Dragon Days

Dragon Days Chapter 5

Chapter 5

The chaos of Natasha's knighting ceremony seemed to bring the whole court to its knees. I'm getting literally ushered to my room by Paramour Silva. The white haired knight `places' me firmly into my room against my will. I can't get past him. He's strong and fast. It's not hard to know why he's renown as one of the best knights in the Empire.

"What are you doing?" I'm pleading with him, "I need to go check on Maxim. I need to make sure he's OK."

It has been less than an hour since Pike's dead body appeared in court causing havoc in the party. I'd think Paramour Silva would have something more important to do than taking me to my room against my will like this.

"That boy's trouble. I can't have my future squire be influenced by that sort of riff-raff."

Silva was serious especially calling me his `future squire'. I have no idea where he got that idea from. I'd never given him the slightest idea that I'd be anything close to that for him.

I'm irritated, "Paramour. There's something weird going on..."

"Weird like what?"

I try to put the pieces together in my head. Pike going after the Elven book. Pike being murdered before he could return with it. Then there was the murder attempt turned rescue by Maxim. All of these things just didn't add up.

"I'm not sure," is the only thing that I can manage to say but my mouth gets dry as I plead to the Paramour one last time, "Maybe a wild dragon attached Pike."

"Wild dragons are dormant. They hide in caves and nests deep below the Earth.  They definitely don't attack dragon riders."

"Then it was a tamed dragon!"

He looks at me in the most patronizing way ever. The paramour has a smug face. Sure, he's handsome. Sure he's dashing and sure he's strong as hell, but he seems so oblivious in that moment. It's irritating me highly when he's acting as though the words that were coming out of my mouth were nothing more than colorful noise.

"I know what's happening---" the Paramour states.

"You do?"

Maybe I was wrong about him. Maybe he isn't as oblivious as I thought.

"Pike's dragon went into a jealous rage. It happens often. Pike was known to visit the local brothels. We all knew it was only a matter of time before his dragon completely lost it and burned him and herself to ashes."

My forehead twisted up. Did he say this was self Inflicted?

WHAT!

Something serious was happening and the Paramour was blaming it on a fucking jealous rage. I look at the guy wondering what the hell is wrong with him but he gives me a smile and then pats me on my head. He pats me on my head like a dog. He pats me like I'm some sort of stray animal that needs rescuing.

"Paramour Pike----you aren't listening..."

He proves his point by ignoring me, "I am Nik. I am. You are clearly a bit wound up. Take the night. I'll come to visit you in the morning and we can talk about you becoming my squire. Also Nik? Don't bother leaving the room. I'll have two guards stationed outside the whole night. For your safety of course."

He leaves me in the room. There's nothing more horrible than being ignored. There's nothing more horrible than knowing in your soul something is off in the world and no one listening to the words that are coming out of your mouth. I punch the wall hard twice. The only thing that stops me from hitting it a third time is a hand grabbing me before I can do it again. I turn to the right and I see the Black Dread. My dragon soul is there with me. He looks at me with the same deep dark intense eyes as he stops me from hitting my knuckles.

"Calm down Nik."

"Dragon Rage! That's what he says the problem is," I state, "Pike was attacked! Someone murdered him."

"Calm down Nik," he repeats.

His voice is deep, dark, and in the middle of this strange night, it almost seems soothing. I sit on the bed and he stands over me like some sort of protector in the middle of the darkness. I'm locked in here and all alone, though the Dread's spirit is with me, and It has a way of making me feel like I'm not all that alone after all.

"You still think you can trust Silva?" I ask.

The Dread stared at the door, "You might be right. He's an idiot. Still, don't trust that boy who has stars in his eyes every time you talk to him either."

He's talking about Maxim. I saw how hard Maxim was trying to protect me.

"Maxim wanted me to choose Pike. Said I could trust him."

"It makes sense that you should. I felt quite safe knowing he was the one that went out looking for the Elven Articles. Your mother was very close with Pike and Raisa when she was alive. Best friends and fierce allies. They were somewhat inseparable. I hated it, of course. I was so in love with Nicoletta."

"Before you killed her, you mean?" I ask.

He gets silent.

He doesn't like talking about it but right now I wasn't going to give him a chance to shut down. I move closer to him. There's a strange thing about this dragon. Every time my mother is mentioned he sinks down into a state of almost sadness.

"Was it rage?" I ask.

"You talking about Pike's death or your mother's?"

"Both..."

"I don't remember," the dragon states.

"What do you mean you don't remember?"

