They’d chosen a place away from the battlefield and I’d joined them for long enough to stroke my exhausted dragon’s snout.
“You’ve done well,” I told her. “You’re the best dragon a man could hope to meet. You know that, right?”
She snorted, a flickering flame barely visible. Her eyes were already closing as her wing of dragons closed in around her, laying their heavy heads on each other’s backs and slumping into the relief of slumber.
“Sleep well, Saboraak. You’ve earned it. Dream of Drazenlofts and golden eggs.”
Golden?
Well, I didn’t know what color they would be.
I felt traces of a dragon laugh as she drifted off into sleep.
I’d gone to find Gran after that, setting out on foot across the muddy plains until I found the row of golems I’d frozen in a long corridor and at the end of the corridor, the broken shell of the old woman who’d given her last day and last hours to a man she’d never known for the sake of a people she loved. She deserved to be honored and I would make sure she was. There would be a statue. Maybe more than one. But for now, there was respect to be shown.
I was still looking around trying to figure out what to do next when Hubric and Kyrowat dropped down from the sky, alighting nearby. I wiped tears away hastily. Blinking up at a silent Hubric when he clapped me on the shoulder and handed me the other end of a litter he’d made with a blanket and a pair of saplings.
Stef nodded from beside him – but they were both silent as we gathered Gran up and flew her to where our friends had gathered.
We found our friends beside a fire. Lee, his face tear-streaked and an air of mourning surrounding him like a cloud stood beside a carefully built pyre.
“She fell in the battle after you were stabbed by Eventen,” Lee said, his voice heavy with tears. “She was the best of us. Better than me. Better than you.”
No argument from me. Lenora was better than I would ever be.
Together, we gently laid Gran out beside her.
And then Stef said something about Gran until she broke down in tears and Lee said something about Lenora until he was too choked up. The pair of them leaned on each other, two lost ships in a storm.
We stood around our precious dead for long minutes and I was sure that everyone’s minds were as full of memories as mine was. My strongest memory of Lenora was of her wiping the grime from her forehead as she stood firm and strong as an oak helping women and children flee to safety from Estabis. She had saved thousands of lives by her levelheaded courage and determination.
“She was better than me,” a slightly muffled voice said as two more figures joined us. There were tears in the Dominar’s voice as she continued. “She was a good friend. Brave and strong.”
“A good Dragon Rider,” her husband, Leng Shardson agreed. “Adventurous and brave like the Greens should be.”
After long moments of silence together, Kyrowat shuffled forward with another Purple – the Dominar’s dragon Raolcan – and Lenora’s Green Lypukrm. Together they blew a white-hot flame, lighting their pyre.
“This isn’t how I thought this story would end,” Zyla said sadly as she hugged my side. She’d been oddly quiet all night. Subdued. “Why is victory so bitter?”
“Evil always steals and destroys because it cannot give or build,” the Dominar said, her face pointed toward her dragon as if she were listening to him as she spoke. “So that even when peace is restored and salvation won, there’s a hollowness to the victory because you know the great cost. And you wonder if anything can ever be worth it.”
“How do you know if it is?” Zyla asked.
I thought that perhaps behind the mask the Dominar was smiling when she said, “You make it worth it. You keep building and giving and loving and hoping. Pour so much back into the world that the wounds can heal, and the scars be strong.”
Zyla hugged me tighter, as if she was trying to pour all of that into me in that one moment.
“I was planning to have an official meeting with you, Ko’roi,” the Dominar said eventually. “I was planning to call in the scribes and make it official – peace between our two nations.”
“Well, why can’t you do that?” I asked. Hubric coughed loudly. Flushing, I added a hasty, “With respect, Dominar.”
I could have sworn she was laughing a little under that mask when she said.
“We’re all too tired, Ko’roi. I have a broken city to attend, to rebuild, to comfort. There are many dead whose loved ones need my help. What I propose is this: in one month’s time I will visit you formally with my court in Ko’Koren. We can sign a treaty then in the presence of what I’ll assume will be your new government and until then, we’ll shake on it. No more fighting. Peace between us.”
I stretched out my hand. “Deal.”
There was a gruff voice in my mind as we shook hands.
And consider yourself lucky that she’s so lenient about your disrespect, boy.
That was Raolcan. I could see he was as personable as ever. I could have sworn that I heard Kyrowat laughing at us in my mind.
“So,” Hubric said. “That’s victory, then. Who would have thought things would go so far, hey boy? Oh, don’t try to hug me goodbye. I’m coming with you. We need to talk about spy networks. Don’t give me that look. There’s one in Ko’Koren – even if you never found it.”
“Is all the magic gone from the world?” Zyla asked me, leaning her head against my shoulder.
It wasn’t all gone – or at least, I didn’t think it all was. I’d only taken the magic from the land close to Questan and Woelran. But restoring magic to the world would be someone else’s task. I had my own responsibilities.
I leaned down and kissed Zyla as thoroughly as I knew how before replying, “You tell me.”
This was victory.
Victory was the color of sunrise, the color of the blood of my friends, the color of Zyla’s face when I whispered to her that maybe marriage wasn’t the craziest idea in the world.
Victory was red as the blood I’d shed to keep the peace until the day I died.
Epilogue
“It’s hatching!” Zyla squealed, holding her sister’s hand tightly as their twin faces showed identical looks of awe and excitement.
