The Selection: Bride Of The Dark Dragon

MIRA

“Don’t look at me like that!” Derrien says, getting what I am implying from the very first second.

“But, Rien, please!” I beg him just like a child wood, “What else could we do?”

“Walk!” he g****s, crossing his hands on his chest.

“That would take us a week at least! And this is all we’ve got according to Brandon!” I retort. He knows that I am right.

“Mira!” he hisses and grabs me by my arm, flames of dark magic surround us and we appear at a further distance from our friends.

“What?” I look at him in surprise. What is the problem here exactly?

“This is not how our first time should be,” he says after hesitating and pulls on the collar of his shirt as if it’s choking him.

“We already had our first time and…Oh!” I bite my l*p. By our first time – does he mean the first time I ride him in his dragon form. My ears turn red as my mind drifts of remembering how many times I have already been riding him in his human form though…

“Naughty little mage,” he clicks his tongue and smirks.

“Honestly Rien, sometimes it feels like you can read my mind!” I roll my eyes at him, “But back to the subject. It’s going to be just a quick lift to our friends and…”

“Mira, I’ll do it,” he interrupts us, “But first I want to fly alone with you. Even if it’s just for a few minutes.”

“But we don’t have the time…”

“Take it or leave it,” he cuts me off. “I can still take you to a safe place, then go kill Dargen and uncle and usurp the throne, you know. And we will not be needing this little trip to Dragonland.”

“Agnegard,” I correct him even though I know that he does it on purpose, “And you know why we need that trip! It’s not only about the Gerdian Empire! It’s also about the Akyrian Kingdom and the emerging war! We need a bigger force to stop it! And only dragons can give us that!”

“It doesn’t mean that they will,” he says calmly, “There is also a pretty big chance that we wouldn’t find them… They may have died years ago… After all, no one has seen one since the times of my father’s last appearance…”

“But we have to at least try,” I insist, “If we don’t… it will never be over! And if we fail… you can always go back to the usurping the throne plan. It will not solve the war with Akyria problem, but we’ll go from there.”

“Just give me those few minutes,” he brushes his palm over my cheek and I welcome the embrace, closing my eyes in delight.

“Just five minutes,” I raise my brow.

“Thirty.”

“Five.”

“Twenty.”

“Five.”

“Fifteen.”

“Five!”

“Mira!” he growls and I chuckle at that.

“Alright, fifteen it is!” I agree and he smiles.

He steps away from me a few good feet and flames of dark magic appear around his body, first they form wings that close around him but as soon as they open, I see a dragon and not a man. The whole shifting process takes him just seconds. And now a beast is staring at me with eyes filled with dark magic. All black with occasional dark purple scales, a thing of beauty, yet terrifying at the same time. He lowers his head and I come closer to touch him. He doesn’t scare me at all. I put my cheek to his nose and rub his scales with my hands a bit. A soft satisfied growl echoes around us.

He lies on the ground and offers me his folded wing as the first step to get onto him. And as soon as my feet are on it, he lifts me all the way up. I grab two spikes on his back and place my right foot on a third one, climbing him quickly. From the corner of my eye, I see all our friends watching us quietly at the side.

I carefully sit between two huge spikes surprised by how comfortable it actually is! Another two spikes will make great handles, so I will be able to hold onto them.

“Ready?”, Rien’s voice in my mind makes me jump.

“How on heavens do you do that?!” I exclaim.

“I didn’t know if I could before now,” he chuckles, “But sometimes I was able to hear snippets of your thoughts. And in my dragon form, I can hear more, my little mage. I don’t know how or why…”

“I think I do,” I smile, remembering what Aaron Brookland was writing about dragons’ soulmates, “But it’s a conversation for later. You have fourteen minutes, Rien.”

He takes to the sky so fast that I only manage to grasp the spikes harder, all my thoughts are left on the ground. He didn’t take it slow, did he?!

He flaps his wings from time to time, gaining altitude. But as soon as we are level with the clouds, he begins to simply float in the air, enjoying our joint flight. It’s so cold in here that I have to activate my fire element to make it dissolve in my b***d and make me warm again. But as soon as I am done with that, I start to enjoy it as well. This is my second flight. Third, if we count the time I jumped off a cliff when the Invisibles tried to assassinate me. But this time is different. I truly experience the magic of it in peace. I can see the ground below us, the spikes of the cliffs, the mountain river… but everything is so small! And it’s so quiet here! So peaceful!

“That’s why I love to fly,” Rien says.

“I can understand that now,” I smile, rubbing the biggest spike on his back.

“Mira, don’t do that!”, he mutters.

“Why?”, I ask without any ulterior motive.

“The effect is similar to that of rubbing a genital,” he confesses and I hold back a laugh.

“Oh, my! Is that why you don’t want our friends to…”

“No, Mira,” he says grumpily, “ Only your touch has this kind of effect on me for some reason.”

“I am sorry,” I mumble, “So, just to make sure, I shouldn’t rub it like that?”

I carefully slide both my hands up and down the spike. “Or like that?”, I hug it with my chest and arms tightly and give it another rub.

“Hold just like that!” he growls and speeds up, turns around his axis a few times fast, making me scream. I grab this damn spike with all I’ve got too afraid to let it go. His chuckle in my mind drives me crazy, yet I am still not brave enough to release the spike.

When we are back on the ground, Brandon and Morgan say their good-byes and leave in dark smoke. Rien stays in his dragon form the whole time and when Dereck, Rick, Nort, and Isidore come closer, he lowers himself.

“Tell me he is not going to do this flipping thing when we are on him!” Isidore begs when I help her up right behind me.

“Just don’t rub anything,” I chuckle and the dragon under me snorts breathing a cloud of black smoke.

“Oh, gods!” Isidore starts trembling but Dereck lands right behind her and she pulls on a brave face.

“Don’t worry,” he says, “At least if you fall off accidentally it’s going to be a very quick death. Most people are gone even before their bodies reach the ground!”

“Der!” I turn to face him in anger but see that Isidore is fuming at his words as well and completely forgotten about her fears. My friend winks at me and I am starting to feel that he doesn’t hate Isidore so much after all…

“Mira, if we die on this quest,” Rick says lazily, “You’ll be responsible for all my widows and bastard babies!”

“No one is that rich!” I chuckle and Rien starts off to the sky again.

Another flight that I enjoy. Even though Dereck and I have to keep our friends warm by sending fire element impulses to them from time to time. The rest of it is good. And even Isidore starts to enjoy it once she stops screaming.

In just a few hours we reach our destination – the Crescent Cliff. It’s easy to recognize it because the top of it looks like, well, a crescent. And also it is the highest one of them all. The peak of it is well beyond the clouds. And if Aaron Brookland was right then the entrance to Agnegard will be here somewhere.

“I see something that looks like a cave close to the top,” Rien tells me.

“Can you land there?” I ask.

“I think so,” he sighs, “It looks like there is just enough space for one dragon.”

My heart starts racing when Derrien carefully lands on the not-so-big piece of rock. We all slide down in turns. Rick helping Isidore, while Dereck turns away rolling his eyes.

And I look at just one thing. Above the cave, there is a sign set in stone – a flame in a circle. The sign of Agnegard. Exactly like the one in Aaron Brookland’s journal.

We are here!