Secret of the Dragon

by Jessica Drake

  Secret of the Dragon

  A Dragon Riders of Elantia Novel

  Jessica Drake

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  About the Author

  Also by Jessica Drake

  1

  “Zara. It’s time to wake up.”

  A low, feminine voice wound its way through my dreams, tugging me awake. At first I resisted, drifting through the darkness, allowing my body to float in the peaceful nothingness that had become my life. My body felt heavy. Lethargic. Certainly incapable of motion. I could sleep for another month. Maybe even a year.

  “Zara.”

  That voice again. Wait. Why was there a voice speaking in my head? The only mental voice I ever heard aside from my own was—

  “Lessie!”

  My eyes flew open, my heart pounding with fear and anxiety. A sloped ceiling made of wooden slats greeted me, along with twittering birds and sunlight streaming in through open windows. I was lying on the floor of some cabin or hut, no more than ten-by-ten feet. The thick, ropey branches of some kind of tropical tree waved at me from outside the window. Where the hell was I? The last thing I remembered was…

  “Lessie?” I called through the bond. That’s right—my last memory was of the two of us collapsing on an unknown island after Muza had helped us escape the Hellmouth. I’d traveled to the Underworld, convinced the death god to destroy a piece of the dragon god’s heart, and had nearly fallen to my death trying to make it out. Lessie had saved me, but in the process, had inhaled a terrifying amount of the poisonous gas that swirled around the mountain. When the two of us had passed out, I thought we were dying. But now…

  “Lessie?” I tried again, growing more anxious by the second. I could feel her through the bond, very faintly, but had no idea where she was. Had we been separated somehow? I tried to stand up so I could look out the window, but the effort of sitting up alone made me dizzy. Panting, I lay back down on the floor, trying to get my breath back.

  “Good. You are awake.” That voice again! “Stay right there. Muza is coming to help you.”

  “Who are you?” I demanded, puzzled and exasperated. Were there other humans or creatures capable of mindspeech? “And how do you know Muza?”

  “I will explain later,” the voice said firmly. “For now, you need sustenance.”

  The sound of flapping wings distracted me from the voice. Groaning, I reached for the windowsill and used it to pull myself to my feet. I was still wearing the same clothes, grimy from who knew how many days of travel. When was the last time I’d bathed? Or eaten? How long had I been out?

  Muza pulled up alongside my window, chuffing impatiently. His silver scales shimmered brightly in the sun, nearly blinding me with their luminescence. The sight of him calmed me—he was Tavarian’s dragon, and the fact that he was still alive meant that Tavarian was, too.

  "What do you want from me?" I asked, leaning out the window to look at Muza. I swallowed hard when I saw how high up we were—I seemed to be in some kind of treehouse. Muza had his left wing extended, forming a sort of bridge, which under normal circumstances I could use to climb onto his back. "In case you haven't noticed, I have the grace of an eel on dry land right now. There's no way I can climb on your back."

  Muza rolled his eyes, pulling away. He flapped his wings, pummeling me with a gust of wind. For a second I thought he was flying away, but then his clawed arm shot through the window. Taloned fingers wrapped around my torso, and I shrieked in surprise as he dragged me outside.

  “Hey!” I cried.

  The giant dragon, who was easily four times the size of the tree house I’d been convalescing in, soared away. My heart raced as I dangled from his claws—I wasn’t used to traveling this way, as if I were prey. Strange trees with blue and purple leaves flitted past us, and beyond, the ocean sparkled in an endless wave of sun-kissed aquamarine.

  Muza gently deposited me next to a spring tucked in the middle of the forest. I lunged toward the clear water almost before I hit the ground, achingly aware of how parched my throat was. Cool, sweet water flowed over my tongue, and I gulped it down until my stomach cramped and I was forced to roll onto my back, panting with the effort. Dragon’s balls, I was as weak as a kitten! What happened to me? And how was I still alive?

  A large shape loomed over me, and for a minute I thought it was Muza. But when I blinked the water out of my eyes, the shape came into focus, and I realized this dragon wasn’t Muza at all. He was bronze, with golden spikes and green eyes that glittered like gemstones in his broad face.

  “Hello,” he said, his voice as clear as a bell in my head.

  “Y-you talked! In my head!” Adrenaline kicked in, and I scrambled backward through the mud. “T-that’s not possible!” Dragons could communicate via mindspeech, but only with each other and their bonded rider. No rider had ever been able to directly communicate with another rider’s dragon.

  “I am not another rider’s dragon,” the dragon said, drawing himself upright. He spread his wings wide, and my breath caught at the striking, formidable figure he made, backlit by the blazing sun. “My name is Serpol, and I am a free dragon.”

  “A free dragon?” I stared. “What the hell does that mean?”

  Muza interrupted our chat by landing next to me with a heavy thud. He offered me the large branch in his claws, which was laden with round, orange fruits roughly the size of my head.

  “Eat,” Serpol urged. “The fruit will help you regain your strength.”

