“I thought the daylight might come back when you woke,” I said thoughtfully, staring at the half-moon. At least it wasn’t bleeding anymore. The red overcast had gone.
“I quite like the night.”
I smiled, closing my eyes and letting my head rest against his chest. “It’s my favorite.”
30Astraea
I raised my hand, and with a whisper of magick, the snow began to melt away from the dragon painting. The ice dissolved into rivulets of water, trickling down the stone in shimmering streams. Light gathered at my fingertips, dancing like tiny stars as it moved over the surface, illuminating the hidden masterpiece beneath.
When the glow finally dimmed, a collective gasp rippled through Nyte, Drystan, and me. The painting was magnificent, its color impossibly vivid despite the passage of time. The dragon stretched across the stone floor in sweeping arcs of crimson, its scales catching the faint light like real fire.
We stood in awe, marveling at the artistry, the sheer presence of the creature captured in the stone. Around it, faint etchings of ancient script curled like smoke, whispering secrets we couldn’t yet understand. For a moment, the cold and the snow outside were forgotten. All that mattered was the dragon and the strange, thrilling sense that it was watching, waiting for us.
“It’s red like Athebyne,” I said wondrously, admiring the fiery depiction, alive against the dull gray stone. “How many colors of dragon are there?”
Drystan crouched, running a hand over the long curling horns of its head. He said, “The world began in chaos. A battle of storm, fire, wind, sea, and darkness. From each birthed a creature that embodied the land’s wraths. The dragon with scales of flame and a breath that bears the heat of the sun. The dragon with scales of tanzanite and a breath that strikes the lightning of vicious storms. The dragon with scales of the forest and a breath of lethal gales. The dragon that appeared to be made of water that could flood islands. Then the feathered dragons to rule the rest, those of black or white, with breath of starfire that could rob the senses of humans, decay any life it touched, and what kept the other dragons submissive to them was that the celestial dragons could take away the magickal power of any other living thing with their magick.”
My mind played out the different descriptions, imagining a time whenthere once were countless dragons on our land. Now, if what Drystan predicted was true, there were only eighteen in existence if we freed them all.
“How did the age of the dragon fall if they were so unparalleled in power?” Nyte asked, standing cross-armed, as invested as I was in the history.
“The same thing that collapses all empires in the end,” Drystan said as he rose. “Greed and envy. Those who couldn’t secure dragon bonds started hunting them. Dragon scales, their blood, their bones—it all could be used for various extremely powerful dark magicks and remedies. A civil war broke out, no one species against the other. It was carnage until someone by the name of Master Decotu, along with seventeen other mages, cast the last seventeen dragons into these paintings to protect their legacy. It killed him and the others, leaving his own white celestial dragon, Fesarrah, as the last who would birth an egg foretold to free the dragons again when the Queen of the Kings reigns.”
That last part struck a memory. I’d heard it before. Cassia had spoken of theQueen of the Kingsin the way she liked to tell her favorite stories.
“We’ll free it after we get the key piece,” Nyte said, the first to step away from the painting to head toward the temple.
Drystan didn’t linger either, following his brother, but I stalled, lost for a moment in my own mind, which was swimming with wonder and terror over the tales about the dragons.
“Astraea,” Nyte called.
I tore my sight up from the red paint and started toward him, only getting a few paces before I gasped at the energy I collided into that staggered me back. Nyte immediately approached, but an invisible force rippled at his touch too.
We were separated.
“Looks like this trial is ours alone, brother,” Drystan said.
Nyte and I exchanged looks of concern. His jaw locked as he looked like he was calculating a way to shatter the veil before he left me here.
“I’ll be okay,” I insisted.
“Here,” Drystan said. I barely caught the glint of him throwing something before I caught it. The bottle of Eltanin’s tears. “Free the dragon while we get your precious key piece.”
The bottle came to me as if no shield existed, but when I reached tentative fingers toward the veil, it hummed with a static again.How annoying I must sit out the excitement.
“You know how to call for me,” Nyte said quietly, pained to be leaving me.
I gave him a convincing smile. “I do. Let’s not be separated for longer than necessary. Go. I’ll be right here.”
He answered with a tight nod before he turned, heading toward the templethat was smaller than the others I’d seen before. Only a uniform block which had an opening inside to go underground.
Nyte looked back at me as Drystan slipped inside first. He spoke through our bond:“Behave.”
“Speak for yourself. Try not to strangle each other.”
I shivered at the internal stroke of my senses, like his fingers brushed down the length of my spine. Then when I was alone, I sighed. My seconds of sulking over being left out were forgotten the moment my eyes fell on the vial I held, and I turned back to the painting.
I braced myself to unleash another fantastic beast into this realm. It was the greatest honor.
