Dragon Forged: Chronicles of Dragon Aerie Young Adult Fantasy Fiction (Plague Born Book 3)

by Travis Simmons

  The moment she stepped out onto the balcony, she noticed how hot it was. There was something different about the room that kept it cool, something she hadn’t noticed before. She turned back to the patio door, and stepped inside. Instantly the heat of the day was a distant thought, and the room seemed almost cold compared to it.

  Wylan frowned, and stepped to the center of the room. It was then she noticed a carafe on sideboard by the door. She stepped over to it, and felt heat rising from it. She poured some of the brown contents into a mug beside the carafe. The smell of the brown, steaming brew was enough to make her mouth water. It was strong, pungent, and earthy all at the same time. She took a tentative sip, and found it was hot enough to nearly burn her lips. She sat the mug down and looked the carafe over. It wasn’t hard for her to spot the markings on the container. Strange, blocky runes were carved in six spots, one on the top, one on the bottom, and the other four in equal distance from one another on the sides.

  She ran her scaled hand over the sides of the carafe, and felt within it a whisper of fire magic. Stumped, she stepped back, and that’s when Wylan saw the same blocky text inscribed on the walls and the ceiling. The bed, she was sure, was covering the last rune. She ran her hand over the wall, and she could feel the same thrum of fire magic within the walls. She knew that her own magic could both call fire, and sap heat from things. She could just as easily kill someone by draining their body-heat as she could by raising their temperature.

  “Interesting,” she said. This was magic like she hadn’t seen it before. She made a mental note to speak to Garrett about such containment magic, and see if it was something they might replicate in Darubai. She could only imagine how much easier sleeping would be if they could manipulate the temperature of their rooms.

  She stepped back out onto the patio, and peered around her. Lastilor was very different from Darubai, but she wagered it was nearly as large as the imperial city was. From where she stood, she couldn’t see the vendors hawking their wares, but she could hear them in the distance. Children were nearby, but this time it wasn’t the group playing with the ball. Instead, it was a rabble of girls, chattering and skipping down the street. They cut through an alley, headed toward where Wylan could hear the vendors.

  Above a pinion snapped and rippled in the breeze, and she looked up to see it was green, embroidered with a pair of white, clasped hands. She imagined that was their sign for healers, since that’s where she was.

  To her right and a few blocks away she saw a red pinion with a hammer on it. To her left, a blue pinion with a wave. Wylan wondered if that marked where the different wyverns resided. She didn’t have to imagine what the hammer on the red flag stood for. She was a fire wyvern, she knew they were more temperamental than the others, and more prone to fighting. Were they the city guards here? If they didn’t go out on patrol, they could easily designate an entire group of wyverns to one specific job.

  She’d grown up a water farmer, so she knew how important the blue wyverns would be to a city. They were likely the ones who controlled the flow of water in the city. She couldn’t see pinions for the other wyverns, but she figured that was more because she couldn’t see everywhere in Lastilor, rather than they didn’t have a place within the city.

  She relaxed into a soft chair that sat in the crook where the deck railing met the outside wall, and was amazed at how clean the city was. The walls looked freshly scrubbed, and there was one major thing missing that was a defining feature in Darubai—evidence of dragon attacks.

  The roofs seemed to shimmer as well. They weren’t broken, they were whole, and upon them were squares of a reflective substance. A simple, looping rune engraved on their surfaces, and inlaid with some kind of sparkling mineral that reflected the light.

  Wylan knew how bad dragon’s eyesight was in certain lighting, and she wondered if that’s how they kept the dragons at bay. The shimmering light had turned her away more than once when she was trying to get a lock on the city.

  She wished she’d known about this city before, when her parents were still alive. Her father likely wouldn’t have believed it at all. He really hadn’t believed that Darubai had still stood, even though he conceded to go along with Wylan so she could join the dragon guard. He tried to warn her that it might not stand, that her dreams of joining to fight against the dragons were likely foolish yearnings.

