Dragon Blood- The Complete Trilogy

by Katie Cherry

  Keeping the connection to the magic she'd extended outside of her body and watching where she stepped proved to be an interestingly challenging task for Myra. If she focused too much on not tripping over loose rocks or pockets of deep sand, the magic would start to drift away. After ten or twenty minutes of practicing, she finally got comfortable doing both at once and progressed through the tunnel even faster than before. Though the appearance of huge spiders here and there nearly threw her off as she would flinch away from them in surprise and trepidation, she managed to make it back to the surface only just over an hour after Mala had left Myra to find her way.

  The sun was shining brightly when she finally stepped out of the tunnel, her limbs even more weary than before, and her body covered in a light sheen of sweat. She couldn't help but feel proud as she walked toward the waiting dragons, though, her head held high. Most of them weren't watching the tunnel's entrance, clearly not expecting her to surface so soon. The few who did notice her arrival jerked in surprise before quickly alerting the others. Mala approached her first, a genuine smile on her face. "Myra. I knew you would be able to do it, but I am impressed that you guided yourself out so quickly. Well done."

  "Thank you, Mala," Myra replied with a weary smile. She ached to sit down, but thought better of it. The whole point of today was to show these dragons that she's strong and can handle whatever they throw at her. Besides, they might actually start throwing things at her, so she'd need to be ready on her feet anyway. Filling her lungs to capacity with air, then slowly letting it out, she continued, putting her hands on her hips. "Alright. What's the next challenge?" She desperately hoped that there weren't anymore, as she was starting to feel nauseous again, but there was no way she'd be admitting that to the dragons.

  "A Queen is like a mother to the island dragons," Mala began, sitting back and looking at Myra seriously. The other dragons pulled up closer as well and stared at her. She swallowed and tried to ignore them, focusing on Mala instead. "Her heart must be pure, and full of love. She must act in the best interest of the dragons, and heed their every need."

  "Alright. I can do that," Myra accepted, nodding.

  "Can you?" Kukane quipped, raising his wings a little to draw attention to himself as he spoke. "Because it seems you haven't been listening to us these past two weeks. You claim to look out for us, to protect us, but you do not allow our opinions, our concerns, to be heard. Do you know why you have been unable to convince anyone to keep Makuahine's magic to ourselves, and stay on Awahine?"

  "Uh... I guess not," Myra hesitantly replied. Swallowing, she felt herself humble before the dragons gathered in front of her. She hadn't really thought about that. Kukane was right- she had just been pushing her own agenda. That's why she was originally sent here, after all, but he was right. Maybe she should take a step back and see if there was a way to compromise. "But... you're right. I've been selfish and certain that I know what's best for you, even though I still don't even know much about you. ...I'm willing to listen now."

  Koa, the dragon she had been arguing with over the prophecy just the day before, stepped forward. His voice entered her mind, deep and serious. "We cannot give up our mission to bring magic to the world, as you would have us do."

  "Why?"

  "...Because Makuahine would fade away once more if she is not returned to the world... this time for good. We do not know how much time we have before this happens. We do not know if we can afford to wait for the humans to soften their hearts. The Old Ones have waited centuries. Their hearts will have to be soft enough at this point. If they are not... then we are all doomed regardless, and magic with us." His eyes lowered to meet hers, and her heart pounded hard in her chest at the look. "Even the Old Ones’ magic."

  Silence filled the air when he finished, and Myra found herself unable to respond, her mouth opening and closing in shock. She had no idea it was such a serious problem. She thought they were all just hopelessly optimistic. Guilt pricked at her heart, and she felt tears well in her eyes. Her mission had just become far more complicated. She had come to save the dragons from becoming extinct. She'd thought that required keeping the island dragons on their Hawaiian island, but now it sounded like that would doom them all. Dragons were creatures of magic. If magic left the world for good... what would happen to them then?