"My relationship with your mother was supportive. She was never married to your father as they say. She never loved him. She loved me. He was just a man she wanted to have kids with. I'd given her permission. I wasn't jealous of it no matter what these idiots want to make it seem like. I let her fulfill her need to have children. I respected it. We lived happily. It all changed one day."

"How?"

"Your mother was given these articles by the Elves. Ever since then things between us got...different. I don't know what they said. The articles, I mean. I have no idea what was in them. She never shared it with me. She never shared it with anyone. She started distancing herself from me and the empire. She broke the contract between us."

"You can break it."

"There's one way a dragon and its rider can be separated. If you write your dragon's name in your own blood. When she broke it, I was distraught. I became a wild dragon."

"You went into a rage," I state.

"No!"

He roars it at that moment. He roars it so loud that I swear it's the actual dragon there instead of just his soul. That's when I see it. Tears. Who knew that dragons were capable of it. The tears run smoothly down his cheek. I'm so shocked by the tears that I get up off my bed and glare at them in silence. He doesn't turn away or try to hide it. He just lets the sparkling tear drip down his face. It's as though he's too far gone in his own feelings and memories to know or care that the tear is there. Right now I see only pain in the Black Dread's face.

Without him saying it I knew. I knew the truth of the Black Dread.

"You would have never hurt my mother, would you?"

"I've been in a rage before. This wasn't THAT. You are aware. I'd come to terms with your mother leaving. I figured as long as she was happy. Ever since she'd read the articles something had changed. She wanted to hide something. I wasn't angry. I let her be. I went to the mountains. Then one night I just remember...a song. And then I black out. When I wake up I am over the wilds. My throat burns from expelling flames. The Wilds have burnt down. I flew around desperately looking for your mother. She was dead. Burnt by my flames. The only thing left right next to her were those articles. I should have taken them. I was so distraught that I just flew away."

It wasn't a rage. It was some sort of blackout.

Was there a difference?

"You really loved her?"

"I need you to believe me," the Black Dread states, "I need you to believe something took over me the day that the Wilds were burned."

"What has the power to do that?"

"Nothing, that still exists anyway..."

"Strange."

There seems no calming him down. The tears trickle down his face. It's so clear now why he was trying to avoid talking about what happened the night that the Wilds burned down. This was supposed to be a wild animal but he didn't seem so wild to me. Not now. He seems so aware of everything. As he cries I stand next to him. I press my hand on his face. His warm wet cheek rests in my hand. He looks up at me. His eyes squint in the darkness.

He's so handsome. He's so warm.

"Dragons can live so long it seems like forever. It's rare to feel love and not feel lonely. I felt that with your mother. I need you to believe I would have never hurt her...not willingly..."

"I believe you."

"You do?"

He seems surprised. I'm actually surprised I'm so willing to believe him.

"I can see your soul, after all," I laugh.

He doesn't laugh. I guess the expression is still a little too human for him. He just stares at me. He stares at my eyes. He stares at my lips. He stares at everything about me. Then he takes a step forward and he presses himself up against me.

"You look just like her," his deep voice intrudes in the darkness.

"Ouroboros..." I whisper.

Before I can get my voice out though he's kissing me. His pink lips spreading my own open as though he was prying open a lock. His tongue enters my mouth. His hands grabbed me pulling me up against him. I'm kissing him back. A part of me wants to ease the pain he's feeling but a deeper part of me longs for this closeness with him that I just don't understand. It's almost as though my body needs him at that moment. So I let him take me. I undress and lay on the bed completely naked. The only thing I'm wearing in the sunlight.

I look back at the Black Dread. He is still staring over me. His dark eyes seeming more and more intrigued with me by the moment.

"I find you fascinating, Nikolai of House Glabber," he hisses in the darkness in the deep dragon accent that I find incredibly sexy.

With that he licks me. He starts at my neck. He goes down my back. He gets to the smalls of my back. His tongue flickers when he gets to my asshole. I damn near squeeze the bedsheets hoping he'd stay there all night but he doesn't. His tongue makes it's way down my thighs and to my calves. Then slowly he starts to lick my feet.

"Yes!"

I'm begging for it feeling the ticklish tongue slide in and out of my each and every toe. It's as though he's worshipping every part of my body. Every part of me.

He does it until my asshole is wet, drenched and desperately wanting more.

"Please...fuck me..."I'm begging.

He releases his dick. The long dragon python dick falls 10 inches underneath his black shawl. Slowly he gets hard as though he's pulling his dick up with an invisible string. The dramatic erection stands full and at ease there in the darkness.

