We walked down the same covered pathway we had done before, ending at the same staircase. I knew where to go without help, but I couldn't let Dahlia's hand go. She was my emotional crutch, and without Milo by my side, she was all I had. After climbing the stairs, I stood behind the curtains waiting for them to open. As they had yesterday, they opened, but to my surprise, the other half of the stadium was no longer there. I'd not checked out of my window this morning and so I'd not seen the massive amount of work that must have happened throughout the night. Dahlia practically dragged me to my throne as the fanfare started again. The view of the Fire Mountains took my breath away, even through the soft snowflakes that had begun to fall. Looking left and right, I could see that the stadium had been extended outwards and was now a half-oval shape open at one side. My stomach turned as I wondered what exactly this meant. What could they possibly need more space for? They'd managed to fit a thousand or so men in the arena yesterday, along with numerous lions and tigers. Today, there were only a hundred men to fit in. There was no way they were going to spend the day doing a puzzle, no matter how tricky.
"Good morning, Your Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen," began the ringmaster, sending the audience into silence. Beside me, Remy and Hollis looked on intently, while at the other side of my father's empty throne sat Ash. Right behind me with her hand on my shoulder, sat Dahlia. The ringmaster was back on his horse, but now, he carried an umbrella to protect him from the snow. He trotted up and down, repeating his greeting for the benefit of the people furthest away.
My nerves tightened as he came back to us. Behind him, the men left were brought out, lining up. Picking Milo out was much easier today. He was about a third of the way along the line, and when the Ringmaster introduced the men, he bowed along with everyone else. It broke my heart that he didn't look my way once. Caspian, I noticed stood right in the middle, and unlike Milo, who looked anywhere but me, had his eyes trained on mine. He gave me a wave when he saw I was looking. The rest of the men had a variety of expressions ranging from out-and-out fear to excitement of the unknown. I wondered if they'd feel so excited once this part of the competition started because I doubted all these men would return home to their families after this day was done. The organizers had done a good job of covering up the blood spilled yesterday, but it was still visible in the darker shades of sand that covered the arena floor. I only wished it would snow harder so it would cover the dark patches completely. Every one of the men carried a sword.
The ringmaster waited for the noise from the crowd to die down before speaking again.
"Today, these fine men while be whittled down from a hundred to ten. Only ten men will be able to go through to the final round to compete for the princess's hand in marriage. The rest will go home tonight with the knowledge that they had done their best but ultimately were not good enough."
Would they, though? I wondered. Would they go home tonight, or would they end their day, lifeless in a wooden box?
A woman in a beautiful dress walked out into the open arena. She carried something in her hands that she passed to the ringmaster. It looked suspiciously like...
"This," the ringmaster said, holding the object aloft, "is a wooden egg. Ten of them have been hidden up the Fire Mountains behind me. Each has a number etched into it. The number corresponds to the order in the man finding the egg will complete tomorrow's task. In one minute exactly, I will blow a whistle, and the men will race to find these eggs and bring them back. Remember, there are only ten. They have been hidden amongst the real dragon eggs up there. Are you ready?"
Fear filled me as the hundred men readied themselves for the race. Sending a hundred men up the mountain would spoil everything I'd worked toward. The peace between the dragons and the humans was tenuous at best. This would destroy everything.
"No!" I screamed as he blew the whistle, drowning out my voice.
The men dashed to the base of the mountain at roughly the same speed I ran downstairs to confront Jacob. Two burly guards stood at each side of the judges' table, anticipating my reaction. They both stood to attention as I approached.
"What are you playing at?" I screamed at Jacob. "You can't have a hundred men going up the mountain. They'll upset the dragons."
This was his revenge for the other day when he'd not been able to kill any of the dragons, He'd done this on purpose as an excuse. Dragonfire, I hated that man.
Jacob checked that his guards were nearby before he spoke. "So? It wouldn't be much of a competition if we buried the eggs in the snow, would it? Besides, who cares if a few dragons get killed along the way?"