  The nauseous feeling increased in her gut, and she finally had to lean over and vomit. When she finished, wiping at her mouth with the back of her hand, she felt better, though still weak. Turning back to the appalled dragons, she nodded. "Alright. I see now. I'm sorry I never asked. It seems... I was the misguided one. Keeping you out of the world will only be worse for everyone, as you've been trying to say from the beginning." She took another deep breath before continuing. "I still don't know how possible it is, but... I'll try to help you. With the humans. It might be better to shoot for that small chance of success than just wait for the world to collapse around us, right?"

  In a wave, the gathered dragons relaxed, their wings lowering and tails swishing in small movements in the sand, like dogs. Mala beamed at Myra and lowered her head to touch her forehead with her snout, which Myra supposed was the dragon version of a hug. "Thank you, Myra. Thank you for opening up your mind and your heart to us." She pulled back and gave Myra a funny look. "Something smells off about you."

  "Yeah, I just threw up. Um... sorry about that, by the way. I've just been a little nauseous recently. It could be all the fruit, or I'm getting sick from the stress of being here."

  "No... that's not what it is," another female dragon murmured, scooting toward Myra, her belly dragging in the sand like a lizard. She was heavy with eggs and would likely be laying them in another few weeks, which Myra secretly wished she could be there to see. She lowered her head toward Myra and took a deep sniff. Frowning, she lowered her head further and did so again, which only made Myra self-conscious about her dirty clothes. She'd only brought three pairs of clothes, so these were a week old now. She was sure they smelled, even after her swim through the ocean with Mala.

  The dragon jerked back suddenly, eyes going wide. "You are with child!"

  "I'm... what?" Myra repeated, feeling as though the ground had dropped out from under her. "No. I can't be."

  "How sure are you of that?" the dragon scoffed in reply. "Trust me, I can tell. You are pregnant."

  Myra's mind raced. Pregnant? She hadn't been great at taking her pills, but still, she thought she was fine. Something about it felt right, though, the longer she thought about it. Then she realized that she had missed her period. She was supposed to start soon after getting to the island. "I... I... I can't believe it..."

  "If you are with child, you are a mother already. And a mother is really what a Queen is to the dragons." The dragon spun to face the rest, her voice turning triumphant in their minds. "What further proof do we need? I believe that Myra has proven herself worthy to be our Queen." After a moment, the rest of the dragons agreed, growing more and more jubilant as they realized what this would mean for them to have finally found their Queen.

  Myra gave them a weak smile, still distracted at the thought of being a mother. She wasn't opposed, but she was definitely not prepared for the revelation. She hadn't expected to even start thinking about it seriously for months, possibly years. One hand instinctively went to her belly, as though expecting to feel the baby beneath, though she couldn’t feel anything unusual.

  "Well, what are we waiting for, then?" Another dragon piped up. "Take her to Makuahine and ask her to allow Myra to be reborn!"

  As the other dragons cheered and turned back to Myra, her heart plummeted. She'd forgotten. They meant to toss her in the volcano. She'd been willing to take the chance back when no other lives were tied to her in case she failed, but now... everything was different. Everything was higher stakes.

  She wasn't willing to take the gamble anymore.

  Chapter Eight

  "No!" Myra cried, scrambling backward as the dragons approached her. They stopp
ed at stared at her in confusion. "No, I can't do this anymore. What if I die? What if... my baby dies? I'm sorry. But I'm not jumping into a volcano."

  "You will be fine. You have proven to us and to Makuahine that you are worthy," Mala soothingly whispered into Myra's mind, but Myra wasn't so convinced.

  "There's no guarantee of that, though! I was willing to believe before, but now... there's too much to lose!"

  "There's too much lost if you don't," Koa growled, reaching out suddenly and grasping her in his large paw. He was one of the biggest dragons on the island, as well as the strongest. Still, Myra immediately fought to break free, even pulling in her wings in the hopes that she'd be able to slip through before he can tighten his grasp. Unfortunately, he's quicker than she expected, and she found herself wrapped tightly in his long, clawed fingers and pressed against the rough paw. "Have faith in Makuahine," he said as he lifted into the air, the other dragons following, none of them looking disturbed at how Myra was now being taken to a volcano against her will. "All will be well."