He starts making his way towards me and then all of a sudden he stops.

"I can't."

I'm confused.

"You want this. You want me," I state.

"More than anything, but I can't keep ignoring the fact that something happened that day I burned down the Wilds. I want you...but until I find out what happened that day, I don't deserve you completely."

My hormones want to argue with him. They want to rip and roar and strangle and fight him into submission. I want to ride his dick until I learn to spit fire. Instead, I just nod. I know there won't be any changing his mind. If one thing I knew about the Black Dread was that he was stubborn as all hell. He had made up his mind. He uses his black shawl to cover where he is exposed.

I look up at him. He's never looked so beautiful at that moment. Strange, tall and majestic. He looked like something out of a nightmare that turns out to be terrifying but yet still beautiful and almost poetic.

"I see..." I whisper so low that I doubt he hears me.

The Black Dread turns to the moonlight.

"I'll keep my soul here and watch over you until you go to sleep. Then I'll return to my body."

~

I wake up alone and prepare for the day only to see that the guards Paramour Silva had left at my door were finally gone. I want out of there before Silva comes for his `talk'. I head down to Maxim's room. As I approach I almost immediately hear a voice standing there.

"He's not there."

I turn and see Natasha standing there. She scares the shit out of me. The girl was so quiet.

"You following me?" I ask, "Mistress Natasha?"

She's a mistress now. I can tell by the white cloak, golden armor and the golden metallic badges of the Dragonov Empire stitched into her clothing. In her arms is a golden helmet so thick you probably would only see her eyes. She was a big deal now. She looked no different outside of her clothes though. She'd always had that regal behavior about her. She wasn't any more excited or even slightly more confident now that she had earned the title of Mistress. Natasha was the same Natasha that I met before. A blank slate if I ever met one.

She nods, "Something like that. If you want to get to Maximilian you should follow me now. And be a little bit quieter than you usually are. You have the grace of a catapult."

Natasha is silent as usual as she takes me down to what looks like an underground cellar in the fortress. There are so many hidden paths in the Dragonov fort. It's weird she's taking me all the way down here. It's weird that she has taken me this far. As she takes me down to the cellar I realize this is something odd.

A scream! It pierces my ears.

I jump. I'm sure by now we'd gotten so far down in the fortress that other people can't hear it but it echoes through the stone stairwell. Natasha ignores it as though she doesn't hear it but I do. I hear exactly what it is.

"What was that?" I ask.

No answer.

"Where are we going?"

She doesn't respond.

Natasha is so stoic taking me down the steps. She's even more apathetic than usual.  I knew someone sent her down here and by the time we get down there and I see Raisa standing there I know that it was only Raisa who could have given Natasha an order that she would have followed so readily and promptly.  Sure enough, the older Mistress is there donned in matching gold armor and white cloak.  Raisa has on her helm but I can almost see the scowls underneath the gold medal even before she removes it. When she does remove the helmet, Raisa has some sweat trickling down her face. Something has tired her out.  Sure it's hot down here but she's been at work. That's when I see what looks like a whip in her hands.

I turn instantly and I'm shocked when I see what I've walked into. It's some sort of torture room or something. Raisa's own personal interrogation room has been revealed to me.

"Oh geez, don't want you to see me like this. If I knew you were coming I would have freshened up a little."

It's Maxim.

"Don't interrupt," a voice states.

I realize that the Black Dread has returned. He grabs at me but I know why. The reason he's so concerned I was going to interrupt was because of what Raisa was doing to Maxim. She has Maxim tied up and was literally whipping him!

"This is torture!" I state.

"He's a traitor," Raisa states, "He's lucky I didn't turn him over to the Emperor, as of yet. If I had, he would be ashes by now. Count yourself lucky."

She's such a bitch. Everything about Mistress Raisa SCREAMS bitch.

Nikolai is bleeding. There are a few lashes across his chest. Luckily it looks like she has just started her torture. What bothers me, as well, is that he was completely naked. His muscular body stretched out in a way that lets me know Raisa had kidnapped him and done this on purpose. His naked body seems to even make Natasha blush a little bit.

"So my dick is a lot bigger than this..." he tells us looking down, "It's shrinkage from the pain. You know that right?"

He's trying to make the most out of it but I can tell not even Maxim's corny little jokes can take away from the fact that he was in real pain. I'm running over to him and regardless of what the Dread says I interrupt. I start untying him as fast as I can.