All around us, the audience had stopped watching the men, and now, all eyes were on me to see what my reaction would be. I'd caused enough of a stir yesterday by jumping over the fence separating the audience from the arena floor. No doubt, everyone was wondering if I'd do the same thing again today. Thoughts of Milo getting fried and my friends Nyre, Vasuki, and Emba being hurt, spurred me into action. I turned on my heel and ran for the exit to the arena. I didn't get very far before Jacob's guards grabbed hold of me, pulling me back to Jacob.
"Princess, princess, princess," he said smugly, rubbing his hands together. "You caused a scene yesterday. I don't think your father would be happy if you did the same again today, would he?"
I gritted my teeth. "You don't care what my father wants. He wouldn't want this." I held my hand out to the base of the mountains where the competitors were running.
He gave me a smug smile. "I don't like holding you against your will so publicly, but if I tell everyone you are planning on going up the mountain, they will understand why I had to stop you. No one wants the kingdom's favorite princess to get hurt, especially so close to her wedding day."
"I'm not going up the mountain, you imbecile. I'm going to speak to my father."
I hoped he'd believe my lie. My father was no use in this, and Jacob knew it.
"Fine," he said, nodding at the guards who let me go. "Good luck. You might want to be back before nightfall. The action will start at twilight when the men get back."
Behind him, the men had already reached the wall my father had erected. Ladders stood against it at ten feet intervals. There were only twenty or so of them, so some of the men had to wait their turn, but it took less than two minutes for every man to jump over to the other side.
Leaving Jacob and the arena behind, I raced back to the castle. It was completely deserted, thanks to the event out front. Most of the staff had been given leave to go watch the competition, which meant it was extremely easy to slip through unnoticed and out through the back garden gate to the woods. Once I was through, I used my magic to call for Nyre. I was far enough away from the stadium that she could come down the mountain and not be seen. She was small enough to pass for a large bird of prey from a distance, even if she was seen. I only hoped she'd be able to get away from the other dragons. I'd left Vasuki on good terms, but she had been hurt, and he was her father. I knew how protective my own father could be.
I didn't need to worry because she soon appeared, a little purple dot flying through the snow.
"Nyre!" I cried out when she landed on the ground beside me. "Are you ok? I'm so sorry about what Jacob did to you."
She nodded and held out her wing. There was a nip out of the very edge of it. I brought her into a quick hug. She pulled back and positioned herself as though she was about to shift.
"No," I shouted. "Stop. I need you to take me up the mountain...now!"
She must have heard the urgency in my voice because she jumped quickly onto my shoulder and pulled me into the air. My breath was lost to the bitterly cold air, and goosebumps appeared on my arms as we flew upwards.
In the distance, the crowd in the stadium cheered the men along. The sound was soon drowned out to the silence of the snowfall. We flew through the clouds to the peaks, and Nyre dropped me in the same nest I'd first come to. Only then, did she change.
"What's up?"
"We're in trouble.
" I wheezed as a blast of cold air hit the back of my throat. I wrapped my arms around myself to keep warm. The dress I'd put on this morning was not nearly warm enough for standing on the top of a mountain in the middle of winter. "The competition...The castle admin staff...Jacob has had fake eggs planted up here. There are a hundred men on their way up here now to take them back."
Nyre's eyes widened. "They can't. Our eggs are up here. How did they even get them into our nests in the first place?"
"I don't know. They did it last night under the cover of darkness. I need to see your father. He needs to be made aware."
Nyre shook her head violently. "No. He'll freak out. He's been patient, but he won't like this. You promised him that no one would come up the mountain. You've promised him a few times, Azia."
"I know I did," I said, feeling sick to my stomach. "I didn't ask them to come up. I tried to stop it, but I can't. They are already on their way. Can't we just fly around the nests and collect the real dragon eggs and take them down to your village? Even if it's just for a few hours."
