never stopped as she focused on an unremarkable slope in the snow. At her approach, the snow and ice bubbled away until only frozen earth remained. Her whistle changed again and the abandoned, ancient island shuddered. A slash appeared in the ground. The red form slithered forward and disappeared from the surface.
Miles below, further down that she’d thought possible, the tunnel opened up into a cave. Glowing with some kind of bioluminescence, it was eerie and beautiful at the same time. Water dripped, keeping up a comforting rhythm, and the air somehow still felt fresh after countless years enclosed.
She whistled a Song to uncover anything hidden by Songs but nothing changed. She hadn’t expected it to be that easy. The item she sought might not even exist. A myth, covered in a legend, painted with fear, and buried by the Kin for centuries was all she had to go on. She’d come here on an extremely thin possibility based on evidence that was unreliable and vague. But it was her last hope. She knew there was an answer, there was a reason, which meant there was a solution. She would find a way at any cost. She would have a dragonet and she would be a mother.
She began a more thorough examination of the chamber. Where would he have put it? How would he hide it and protect it? Preserve it. There were numerous nooks and crannies in the ice, but she left them undisturbed. She began Humming softly. She preferred the sharp decisiveness of whistling, but some situations called for more subtlety. She was quickly learning the benefits of subtlety as she continued her search for forbidden history. She’d had to be extremely careful in her pursuits so she didn’t draw the attention of the Council. Or her husband.
She stumbled as she thought of him. Pain clenched her hearts and she Hummed Calm. He didn’t know, he couldn’t know. But when she produced him a dragonet it wouldn’t matter any more. He was going to be a wonderful father. He would never have to know the lengths to which she’d gone. She lifted her head and took a deep breath. It would all be worth it. The dragonet would be worth all the trouble and all the lines she’d walked and only slightly crossed.
She continued her search with renewed determination. She was close. But when she returned to the spot where she’d started, there was nothing. There were no lingering Songs to render things Invisible. There were no secret compartments, no disguised doorways, and no clues to lead her to another location. There was nothing!
The cave was hewn out of the rock and frozen dirt. Glowing spots on the ceiling gave it a mysterious feel. And the silence, broken only by the occasional drip-drop, reminded her that she was farther north than she’d ever been, in a place that hadn’t seen a living creature in more years than she’d been alive.
Her roar filled the space and echoed back at her with no escape. The sound magnified as it bounced around the hard surfaces and she covered her ears with her claws and wings. Then it faded up the tunnel that had allowed her entrance.
Tears crawled their way down her scaly face. If it wasn’t here, if it didn’t exist at all, then she was out of options, out of choices. The hole of emptiness in her chest gaped wide, drawing her in, pulling her down, down, down. Hope faded along with the echoes of her anger.
She let it go. She let it all go. Her sobs filled the cave, eventually matching the beat of the dripping water. There, at the edge of the world, where hope had fled and misery claimed its prize, a red dragon created a new Song of Power. A Song of grief and defeat. Set to the rhythm of the island’s tears.
Later, when she remembered the experience, she thought maybe the beat of the water quickened and her Song increased in speed. Defeat only lasted a short while because this red dragon had never given up before. She wouldn’t accept it now, she thought. She would fight. Grief became anger and defeat turned to determination. And the water’s dripping tone changed and deepened.
Wait.
Where was the water?
She leapt to her feet, her Song softly echoing around her. She Sang Water, her weakest element. It took longer than she wanted but she eventually discovered both the source of the dripping and the rock that created the sound. A small rivulet ran down from the ceiling and the water fell to land on the rock below. If the tone had changed then the rock had moved. Something was different. Something was there.
She Sang Earth, Water, Air, Fire but nothing moved it. She kept trying as the sun began to rise outside.
She was halfway through the Songs, into the ones that dealt with emotion when she heard it. The rock groaned. Song of Anger, that was the key. Her mouth moved into a serpentine grin. Anger was the key, how appropriate.
She continued to Sing and the rocks below her moved. First, one underneath pulled aside, then one on the side angled up. Something in the wall shifted and the water stopped. Finally, the last slab swung aside and it was revealed.
The Journal, Musings, and Research of Theodoric the Thwarted
She reached for it and her hope returned, but this time it was tinged with anger. Surely, this held the answers, the solutions. Her goal was within reach.
When her talon touched the weathered cover a voice whispered through the cave and floated out over the frozen wasteland above. “Ah, Jasira.”
The proximity alarm went off just as Terrie bustled through the door. “Status!” she said.
“Dragons incoming from the sky directly above Brenton House.”
“What?!”
“Jerome saw them first but I’ve got them on the main screen. I’m trying to angle the guns into firing range, but we didn’t install them to point at the sky. Looks like the others are getting to their stations.”
Cala, Drek, Colin, Brent, Khalon, and Shirina were hurrying down the halls. Jaren was somewhat comforted to see familiar faces jump into action in the face of crisis. And he was relieved that they’d sent Cala’s friend Meri away to live with her family for a while.
“Are the interior defenses activated?” Terrie stood beside Jaren with her hands on her hips and one foot tapping.
“Not yet. We’ve only got about half of them online but the ones we have will go active once everyone is in position.”
“The library is all set, though, right?”
“Yes.” The hidden stairway leading to the basement started in a corner of the library. After Jasira’s last attack on Brenton House, Terrie had prioritized the library. She didn’t want to lose anymore books and she definitely didn’t want their enemies breeching their security station.
“Tee hee hee.” Jerome’s whisper came through the system and sent chills down Jaren’s back. He looked up in time to see a dragon touch down on the roof. Its color was hard to determine in the early morning gloom but Jaren watched as it kept its wings out to balance along the pitched beam on the roof. One swipe of its tail took out the first gun turret.
Jaren typed frantically but the dragon took out another gun before he could get a good angle. Terrie’s tapping foot stopped but Jaren knew that was because she was trying to contain herself.
Finally, the system chimed that it was in position to fire on the coordinates. Jaren hit the button. The sound of gunfire rebounded throughout the house. He watched the dragon on the roof falter as it was hit then it rolled down the other side of the house out of view.
“Did we hit it?” Jaren asked.