The Silver Queen and Other Dragon Tales by Naomi Lastrucci

Author:Naomi Lastrucci [Lastrucci, Naomi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Independent
Published: 2018-12-03T22:00:00+00:00

The Silver Queen

Faye looked past the trees out into the open fields, sighing as she watched the rest of the youth laughing and playing without her. This was life in the enchanted country: every seventh day, when the sun was high, the youngest of the clan would play a game to see who could put on the biggest show of magic. And during every game, Faye watched from afar with a heavy heart. It never mattered who won; she envied every single dragon who wasn’t her.

All dragons were born with a beautiful coat of iridescent scales that shone brightly in sunlight and served as the source of their magic. All but a rare few. Roughly once a century, a hatchling was born with pure white scales that didn’t so much as glimmer when the sun touched them. Such dragons were dubbed Achromatic, and for their dull scales that left them powerless, they were considered inferior to normal, colorful dragons.

Faye was one of the unlucky few.

“Monochrome!”

“Colorless!”

“Pale-face!”

The other drakes’ taunts had eventually driven her to hide in the forest during their magic contests. It didn’t seem fair that she should be excluded, but she understood why the others felt she had no place there. The games were mostly for magic practice, but they were also treated as a test to see who would earn the favor of the elders first when they all came of age. How could an Achromatic have any chance of earning such an honor? Plain white dragons sat at the bottom of the hierarchy, as Faye knew only too well.

Today, as always, the white drake watched as the others showed off the powers they so often seemed to take for granted, trying to guess who would win this time.

Probably one of the red dragons. They usually won this game, as their scales easily absorbed enough light to send their fiery breath soaring above the treetops.

Or maybe one of the blue dragons. They sometimes won with their strong jets of water, which had been known to restore dried-up lakes to their former liveliness.

Or a yellow dragon? They had won a few times by conjuring up small yet powerful lightning storms.

It could even be another brown dragon. Faye had seen an earth dragon win once. She later learned it had taken him a month to store enough solar energy in his scales to split that boulder in half.

It doesn’t matter. The magic competition was essentially the same every week, and today was no different.

Except for Faye’s plan to change her life.

* * *

Two weeks ago, a traveling dwarf had stumbled upon the Crystal Cave that the dragon clan called home. In exchange for shelter for the night, he had shared half the gold in his pack and stories of his travels across the world.

The youth were especially fascinated by his tales of humans. For as long as they could remember, they had been warned that humans were dangerous and were not to be approached for any reason. They weren’t even

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