I already knew her answer. I'd asked Vasuki the same thing, but I was clutching at straws.
She folded her arms and glared at me. I could understand her anger at me. I deserved it. ever since I'd first journeyed up the Fire Mountain, there'd been nothing but trouble.
"No. The eggs have to be up here. They are too fragile to move, and I can't risk it. Besides, the mothers of each egg will be roosting on them, keeping them warm. Do you want to explain to them that we need to endanger their children's lives for some stupid human competition?"
She stamped her foot in the snow. At any other time, the gesture would look adorable on her, but now, it broke my heart and sent me into a panic.
"I'm sorry."
"Look. No point saying sorry," she huffed. "We need to fix this, and we need to do it quickly before my father finds out."
I thought for a moment.
"We need to figure out how castle staff got the eggs up here. If you say that the mothers are protecting the nests, how, in all the kingdoms, would they have been able to get the fake eggs in there? Are there many other empty nests like this one?"
Nyre shook her head impatiently. "No. This is the only one. The rest are occupied. I guess they might have got the fake eggs in while the mothers were feeding?"
I took a deep breath and considered my options. I didn't really have any. Either we tell Vasuki and start a war or get those eggs before the hundred men climbed to the top of the mountain. Neither option sounded promising, especially seeing as I was already freezing cold from the weather.
"Ok," I said, coming up with a plan. "We have time on our side. It's a five-hour climb to the mountain tops. These men will probably be faster than me, so we can lower it to four. The weather might slow them down, but I don't want to factor that in and be wrong. Let's aim to get those wooden eggs in the next four hours. We'll get each one while the mother is feeding. You can fly me down, and we can throw each one at the men, so hopefully, they'll see that they don't have to go up the mountain any further."
Nyre glared at me as though I was insane, and I probably was.
"You want to steal eggs from the dragon mother's nests? Do you know how insane that sounds? You might think Darius is an angry fellow, but let me tell you, he's nothing to a mother dragon. They are fierce!"
I nodded. "I'm aware of the insanity of the situation, but to sit back and watch everyone getting hurt would be much worse. I'm doing this, Nyre, with or without your help. I'd prefer with..."
I could have compelled her to do it, but I needed her to make the decision on her own.
I waited for her to decide. Finally, she wavered. "Okay, but we can't touch any of the real eggs. They might be dragons, but they are babies, and they are precious."
"Agreed, "I said, throwing her a smile. I'd never taken her to be the motherly type, and here she was, clucking over some eggs.
When I'd come up with the plan, I'd thought we'd easily be able to fly from nest to nest, grabbing each wooden egg and hurling it down the mountain. What I hadn't counted on was the fact that none of these dragon mamas were hungry. They paid us no mind as we flew over their heads. I was no threat to them, and neither was Nyre, or so they all thought. And yet, none of them moved.
"Can't we just ask them to move for some other reason?" I shouted up to Nyre when we were out of earshot of the dragons. Nyre couldn't speak to me in her dragon form, but she didn't need words to convey the message. She shook her head and glared at me again. So we waited....and waited...and waited. If I used my magic to force them to move, they would fly straight down to the village and tell Vasuki the second the spell broke. Just as I had let Nyre do things her own way, so I had to wait for the mama dragons.
"Why aren't they moving?" I whined a few hours later. I could no longer feel my toes; I was that cold, and flying around in the talons of a dragon was not making the situation any better. I'd just about given up on the whole thing when the first dragon took off into the air. She soared away majestically, her lemon yellow wings out fully as she skimmed the mountain tops, thankfully, in the opposite direction to the men coming up the mountain on the other side. This had been something else I'd thought about in the hours I'd been pointlessly flying around. What if one of the dragon mamas decided to go and find food at this side of the mountain? I didn't know what they ate, but judging by the bones left in the nests I'd seen, I was guessing they survived on a diet of mountain goat and the odd cow. Now while they'd have to fly further afield for a cow, there were plenty of mountain goats on the side of the mountain facing the castle. I tried putting the thought from my mind as Nyre swooped me lower towards the empty nest.