"What are you doing?" I ask Raisa, "Why are you doing this to him?"

"Ask him..." Raisa states.

"I went to her this morning. I told her I tried to kill you," he explains, "I told her I was hired to kill you."

"HE WAS WHAT!"

This is coming from the Black Dread. I turn at that moment hearing the loud roaring voice sound like thunder in the basement. I had left the little detail about what happened with Maxim out with the Dread and it was clear now he was paying for it.

Raisa stares down at Maxim when I release him and take off my own shawl to cover him up. I wrap it around his naked body so that he isn't as exposed. I feel horrible for him.

"Your dragon's mad, isn't he?" Maxim asks, "Mine's is too. She doesn't like the torture."

"This has to stop," I respond.

"He tried to kill you," Raisa responds.

"She's right. I deserve this. That's why I went to Raisa. I knew that Pike trusted her more than anyone else. He told me that he may not return. There were dangerous forces who wanted the contents of the Elven articles to stay hidden."

"That's why they made me burn down the Wilds," the Black Dread states.

Who? And how could they have made the Black Dread do something like that?

I look down at Maxim. He looks up at me. He's still that sweet guy and honestly, I believe him. When he looks up at me with that babyface I swear I know that he really couldn't go through with it even if he was hired to kill me.

"We are going to beat the truth out of him," Raisa explains, "He's a spy."

"Have you tried just asking him?" I ask.

Raisa gets quiet. No. She hadn't. She had gone straight to fucking torture. I roll my eyes at her. She's just a miserable bitch honestly. It's surprising how someone so cruel managed to train someone so by the book like Natasha.

"If she doesn't kill him, I will..." the Black Dread states.

I look over at Maxim. Right now I was pretty much his only friend. I grab his hand and get down to his level. He seems to want to hide the impact of Raisa's lashes by standing up tall. He gives me a nod letting me know that he doesn't need my help, but I stand close anyway because he looks like he could possibly faint any second. None-the-less, he isn't going to show weakness. Not now. That's the sexy thing about Maxim. He forces a smile in the next few seconds and looks over at us.

"I am a traitor to the Dragonov Empire," he explains, "I was hired."

"By the Prince?" I ask.

"No."

Dammit. It would have been a lot easier and more convenient if it was that shitty ass, Prince Alexander. How much I wanted to see that guy take a fall on his ass.

"No. Actually, at first, I was hired to spy on the Prince. Then my directive changed to spy on Pike. Then I was told to spy on you. That is until they told me to try to kill you. And I couldn't go through with it."

"WHOSE THEY!" my dragon roars.

"You don't have to scream," I state, "They can't hear you..."

He had a way of killing my eardrum. He is standing right up close and personal to Maxim. It's almost comedic how he is screaming in Maxim's ear. Maxim can't hear him of course. The only one he's upsetting with all this screaming is me. It makes me wonder especially when I see Maxim's face turn to his other side what Maxim's own dragon is telling him. Whatever it was, they seemed to have a lot more control of not reacting to their dragons' outbursts than I do.

"What's the Black Dread want to know?" Maxim asks, "I'll answer any question you have."

"Who hired you?" I ask.

"They call themselves the Shadow Regime. Don't ask who they are. I don't know. Don't ask me what they want. I don't know. They just tell me what to do through the use of random planned meetings. I barely see a face and every time it's a new person. Someone I recognize. A stable boy. A cook. A servant. They seem to be littered all throughout the Empire. Spies. When I tamed my dragon, I knew the Dragonov Empire would come and try to recruit me. My family had prepared me for it. Before the representatives of the Shadow Regime came. They took my dad. They say if I don't do what they want----they'll kill him."

Blackmail.

"Why didn't you tell the Empire?" Raisa states, "We could have investigated."

"The Emperor just issued a statement for Pike's death saying that it was due to Pike having an affair with humans. That is the official reason. So, forgive me if I didn't trust my fate to that kind of logic."

"He has a point," I say.

No one seems to be agreeing with me. I don't expect Natasha to. Hell, I don't expect Raisa to either. Then there is the Black Dread who is looking at me like I have two heads while I am nodding to what Maxim is trying to explain to me.

"You are trying to protect him because you like him..."

"I think he's telling the truth," I state definitively, "Everyone deserves to be believed."

I look at the Black Dread as I say that. Regardless of how he feels about Maxim, he knows that he doesn't have much room to talk.

"You have a good heart," the Dread tells me before pausing, "But the moment he takes advantage of that good heart, no chains will be strong enough or no dragon pit will be deep enough to stop me from finding him and tearing him apart."