  What she wouldn’t give to have them there with her now, to see how easy life could be, even with monsters that randomly attacked other towns and cities, and even lonely, out of the way water farms.

  And then she felt the first rush of anger. Here these people were, living a great life, as if nothing had ever happened, as if the dragons hadn’t come back and destroyed the long desert. Here they were, living better because of the plague, using wyverns for water and protection and healing while so many outside the city limits suffered and die, never knowing such an oasis existed.

  She pushed her anger down when a knock sounded at her door. It wasn’t their fault, honestly. Hunting for people outside the city was a dangerous job, and more often than not a patrol would return without finding anything. They also didn’t have the dragon sabers, or the dragon tamer, or even knew about friendly dragons.

  In ways, Darubai and Lastilor were at equal advantages. Darubai, however, was at an advantage out of necessity.

  Still, the long desert is ours to travel and to reclaim once more, she thought. If the people of Lastilor only remained in their city, they’d never know what lay outside.

  She stepped back into her apartment to answer the door. It was a girl no older than fifteen with short blond hair, and a blue gown. She had a bag in one hand, and a gown draped over her other arm.

  “I’m Janelle,” she said, “I’m going to get you ready for dinner with the king and queen.”

  Wylan nodded, and extended her hand. “I’m Wylan, nice to meet you.”

  Janelle smiled, and pointed to a chair. The ritual was one Wylan wasn’t accustomed to. The girl walked around her, brushing out her hair, and braiding it in what Wylan could only imagine was some lovely arrangement. She didn’t have a mirror in her room, so she would have to trust Janelle.

  Next came face paints, a luxury Wylan hadn’t often seen in Darubai, or even knew existed outside the pages of her books. When she was done plastering Wylan’s face with soft creams, pink powders, coal around her eyes, and some light pink paste for her lips, she stepped back and appraised Wylan. Then Janelle nodded, and held up a lovely pink gown.

  Janelle helped her into her gown. It was similar to the one she’d seen Jessup wear, but it was of a softer, breezier material. It was pink, with wide, lighter pink strips of satin that ran down the front of the gown and around her neck. More of the light pink satin trimmed the wide cuffs. She stepped into the slippers, and Janelle stepped away from her. She peered at Wylan for a while before she nodded her head and deemed her ready to meet the king and queen.

  Wylan felt as though she were too made-up. While the dress fit her form as well as her trousers and tunic did, the way it hung about her body was different…too open. She felt exposed and nearly naked. Her hair was too fancy, feeling like a work of art that she would certainly mess up if she moved her head even a little.

  She wasn’t used to seeing her shoulder, where the scaled arm met the human flesh. It looked like a twisted knot of scales and flesh, a blemish, a battle scar that didn’t fit the soft cotton and shiny satin of the gown.

  The hallways were quiet, the stone floors and walls scrubbed to a dull shine, the lamps wavered with their passing. There was an ambience of reverence in the hallways that Wylan didn’t want to disturb by speaking, so she silently followed Janelle down winding passages and up grand staircases, all the time taking in the sights, and seeing how different the people of Lastilor lived compared to home.

  When they entered, a grand garden secluded between to great buildings, Wylan could only stop and stare. Water wasn’t used only as a necessity in Lastilor, but also as dec
oration. The garden had lush, green vegetation along the outsides, and through the center were stone walkways dotted with benches and shrubs. It was more like an elven home than anything she’d seen in the long desert. It captured a wild beauty, while being perfectly manicured. In the center of the garden was a vast pond that leaked streams through the area to water the outside greenery.

  Janelle saw her surprise, and with a smile she led Wylan up to the edge of the pond. She couldn’t see the bottom because it was murky and dark, but she could see the white shapes of fish flitting about in the water. Fins fanned out from their tails, like wings of a graceful bird. They seemed more to drift upon the water, rather than swim.

  Wylan felt herself smile. “How’s this possible?”

  Janelle shrugged. “Water magic. We have several such ponds in the area. Some are large enough to hold fish for the town to eat.”

  “Where do the fish come from?” Wylan wondered.