Finding the wooden egg was easy. Despite it being practically the same size as the other eggs, it was smooth in texture and not mottled like the others. Also, it was made out of wood and had the number seven engraved on it. As Nyre dangled me above it, I pulled it out slowly, careful not to disrupt any of the other eggs. It came out nicely, and Nyre was able to fly me down the mountain. The clouds were low in the sky, so the arena below us was hidden. I couldn't help but think that it must be very boring to watch from the ground when all anyone would be able to see was clouds. Not that Jacob cared. He spoke of spectacle and excitement, but he just wanted the dragons dead so he didn't have to send his men out to build any more wall, that and the fact that without the dragons around, he'd be able to come up later and steal the real dragon eggs without a fight.
It was both good and bad. The men were still below the cloud line, which meant that none of them could see what I was up to. This was good because they wouldn't head back down the mountain and tell Jacob, just for him to send more men up to fight. It was also bad because I couldn't see them and if I couldn't see them, it meant Nyre couldn't see them either. If we waited for the men to climb above the cloud, we'd run out of time. As it was, the hours of time I thought we had to collect the eggs were quickly decreasing, thanks to the mother dragons.
Nyre dipped into the clouds. Instantly, the coldness I felt worsened as dampness was added to the mix.
As she flew, I scanned the ground for any of the men. Finally, we saw one. I didn't recognize him, but he looked extremely fit. I whistled loudly, and as he looked up, I threw the egg at him. He caught it and gazed down at it as though he couldn't believe his luck. When he thought enough to look to see where it had come from, Nyre and I were already up through the clouds.
Over the course of two hours, we managed to collect seven more of the wooden eggs easily. Much more easily than I had first thought. Each time we grabbed one, it was thrown to one lucky man who could then turn around and march home. With each egg we threw, the men climbed higher and higher up the mountain, and with it, the fear that we might not make it. My plan was to tell all the men that there were no eggs left once they broke through, but as I threw the eighth egg, it was beginning to look like it wasn't true. The last two mothers were still sitting comfortably upon their nests and not looking
like they planned to move any time soon. All I could do was watch impatiently, waiting for the first man to break through the clouds and get to him before the other dragons saw him. My nerves were frayed by the time the ninth dragon finally left her roost to feed. Nyre sprinted to the nest, but I could see we'd left it too late. The men were already appearing through the cloud just fifty meters or so below us.
I hurled the ninth egg down to them, hoping one would catch it, but once they saw what it was, they made a dash for it. I counted fifteen of them brawling for the egg on a precarious ledge.
"Do something!" I screamed to Nyre, but what could she do? She was tiny and had been working enough to haul me about all morning. If she flew down to them, the surprise would surely topple them from the edge.
And then, that wasn't my problem anymore.
As I'd been watching on with horror at the men fighting over the egg, I'd taken my eyes from the tenth dragon. She was way off in the distance, and so I'd paid her no mind, but it was hard to ignore the sharp blast of fire erupting from her mouth.
Nyre swerved around towards her before I had the chance to ask her. When she flew, it was almost like we were one. She understood where I wanted to go instinctively, and I knew where she was going. It might have been something to do with the dragon magic I held. Not that it was going to be much help now. I could summon the dragons. If I summoned the mother dragon to me, she would be compelled to come. It would save the lives of the men I could see climbing up the mountain below her, but it wouldn't save anything else. She would report me to Vasuki, and I'd have all the dragons out on the mountain.
"Stop!" I demanded of the men below her. The ones that were still alive. The charred remains of two of the men smoked on the mountain, and the smell of burned flesh filled the air. My stomach churned as I tried to keep my composure.
Nyre dropped me to the ground roughly halfway between the dragon and the charred bodies. with my fingers crossed that the dragon wouldn't flame me, I addressed the men. I shouted loud enough so the men fighting over the ninth egg could hear too.
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