As though Maxim can feel the tension he stops talking and just crosses his arms, "I don't expect any of you to believe me, but I have no reason to lie. They wanted me to kill Nikolai and I couldn't."

"Why not?" Raisa asks.

Everyone gets silent. Real silent.

Everyone does...including Maxim who seems to be extremely interested in the type of cloth my shawl is made out of all of a sudden from the awkwardness.

My dragon is the only one aware, "She knows why..."

I look over at Maxim. If I could believe that my dragon was innocent when he said he was somehow maneuvered into destroying the Wilds, then I should be able to believe Maxim when he says that he was blackmailed into betraying the empire.

I don't want the awkwardness.

"Let us know who they are. We'll handle it."

"You don't even have a master yet," Raisa states, "What the hell do you know about handling things."

"Sure I have a master. You," I state.

"You are going to squire for HER?" the Black Dread asks.

"You are going to squire for ME?" Raisa almost repeats seconds after the dragon.

She was a bitch. She was a flaming bitch, but the Black Dread had said it himself. She and Pike were my mother's best friends. If my mother trusted her then now that Pike was gone she was probably one of the only people left who I could trust.

Bitch or not.

I needed Raisa.

"Something is happening in the Empire. I need to get to the bottom of it, but I can't do it alone."

I look over at Raisa and Natasha. Natasha doesn't seem to have an opinion either way but she turns to Raisa for confirmation. She still must be in the mindstate of being a squire still and not making her own decisions. It left it up to Raisa. If I was going to survive in this Empire, I needed someone I could trust.

"If you squire for me, you do what I say when I say it," she responds, "You see how Natasha turned out. I don't expect anything less from my squires."

She is serious. No smiles. No warmness. Still, I'd gotten enough smiles from Silva to last a while. I didn't need smiles. I need a bitch. I needed Raisa.

I nod, "Yes."

Raisa nods, "Fine. We'll help you, Maxim. We'll handle it. When's the next time you are supposed to meet with this Shadow Regime."

"Tomorrow night."

~

The night is dark and terrible. We're standing in ambush in the outskirts of the city. We're at the edge of what looks like a forest.

"I still don't trust him..." the Black Dread whispers to me.

I'm in the bushes with Natasha and Raisa. We aren't wearing our usual all white at this moment. We're wearing black. Not too far away from us is Maxim. He's standing out looking somewhat nervous. To be honest I'm quite nervous for him. He looks so on edge. I could only imagine how terrified he is. This Shadow Regime

"He's risking his dad's life to find the truth."

"Or to impress you," the Black Dread states.

"Regardless of why he's doing it, he's here."

"Can you stop arguing with you dragon and pay attention?" Raisa giving me a harsh stare, "You aren't ready. You watch how us professionals handle this."

She was talking about her and Natasha.

We wait for what seems like hours before finally, I see Natasha send over a signal from the bushes. Someone is approaching. Someone is walking up on Maxim!

My heart is racing at that moment as I see the person getting closer. The person is on horseback. He doesn't leave the horse as he approaches. I notice the supplies on the horse. It looks like he's traveled some distance to be here. The horse trotted closer and closer to Maxim and its rider looks down at Maxim.

"You failed your mission," the person says.

The voice is familiar. It's really familiar. I'm beyond confused.

"There was nothing I could do. He didn't drink."

"Don't lie to us," the person states, "He was going to drink the poison and you stopped him. We saw you stop him Maximillian."

Maxim looks nervous as he desperately tries to answer. He's trying to spare time.

Raisa signals for me to wait. I see in the darkness she makes small short movements crouched down towards the waiting spot. She had in her hands what I thought was a glaive. Earlier I'd learn by overhearing a conversation with Raisa that it was actually a halberd. The halberd consists of an ax blade topped with a spike mounted on a long shaft. It always has a hook or thorn on the back side of the ax blade for grappling mounted combatants. She's is moving towards the person. I don't see where Natasha has gone but I am assuming Natasha is doing the same thing. From where we are I can barely hear the conversation that is happening between Maxim and this representative from the Shadow Regime. All I knew was that this Shadow Regime was threatening everything we had.

Raisa disappears out of sight.

That's when I hear Maxim shake his head, "Where's my father? I did everything you guys told me to do."

"You lied. You spared the Black Dread's rider. And because you lied...your father's dead."