  Myra couldn't hold back the shriek that leapt from her lips as they streamed through the air toward the volcano, which looked to glow with hunger, ready to devour the dragons' offering. She liked to think she was normally pretty well composed. But not right now. Right now, she was screaming her head off as she was flown toward her death... and the death of the unborn child she'd only just found out about.

  All too soon, they reached the volcano. Koa hovered over the mouth of it, giving Myra the opportunity to look down at the slow bubbles of lava growing and popping in the thick soup filling the bottom. Her screaming raised in pitch, and the dragons growled at her, annoyed. She didn't care.

  "Oh great Makuahine," Kukane began, perching on the lip of the volcano just below Myra. "We come to you with a woman turned dragon turned Dragonkin. She now wishes to be reborn in the image of your children, with your magic flowing through her veins. We have found her worthy of the transformation, and the burden of being a dragon Queen. She has the heart of a strong dragon... of a mother dragon. We ask that you allow that to grow within her, helping her to accept your magic and the love for us, your children. As always, we await your judgement, Makuahine."

  "We await your judgement, Makuahine," the rest of the dragons repeated after him in unison. As soon as they finished, Koa's paw opened, and Myra found herself plummeting through the air, falling the few remaining feet into the active volcano. She fell too quickly to open her wings, but she managed to land with her knees bent, rolling to the side so she didn't break anything. The ledge she found herself on was deep within the volcano, but still a ways above the thick, slowly moving lava.

  The first thing she noticed was the heat. She felt as though her skin was going to boil right off of her bones. Breathing hard, she immediately summoned her dragon wings, wrapping herself in them as best she could. The heat was immediately toned down, but she was still sweating hard. After a few more seconds, she felt her throat dry out from breathing in the hot air, and she gasped desperately, feeling as though the air didn't have enough oxygen. Before long, she realized her shoes were melting into the hot rock beneath her. As they melted, the soles of her feet began to burn, and she knew they would have some serious wounds on them if she didn't find a way out of that volcano- and fast. She didn't dare lift her wings to try and find a way out, though. Besides, even if she did manage to crawl her way out, the dragons would just toss her back in again, leaving her to die or be reborn.

  Just as she was thinking she would die in her little self-made cocoon, she felt a strange shift. The heat seemed to pull from her wings and limbs all at once, drawn toward her heart. As the heat rushed in, Myra threw her head back and screamed, though the pain lasted less than a second. At the same instant, a ripple passed over her body, and she felt it change. Spines grew from her back, claws from her fingers, and a tail near the small of her back. Dropping onto all fours, she found that her face felt rearranged. It now felt long... and stiff. Her neck felt far too long.

  Still, she recognized the feeling, thanks to the final trial she had gone through with the Elder Dragons. She just wasn't used to her body being that of a dragon's.

  Bending her neck to look back at herself, since the volcano's heat no longer bothered her, Myra took in the strange sight. Her wings were still crimson, as was most of the rest of her new scaly body. Her underbelly, claws, and spines, though, were all amber, like the rest of the island dragons.

  She'd done it. She'd made it through the trials... made it through Makuahine's fiery depths. She was now human, 'old' dragon, and 'new' dragon. She represented all three at once.

  Rhys is never going to believe this, Myra chuckled to herself, relief at having survived making her giddy.

  "Myra?" Mala's voice entered Myra's head at the same time that her head poked over the edge of the volcano. "Are you- oh, my!"

  Realizing that since she had made the transition, she should probably leave the volcano now, Myra raised her wings and leapt out of Makuahine, hovering beside her friend, a grin stretching over her long, pointed teeth. "It worked! Mala- I'm okay!" To her surprise and relief, talking with her mind came naturally to her.

  "I knew you would be, silly," Mala replied, hitting Myra's side with her tail teasingly, though she clearly sounded relieved regardless. "You were the one who doubted Makuahine."

  "I guess I'll never do that again," Myra chuckled. "Everything worked out just fine."