We were all grouped around the orange, scaly egg, excitement in every heart.
Tachril and Saboraak were jaw to jaw, faces inches from the egg and the rest of her wing of dragons were crowded around the egg, too. Hyoogan, Naszcal, Izhoedi, and Elumans had all been just as much a part of keeping the egg warm all these long months as the two parents were and we humans had to dodge their occasional flares of excitement as the big event had finally arrived.
The ring of humans kept back to stay out of the flames: Nostar and Stef – who was teaching the Green Dragon Rider everything about Ko’Torenth society – Janes and Letina, Devind and Jordil, and Hubric – who thought all of this was hilarious and kept winking at me like an expectant grandfather.
I rubbed awkwardly at the ring on my finger. Zyla said that in the books of the traditions of Ko’Torenth all married people used to wear symbolic rings a thousand years ago and why was I so fussy about mine? But I wasn’t used to wearing a ring. It wasn’t like the crown and tattoos all over my arms and face – those I couldn’t feel anymore even if everyone else could see them. It wasn’t even the same as the ring of white around my hair. This felt – weightier – like I’d done something heavy when I’d married Zyla.
Across the cave – if you could call something like this majestic group of pillared rooms set into a mountain a “cave” – Bataar smiled at me knowingly. He looked as if he’d been to a thousand dragon births. Skies and stars but I hated that knowing look! I saw it all the time now as his plans for peace and prosperity for Ko’Torenth slowly came to fruition one after another.
I hitched the child in my arms a little higher so that she could see. She looked just like her mother. Or at least, that’s what I told myself because I didn’t
like to think that any poor child might look like Bataar.
“Uncle Tor, what will the baby dragon look like?” she asked in her tiny voice, her big golden eyes glittering with excitement.
“Like a dragon,” I said dryly.
She laughed as if I’d told her a joke, her black curls bouncing.
And then there was a cracking sound and another, and then bits of hard shell fell from around the egg and even I couldn’t help but hold my breath.
We all gasped together as a small, Red head emerged from the egg. It looked around at us like it was choosing a treat and then leapt toward me.
I shifted little Xoi behind me, my other hand outstretched protectively as a tiny flame, barely hot enough to make me flinch, washed across my palm.
“I think he likes you!” Zyla laughed.
And then the little ball of red scales and energy hit me right in the chest, nearly bowling me over. I scooped it up in my free arm, trying to keep my face back from its inquisitive snout.
“Ummm, don’t you think you’d like to see your baby?” I asked Saboraak, thrusting the little dragon toward her.
A dragon laugh echoed in my mind.
Hasn’t anyone told you, Tor? Baby dragons choose who in the family will raise them by flaming them with their first flame. Congratulations! Yaweanl has chosen you. It’s a job for a hero!
“I think there’s been some kind of mistake,” I said. “I’m no hero.”
WATCH FOR GLIMPSES of Tor and his story in the other series set in the Dragon School world.
Dragon School – discover the story of Amel and her beloved dragon Raolcan and look for a surprise appearance by Tor!
DragonTide – this Dragon School spin off, led by Seleska and her blue dragon starts with a free short-story prequel. Keep tissues nearby. It’s a bit of a tear-jerker.
AND COMING JULY 12, 2019!
SUMMERNIGHT: Book One of the Bridge of Legends Series
If he succeeds, she will die.
Marielle is a Scenter for the City Watch, smelling emotions and spiritual residues and tracking down crimes. When she is assigned to investigate a strange break-in during the Summernight Festival, she will stop at nothing to keep the city safe.
Tamerlan has just five days during the Summernight Festival to save his sister – or she will be sacrificed to an ancient long-dead Dragon at the height of the festival.
But for Tamerlan to succeed, Marielle must die.
Summernight is the first story in this heart-pounding, grit your teeth romp through the wild festivals of the Dragonblood Plains. If you love fantasy worlds, dragons, and the excitement of holidays turned on their heads, you will adore Summernight!
GET AN ALERT THE DAY IT RELEASES. CLICK HERE.
To the intrepid reader:
Dear Reader,
You’ve made it this far in your journey with me and my stories. Thank you for caring about stories and the characters that leap from the page.
They say that real book lovers just can’t say goodbye to the stories they love, and I’m sure that’s true for you, too. I’d like to invite you to download another story in the Dragon School and Dragon Chameleon world. By downloading it, you’ll be added to my newsletter, so you won’t have to take any extra steps to be alerted to new releases.
You can find the link to the story on my website at www.sarahklwilson.com.
I am – wholeheartedly – yours in fiction,
Sarah
Behind the Scenes:
USA Today bestselling author, Sarah K. L. Wilson loves spinning a yarn and if it paints a magical new world, twists something old into something reborn, or makes your heart pound with excitement ... all the better! Sarah hails from the rocky Canadian Shield in Northern Ontario -
learning patience and tenacity from the long months of icy cold - where she lives with her husband and two small boys. You might find her building fires in her woodstove and wishing she had a dragon handy to light them for her
Sarah would like to thank Harold Trammel and Eugenia Kollia for their incredible work in beta reading and proofreading this book. Without their big hearts and passion for stories, this book would not be the same.
www.sarahklwilson.com
DISCORD | AMAZON | FACEBOOK MESSENGER| NEWSLETTER
Dragon Chameleon: Episodes 9-12 Page 26