Maxim can't help himself. He tries to reach for the guy. The guy pushes him away and reveals what looks like a dagger. The dagger clearly keeps Maxim away. That is when the hood drops and I realize that the person is someone I know.

I can't help myself.

I'm running out of the woods.

"Tuti?"

I say it louder than I should. Sure enough in the darkness, I see that the representative of this Shadow Regime is Tuti! Tuti---the fucking tavern boy! How the fuck was he in some shadow regime. The kid was an idiot. Or so I think. Looking at him now he seems way less than an idiot. How long had he been watching me for the Shadow Regime? What did they want from me? Why were they only making attempts on my life now that I was a dragon rider?

Tuti has that knife in his hand when he sees me. He throws it. He throws it with what seems like deadly accuracy. The knife is aimed at me!

It's coming at me faster than I could move!

It's only an inch away from my face when I see it's slapped out of the sky. I turn and see the blade of the halberd swiping the weapon that would have taken my life in a matter of seconds to the ground. It's Raisa's weapon. She saved my life just in the midst of time!

"You saved me..."

"Stay out of the WAY!" she barks.

That's when I see Natasha fly out of the woods. She jumps Tuti off the horse. Tuti falls to the ground and attempts to get up. He's quick smashing his heel into Natasha's face.

Maxim manages to retrieve Natasha's sword from her when she falls. He takes out her glittering sword from its hilt ready to drive it through Tuti's abdomen and make quick work from him but he's quickly stopped by Raisa.

"Stop! We need to know more about them!" Raisa calls out in the darkness.

Maxim being startled is all Tuti needs to know to start making a run for it. He starts running the opposite way. He's going to escape. None of us are close enough to him. None of us can stop him! We are about to let this guy get away.

He's running off.

That's when I hear a roar. It's a horrible and fearsome roar. A dragon appears through the forest snapping and causing Tuti to stop right in his tracks. The dragon puffs out smoke out of his nose and I swear Tuti falls to the ground almost immediately by the immense fear and power of the creature.

It's the Black Dread.

My dragon was here.

"You aren't going anywhere," Raisa states, "Start talking. Who are you, people?"

"You can't stop her...the Great Immortal Dragon is back. She has risen. She will burn this entire world. She will get her revenge. And there's nothing you can do."

Raisa tries to reach for him. She tries to restrain him but before she gets close he takes out another knife. I watch as Natasha jumps in front of Raisa assuming he would try to toss the knife but that's not what happens. Tuti takes the knife and SLITS his own throat!

He commits suicide, rather than be caught.

Maxim runs over to him, "He's dead..."

"No shit," the soul of the black dread returns right at the foot of the massive dragon that is looking down at us.

I am a little nervous seeing Maxim so close to my dragon. There was no excuse now for my dragon not to eat him whole. The dragon is surprisingly restrained even though the smoke coming out of his nose hasn't stopped in any way.

"What was he talking about?" I ask, "The Great Immortal Dragon."

"The first beast. The beast that ruled the world long before the time of man," Raisa states, "It's been gone for centuries. He must have been crazy..."

"He didn't seem crazy to me. I knew that boy. He was a tavern boy. He worked with me," I state.

This seemed like it went deeper than what it thought.

Maxim crosses his arms, "The Great Immortal Dragon is back? It sounds...ridiculous."

That's when I look at the Black Dread. He's being surprisingly silent this entire time. When I look over at him he's looking down at the dead body of Tuti.

"You know something," I tell the Dread.

He looks over at me. The actual dragon stares at me as well. They almost do it in unison. The soul and the dragon are one together.

Then eerily he says, "It is possible."

"Possible?" I ask.

"What's the Dread saying?" Raisa asks me.

I drown her voice out and focus on the Dread. This was too important.

"The Great Immortal Dragon was sealed away a long time ago. She was the only dragon with the power to command wild dragons who have not been tamed. She could make them do whatever she wanted."

"Including burning down villages?" I ask.

He nods, "I was wild at the time."

Could it be? Could that really be what was happening here?

"If she is alive...what does that mean?" I ask.

Everyone looks nervous. Everyone gets quiet. From the looks they have on their faces I can tell that they all knew something about this Great Immortal Dragon that I didn't know. It was all legend I'm sure but I'd heard some stories. She was the dragon that was fucked over by the first dragon rider. She was the dragon that had her eggs stolen from her.

It's the soul of the Dread that walks up to me to my right, while the large enormous head of the dragon appears to my left.

He states bluntly: "If someone has awoken the Great Immortal Dragon, then we're all in danger. The entire world will be turned to ashes."

"

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