  "You truly are meant to be the Queen of the dragons," Kukane quietly rumbled into her mind, drawing her gaze back to him as he stared at her in awe. "Never has there been a dragon... that's a mix of the Old Ones and the islanders. You are of two colors. There can be no doubt now. Makuahine has chosen you to be the Queen of the dragons, bringing her magic back into the world." As he finished, he bowed his head low to her, stretching out his wings until the tips touch the ground as well. Following his lead, the rest of the dragons landed and copied the movement, bowing to Myra. Mala did so as well, leaving Myra alone, hanging in the air just a few feet above all their heads.

  It was uncomfortable, but not as much as Myra expected it to be. She could totally do this Queen thing. She just wasn't so sure about one thing Kukane had said. "Kukane... what do you mean, all dragons? I thought I was just Queen of the island dragons now?"

  He finally lifted his head at her question, and the others, thankfully, did the same. "Why would they not look to you as their Queen as well? You are a Queen, and you are both Old and New dragon. It only makes sense that you are to be a ruler of them all. The humans, I am sure, would be more difficult to convince to see you that way, but you represent them as well. You are the knot that ties all of our races together. "

  "Uh... I don't know about that," Myra chuckled nervously in reply, landing on the ground before Kukane and the rest. I don't know that the Elder Dragons need or want a Queen. Especially not someone so young and untried, whereas they have multiple centuries of experience and wisdom."

  "I would not say you are untried," Mala retorted with a smile. "We just tried you and found you worthy. From what you told me before, they did the same for you. You even passed their tests and proved far more capable than they expected."

  "You might be surprised what they would be willing to accept," Koa cut in. "They are old. And you are now as eternal as they, but with far more life before you. They will want to guide you, of course, but I believe they will be more open-minded than you think."

  "Uh... well, okay... I guess we'll just see what they have to say about it, then," Myra sighed, ending the debate. "Right now I'm more concerned about just what the rest of my life is going to entail. ...Am I stuck as a full dragon like this forever?"

  "I doubt it," Kukane hurried to assure her. "Makuahine did not take away what you already were. She just added some island dragon magic to you. You were born a human, and you retained that part of you when becoming a dragon mutt, then a Dragonkin. I do not see why that would be any different for your step into embracing a full d
ragon body."

  "Kalseru, your grandfather, also had a full dragon and full human form, did he not?" Mala reminded her.

  "Right. Well, here goes nothing, then," Myra said, breathing out, caught off-guard at the sight of smoke. She was a little terrified in the face of the possibility of not being able to turn back into a human, but the dragons' words gave her some amount of comfort. So, trying not to think about the impossibility of a relationship with Rhys if she ended up really being stuck as a large, scaly beast, Myra recalled the feeling of being a human. She pictured the dragon wings melting back into her, like she had before, but included the tail and scales as well. It took more focus than accessing her dragon wings alone, but finally, she managed to reverse the transformation Makuahine had put her through and change back into her normal, human body.

  The instant she did, however, she collapsed onto the ground. Her shoes had completely melted away, and her socks were obliterated as well. The scorched flesh was no longer protected by the dragon scales, and Myra could feel the dirt entering the wounds, which still burned in pain in the first place. Falling to her butt, she immediately got off of her feet, though they continued to burn. Tears began to flow from her eyes, and she turned to Kukane, who stared at her, a little surprised. "Water, please, get me water for my feet..."

  He immediately sprang into action, Koa and another dragon joining him. While she waited, Myra examined her feet. The redness, she'd expected, but what surprised her were the terrible welts, skin charred black, and the rest of it raw and red, even continuing up her legs, though not quite reaching her knees. Wincing, Myra held back her tears the best she could. She was a Queen now. She couldn't break down in front of the dragons. No matter how disgusting she looked, and no matter how much pain she was in.

  I can't believe I signed up for a lifetime of this, Myra growled to herself. Well, not the pain. I'm sure these burns will actually heal quickly thanks to my dragon side... times two? But the whole... leader of an entire race thing. I have grown far too impulsive for my own good. I almost died in that volcano because of it... my baby almost died.