  “I don’t really know,” Janelle said. “We’ve had fish ever since I was a little girl. I never thought to ask.”

  Wylan frowned, but nodded. Reluctantly, she pulled herself from the pond and followed Janelle into the shadowy halls of the next building. The next building was much like the first, except in this building the ceilings were higher, and the walls were decorated with banners like the pinions Wylan had seen snapping from the tops of buildings. They were, she noticed, the colors of the wyverns.

  More curious, to her, was the symbol for the yellow wyverns—an open book that had streamers of stars fountaining out of it. She understood the book, the yellows could see many secrets that were kept hidden, but the streamers of stars made her think of magic, which unsettled her. Were the yellow wyverns capable of more than Darubai had seen? Were the yellow wyverns here different than all the other wyverns she’d seen?

  She was so deep in thought of the yellow banner, that when Janelle stopped before a pair of mahogany double doors, Wylan nearly ran into her.

  Janelle bowed to a pair of guards before the door. They were dressed in red livery, a hammer upon their chests. Wylan felt the familiar brush of fire magic about them, and she bowed to them more in recognition of their shared wyverns than out of respect for their position.

  The woman on the left smiled at Wylan, and the man on the right bowed back to her.

  “Wylan Atwater is here for King Nathaniel and Queen Matrees,” Janelle said, standing once more. The female guard bowed again, and the male opened the door and stepped inside. Wylan heard a muttered announcement before the doors were opened wide, and Janelle motioned for Wylan to enter.

  The hall wasn’t nearly as large as Wylan would have imagined. In fact, it was less of a dining hall, and more of a dining room. A square table sat in the center of the room with space enough for one chair at each edge. The floor was tiled in marble, with an area rug of golds and reds sitting beneath the table. Along the opposite wall of the door was a large fireplace that wasn’t lit, and above the fireplace was a massive painting of a rising sun, and a dragon flying up into its light.

  The king and queen were already seated at the table, but when Wylan entered, they both rose and bowed to her. Queen Matrees was a tall woman with blond hair twisted along the sides of her head, that fell into a thick braid down her back. Her skin was the color of cream, and her eyes the color of a winter’s sky.

  King Nathaniel was a young man with short dark hair, and a neatly trimmed beard. His eyes were dark, but they looked kind. His mouth was wide and didn’t seem to fit his face well. For that matter, the large nose that dominated his face seemed out of place as well.

  “Wylan Atwater,” Matrees said, coming around the table to greet her. She gripped both of Wylan’s hands, barely seeming to notice the scaled hand. “It’s so nice to meet you. I’m very glad you’ve mended so well.”

  “It is great to meet someone from outside,” Nathaniel said, his wide mouth splitting into an even wider grin. “You must be famished.”

  Wylan smiled, and nodded. She hadn’t realized exactly how hungry she was until she’d stepped into the room and was surrounded by the smells of buttery fish, roasted tellik, braised vegetables, and any number of other dishes she didn’t have a name for. They sat steaming on a sideboard to the right of the door.

  Nathaniel motioned for her to go to the dining table, and she did, unsure how she was going to get her food.

  When the king started loading a plate up for her, she began to rise to take over serving herself. It seemed so bizarre that the king would serve her, but she forced herself to sit once more. Maybe this was their custom?

  The king sat a plate piled with food before her, and her stomach twisted painfully with hunger. It seemed an excruciating amount of time before the king and queen took their seats with their own plates.

  “I assume you’re not used to fish?” the queen asked.

  “No,” Wylan said, shaking her head.

  “You must try the first,” the queen suggested.

  Wylan obliged. It nearly melted in her mouth, and she gave a slight moan of delight.

  The king and queen laughed, and began eating as well.

  The meal passed with idle chatter about the weather, the grand gardens Wylan had passed through, and how they came upon fish in the long desert. She was told that fish were brought here long ago, before the dragons had been chased back, and several of the blue wyverns tended to fish farms, so now they had a nice school of varying fish they could use to populate ponds, and use to feed people.