  After a moment's hesitation, I plucked one of the fruits off the branch. I dipped it in the spring to clean off the dirt, then I took a bite. It was firm but juicy, and I groaned a little at the explosion of honeyed sweetness in my mouth. The instant sugar rush made me forget the weakness in my limbs and the fuzziness in my head, and I chowed down with a single-minded intensity.

  “Much better,” the dragon said approvingly as I annihilated a second piece of fruit. “You have color in your cheeks again, which Muza informs me is a good sign in humans.”

  I glanced up at him. “Have you ever seen a human before?”

  “Only Muza’s rider, when he brought him here the first time.” Those gemlike eyes sparkled with what I was beginning to realize was fascination. “You are so small. I can’t understand how your kind was ever able to subdue ours.”

  “There was magic involved,” I said in a wry voice, tossing the pit aside. “So by ‘free dragon,’ do you mean that you’re not bonded to a rider, then? How is that possible? I thought Akron the Defender and his army of mages subdued all the dragons. That’s how we were able to defeat the dragon god.” By capturing his dragons and forcing them into bonded slavery, the Dragon War mages had weakened Zakyiar to the point that they were able to defeat him in battle.

  “A handful of us managed to escape when Zakyiar was at his weakest point, and nobody noticed,” Serpol said proudly. “My ancestors flew many miles east, and then south, before we eventually settled on this archipelago. We have been living here for thousands of years.”

  Thousands of years. I looked at Muza, and the truth was right there in his eyes. “So this is where you’ve been living all along,” I murmured, reaching out to run a hand along his silver snout. “You’ve been hiding out here the whole time, haven’t you?”

  Muza nodded his head.
/>
  “Just how many of you live here?” I asked, turning back to Serpol. “How far away are we from Elantia? Do you only live here, or—”

  “It is better to show you rather than tell,” Serpol said. "But first, I highly recommend you take advantage of the spring and wash." His snout twitched, as if he were wrinkling his nose, and I blushed. “You’ll want to smell better than that when I take you to Lessie.”

  “Lessie!” In all the confusion and excitement, I’d completely forgotten about her. “How is she? Is she on the island? She wouldn’t answer when I called, and—”

  “Bath,” Serpol said sternly. He plucked me from the ground, then dumped me unceremoniously into the water, clothes and all. Sputtering, I came up for air, ready to give him a piece of my mind, but Serpol and Muza were already lumbering away, their great spiked tails swishing through the grass.

  “We will give you some privacy so you can bathe properly. Try not to get into any trouble.”

  The dragons launched themselves into the sky, and I resisted the urge to stick out my tongue at them. Clambering out of the water, I stripped off my clothes, squeezed out the excess water, then laid them out on a small boulder to dry. If Tavarian were here, he could dry them with his magic, but since he wasn’t, I’d just have to make do with what nature had to offer.

  A pang of longing struck my heart at the thought of my fiancé, and I brushed a thumb over the ring on my finger. It was still a little weird to think of him as my betrothed, especially considering the circumstances under which we’d met, but there was no denying that I loved him fiercely and wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. I wondered if he was still in Warosia, negotiating our alliance, or if he’d returned to Polyba by now. Rhia and Halldor would have made it back by now—what were they telling the others? That Lessie and I hadn’t made it? The idea that Tavarian thought me dead made my heart ache. Hopefully, Muza would get him a message soon telling him that we were okay.

  Despite my annoyance with Serpol for throwing me into the water, I was happy to go back in and wash the grime off. Dunking my head beneath the surface, I scrubbed my hair clean as best as I could. The water here was crystal clear, and I could see patches of strange, colorful plants waving lazily a few feet away. Fish darted between the rainbow leaves, their blue and orange scales sparkling.

  When I couldn’t hold my breath any longer, I lifted my head from the water, then slicked my hair away from my face and floated on my back. As I stared up at the cloudless blue sky, waiting for the dragons to return, I basked in the peacefulness of this place. There was a quietness to the air I wasn’t used to, even though I’d spent much of my life in the wilderness. This place was a true sanctuary, and aside from Tavarian’s treehouse—or at least I assumed it was his, since he was the only one who knew this place—it was untouched by human hands.

  I was just drifting off to sleep when a rumbling sound caught my attention. Opening an eye, I glanced toward the tree line just in time to see a giant, boar-like creature with bright yellow fur burst into the clearing. Its orange eyes rolled madly in its head as it barreled toward me, huge golden tusks glinting in the morning light, dust kicking up in a cloud around it.

  “Dragon’s balls!” I yelped, jumping out of the water. The boar charged straight into the pond, narrowly missing me.

  Pumping my limbs as fast as they would go, I raced for the nearest tree and scrambled up it, ignoring the way the rough bark scraped at my bare skin. Leaves and branches pricked at my arms and legs as I wrapped myself around one of the tree’s thicker limbs and held on for dear life.

  The boar was not impressed with my attempt to get away. It ran up to the tree, then snorted and pawed at the ground before rearing up on its hind legs. One of its tusks sliced the side of my leg, and I squealed as I jerked my injured limb away.

  Dammit! I was bleeding. It was only a matter of time before I attracted other predators. I wished I’d grabbed my weapons, but they were still by the pond. And I couldn’t climb much higher than this—the branches above me were spindly and didn’t look up to supporting my weight.

