Dragon Mage (The First Dragon Rider Book 3) by Ava Richardson

Author:Ava Richardson [Richardson, Ava]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-11-29T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

Neill, and the Dark Prince

The dragon horn blared its alarm across the mountain, waking me up from quite possibly the soundest sleep I had ever had. Even though I had spent the night wrapped in one of my uncle’s brightly-woven blankets on the stone and shingle beach of the lakeside, and my body was now cold and a little stiff, I had slept deeply and well, and woke up feeling refreshed.

Neill Shaar-Torvald, I remembered, my heart hammering as Uncle Lett groaned and grumbled awake. That was who I would be.

“What is that heavens’ awful racket?” he said blearily, clearly having imbibed in too much of the berry wine he had produced at some point in the evening. “Does that happen every morning? At this hour? No wonder you’re so stressed, Neill!”

Daros and Sami slept on, blissfully unaware, but Maya was groaning, and already shuffling to the cold embers of the fire, tutting and snapping twigs.

The dragon horn sounded again, and I checked the lightening sky once again. The sunrise was imminent, but the problem was, we didn’t use the dragon horn at sunrise. We had stopped the former practice of the old Draconis order of sounding the old dragon pipes at dawn and sunset immediately. We had no wish, no need, to remind the dragons who was ‘really’ in charge on this mountain, as the Abbot Ansall had, and now only used our modified, gentler dragon horn as an alarm or a celebration of something.

“No, that sound doesn’t happen every morning. Something’s wrong!” I said, picking up my cloak and running to Stamper who was placidly nibbling grass on the edge of the trees. I was about to leap upon him bareback and urge him up the track to the ridge, and the monastery beyond, when Uncle Lett shouted at me.

“Wait, Neill! Can’t it wait until after breakfast?”

It couldn’t, and I knew that my uncle would forgive me for abandoning him there. He was a man of taking quick offense, and offering quicker forgiveness. I had never known Uncle Lett to hold a grudge against anyone or anything, as, in his own words, “life is short and the roads are long.” So I continued to click my tongue at the surprisingly obliging bitless Stamper and soon we were trotting up the trail until we neared the top of the ridge, the warm air billowing like smoke from Stamper’s nose in the cold morning.

“Screch? Skrar!”

The sound of the waking dragons rose to meet me in the early morning air. They sounded normal, and I realized that perhaps I was on edge, worried after my night away. Perhaps they’ve found something to celebrate, I thought, as we crested the rise, and held a hand over my eyes to stare into the distant spaces around the mountain. But what if it was Zaxx? Has he been sighted? I suddenly thought in terror, my stomach clenching in fear and worry. Maybe it was too late to enact my plan; to encourage us to disband the monastery entire, and to allow the dragons to be finally, truthfully, free.

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