He rises almost straight upward. The enormous, gold-accented black wings beat against the evening air, carrying him higherand higher until I find myself squinting against the sunlight. For a moment I wonder whether he intends to keep going forever, climbing until he disappears into the clouds and leaves all of us behind.
Then he banks sharply. The dragon rolls sideways. His wings fold partway against his body and his entire massive form twists through the air in a movement so graceful that my mind struggles to accept its size. Nothing is chasing him. Nothing threatens him. There isn't the slightest practical reason for what he's doing.
He's showing off. The great and terrible dragon is showing off because he's happy.
A laugh almost escapes me. For a moment I can picture exactly what is happening inside that giant head. Vyrathion spent years dreaming about this. Years obsessing over gold, talking about gold, arguing about gold and making everyone around him listen to endless speeches about gold. Every plan eventually led back to it. Every frustration came from being separated from it.
And now he finally has enough.
I follow his flight as he climbs again. The setting sun catches his scales and turns them into streaks of gold and crimson. Against the orange sky he looks less like a being and more like some ancient force of nature. Beautiful. Dangerous. And now, completely free.
Free.The warmth drains from me almost immediately. Because what reason does he have to stay?
I lower my gaze and look around the hillside. The battle is over. Tribesmen are disappearing into the jungle as fast as they can run. The wounded drag themselves after the others.The surviving Plood wander among the wreckage in apparent confusion, as though they aren't entirely certain how events reached this point. I distantly spot another great mass of Plood coming in from the jungle. Vyrathion’s entourage, coming too late to make a difference.
The danger has passed. The girls are safe. Vyrathion got what he wanted.
I stare back up at the dragon. For years that goal consumed him. The gold wasn't merely something he desired. It was the thing around which his entire existence revolved. He endured humiliation, captivity, weakness and injury because he believed that one day he would become whole again.
Now he is whole. What comes after that?
Beth steps closer and shields her eyes as she looks upward. "Is he leaving?"
The question twists something inside me. I don't answer. Partly because I don't know. Partly because I've been asking myself exactly the same thing ever since he took off.
The dragon is only a dark shape now, circling high above the jungle.
I remember him walking away from me. I remember him refusing to help the girls. I remember every argument about treasure, every ridiculous conversation about hoards and dragons. I remember standing in the jungle while he chose gold over me.
Then I remember him coming back.
The memory helps. Just not enough, because coming back isn't the same thing as staying.
Maybe he returned because dragons don't tolerate having their servants stolen by rival tribes. Maybe he returned because somebody threatened something he considered his. Maybe he came back because he wanted revenge.
Or maybe?—
Morgan.
The voice appears inside my head. I gasp so violently that Beth flinches beside me. The sound doesn't arrive through my ears. It simply exists inside my thoughts, vast and unmistakable.
Praxigor speaks like that. Except his speech doesn’t have a warmth to it, like this does.
There is power in it now, a weight that wasn't there before. Beneath that power I detect something else.
I laugh under my breath.
Beth immediately notices. "Is he talking to you?"
I glance toward her and wipe a strand of hair out of my face. "Apparently becoming a dragon wasn't enough. Now he has to narrate the experience."
She looks up. “Is that… I mean, is he why…?”
“He’s the reason Sage caught me weeping my eyes out, yes,” I reply. “I’ve known him for a while.”
“But he’s a… a dragon?”
“That’s right.”