  “And what about Darubai?” the king asked, pushing his plate away.

  Wylan’s plate was still half full, and she didn’t push it away, but she did set her fork down. “What do you mean?” she wasn’t sure if she should add any kind of honorary to her questions, so she left them off figuring that the queen and king weren’t her sovereign. They didn’t seem to care.

  “It still stands? Is it as lavish as Lastilor?” Nathaniel asked, leaning back in his chair.

  “It stands, though barely,” Wylan said. “It is not as lavish as Lastilor. I don’t know what it was like before the dragons, since I was born into this time, but it does seem to have suffered heavily from the plague, and from attacks.”

  “You’re still undergoing attacks?” the queen asked. “You don’t have a system of protection as we do?” This seemed to concern her greatly.

  “We have protection, in the way of the dragon guard and such. But what of your protections? I must admit that I’m a little confused as to how you keep the dragons at bay. I know when I came this way, there was some kind of shimmer that kept trying to turn me around, but somehow I pushed through the desire to leave, and kept coming on.”

  Matrees nodded. “That shimmer is magic.”

  “Magic?” Wylan wondered. “You have wizards?”

  Nathaniel laughed. “No. We do have yellow wyverns, though, and they can channel the ancient wizards. Through the yellows, the wizards can work a bit of their power. Thankfully, all it takes is some carbon stone and a simple illumination spell. Seems to work wonders.”

  “But how?” Wylan wondered, her appetite forgotten.

  Nathaniel shrugged. “Not really sure how the magic works, but I do know the carbon stone can absorb light of a certain time of day, and radiate that light outwards. Dragons can’t see well in twilight or dawn light, so they don’t see us, even if they do fly overhead.”

  “But I was able to see you,” Wylan pointed out.

  “But you’re not a full dragon,” the queen said with a smile.

  Wylan only nodded, her brain already rushing with thoughts on how they could do something like that on a grander scale for Darubai.

  “You mean to tell me that you haven’t figured that out?” Nathaniel asked.

  Matrees slapped at his hand. “We wouldn’t have figured it out either, if we hadn’t had that accident over ten years ago.”

  “What accident?” Wylan wondered.

  “Less of an accident, and more of an unhappy event turned fortunate,�
� Nathaniel said. “The outer city was attacked by dragons, that’s where we had kept all the sick people who didn’t turn into wyverns, the ones who were mentally damaged. The dragons attacked, and burned the outer city to the ground. Many of the people were so burned that their bodies produced this glimmering kind of stone. The attack came hours before twilight, and when twilight came, the stones absorbed the light. We noticed for the next several days, dragons seemed not to see our city, and so we wondered if there was a connection between the stones and the dragons.”

  “And there was,” Wylan stated.

  Matrees nodded. “Our librarian, Kelvin, studied for endless hours and finally came across a passage about carbon stones wizards used to use. We put our yellows onto it, and they figured out a way to keep the dragons at bay. Since then, we haven’t suffered an attack.”

  “But I’m more concerned with how Darubai has survived this long?” Nathaniel sat forward, his hands folded on the table.

  “I’m beginning to think with a lot of luck,” Wylan said. “I can’t really answer for all the years before I came to live there. From what I gather, they’ve taken heavy casualties, but they have a kind of working army they call the dragon guard. It’s an army of wyverns, and while they aren’t the greatest against dragons, it’s helped defend the city.”

  “And now that you’re there?” Matrees asked.

  Wylan shrugged. “A lot of events have unfolded lately that help. I assume your wyverns have had visions of the rainbow lady?”

  The king and queen looked to one another, as if weighing if they wanted to speak about that or not. Finally, Nathaniel nodded. “But the visions stopped a while back.”

  “That’s because we found her,” Wylan said. It never occurred to her that maybe she shouldn’t be telling the king and queen any of this. If they hadn’t left their city in ten years, it was likely they wouldn’t anyway. “She’s a dragon tamer, and she’s recruited friendly dragons to help defend the city. Partner that with refugee dwarves and elves, and we have a nice size army now.”