  I was just considering the idea of leaping to the next tree when an ear-splitting roar shook the air. Lessie dove from the sky, her maw open wide. She snatched up the boar in her vast jaws before it could react and raced off to the edge of the pond with it. The sickening crunch of bone as she crushed the animal in her maw made me cringe, and the boar's death knell rang out briefly before everything went silent.

  “I can’t leave you alone for a few minutes, can I?” Lessie complained. She dropped the mangled boar carcass and ambled over to the tree. “I suppose Serpol wouldn’t understand how fragile humans are, but Muza should have known better than to leave you out here defenseless.”

  “I’m not defenseless,” I grumbled as she plucked me out of the tree. The scales on the inside of her paw were warm and smooth against my skin, and I allowed her to cradle me for a minute before setting me down. “I can fight.”

  Lessie snorted. “Yes, when you don’t leave your weapons by the pond.” But she nuzzled me, and affection washed over me through the bond. “I’m glad you’re safe, either way.”

  “You too.” I leaned my head against her cheek, careful to avoid her crown of spikes. “I thought we were dead, Lessie.”

  “We almost were. If Yalora hadn’t used her magic to save us, we would have gone straight to the death god’s realm.”

  I shuddered. “Yeah, no thanks.” I’d just escaped from there and had no desire to go back any time soon. “Who is Yalora?”

  “Serpol’s mother,” Lessie explained. “He comes from a long line of dragon mages.”

  “Dragon mages?” I gaped. “As in, dragons who can do magic?”

  “Well, what else is it supposed to mean?” Lessie teased as she rolled onto her back. “You’d better bring your clothes over here so I can get them dry. This is no place for humans to run around naked.”

  I went to get my clothes from the boulder they were drying on, my head still reeling from the implications. I’d never heard of dragons being able to do magic before. And these dragons could freely speak to any human, and weren’t bonded. What else could they do? How many were on the island? What other secrets did this place hold?

  I brought my clothes over to Lessie and laid them on her chest, right where her internal heat core was. My clothes began to steam almost immediately, and a few minutes later, they were completely dry. I pulled them on, then strapped on my weapons while Lessie wolfed down her kill.

  Serpol returned to the clearing without Muza, his eyes glittering. “Good, you are clean,” he said. “Come with me.”

  I climbed onto Lessie’s back, and the three of us took to the skies. I lifted my face to the sun, savoring the rush of the wind across my skin and Lessie’s warm body shifting beneath me. Both were experiences I’d never expected to enjoy again, and I felt blessed to be alive.

  "Look." Serpol directed my attention to the archipelago below. From this vantage point I could see ten of the islands, the largest three grouped in the middle. The ones that stretched out below formed into an ‘S' shape, and I wondered if the others coiled the same way, like a serpent. "This has been our home for the past two thousand years. As you can see, there is no human civilization whatsoever, save for the treehouse we allowed Varrick to build when he came here with Muza. You are only the second human to visit this place."

  Varrick? Oh, he meant Tavarian. I wasn’t used to referring to him by first name, even though we were engaged. “It’s an honor to be invited here,” I said gravely.

  “You weren’t invited here,” Serpol corrected. “Muza brought you here without consulting us. But you were dying, and he told us that you are Varrick’s mate, so my mother saved you. Come, she is waiting for us.”

  We flew toward the biggest of the three main islands, a tropical paradise with clear blue lagoons and waterfalls cascading down the hillsides. As we drew closer, I could see there were dragons everywhere, lazing around on clifftops, playin
g in the water, racing through the fields and forests. We passed a trio of baby dragons who were practicing their flying skills by leaping off a large boulder and coasting to the ground, carefully supervised by their mother. A half mile away, two dragons curled up in the sun together, their tails entwined.

  Families, I realized, a little dazed. The dragons here had families. Their eggs weren’t taken away to hatch and bond to a human. They were born with, and raised by, their mothers. They got to grow up with their siblings—and to play and learn under the guidance of their parents. Just like humans.

  Serpol landed in a clearing right next to a huge waterfall, where a giant green dragon waited. “My mother, Yalora,” he said as I slid off Lessie’s back.

  “Pleased to meet you.” I looked up at her. Then, not sure what else to do, I bowed. “Thank you for saving my life.”

  Yalora chuckled. “A human bowing to a dragon? I’ll bet your fellow Elantians would be scandalized.” Her gold eyes glittered in amusement. “I like you, dragon rider. I can see why Varrick chose you as his mate.”

  I cleared my throat. “Are you the…umm…leader of the free dragons?”

  Yalora snorted. “We have no leader. After Zakyiar was banished from this world, we agreed to never again be bound by a single ruler. We have what you might call a council of sorts, that meets every so often to discuss important matters and handle disputes, but overall we leave each other to our own devices.”

  “I see.” I glanced up to see two adult dragons flying past with four adolescents on their tails. “Just how many dragons are here, anyway?”

  “A little less than a thousand,” Yalora said. “Perhaps one day we may outgrow these islands and see the need to expand our territory, but for now this archipelago is more than enough. And it must remain shielded from outsiders.”