The Rise of The Dragon Queen

Chapter 7

The search for the dragon began once we made our way beyond Centrum City's walls and followed a winding dirt path into the woods, quickly finding ourselves deep inside of it. We wandered around for a while but found nothing. Vixia and I were walking behind the wagon, which Puff was pulling again, when my wife sighed and looked at me.

"Do you sense anything?" she asked in a whisper. Darius, who was walking ahead of all of us, was completely oblivious. I shook my head.

"No, nothing yet." Vixia nodded in response and her eyes shifted, taking in our surroundings.

"We're close to the shrine now," she stated, this time loud enough for Darius to hear. He looked at us from over his shoulder as Vixia rushed forward, pointing toward an area full of trees and dense shrubs. I saw him raise an eyebrow at her.

"How can you tell?"

"I just know. Let's stop here and take a quick break."

"All right."

Vixia ran off ahead, leaping over the brush and waving for us to follow. Darius and I helped free Puff from the wagon and we went after her.

We were making our way through the brush when I realized it was even more overgrown than the last time we had visited. I stepped into the clearing to find that everything was blanketed in snow, even the small stone structure that acted as Zelora's shrine. Vixia was now sitting in front of it with her head bowed and her eyes closed. Darius sat down at the edge of the clearing, so Puff and I joined him. He was drinking water from his canteen when I sat down.

"So, that tiny shrine belongs to the god that gives Vixia her powers?"

"Goddess," I corrected, "but yeah, that's it."

"Hmm." He watched Vixia for a moment, then spoke up again. "She must be pretty devout if she remembered exactly where it is. I definitely wouldn't have been able to find it from memory in all of this." He motioned to the map beside him, pointing out that we were exactly where Vixia had made her mark at the restaurant.

"Yeah, can't say I'm surprised, though. Zelora means a lot to her." I let out a breath through my mouth and it froze in wisps in the air as I tried to count how many years it had been since we last visited. "It's been a while."

"Hmm." Darius leaned back against the trunk of the tree that he was sitting under and passed me the canteen. I was taking a drink when I felt a pain in my chest. I immediately spit out what was in my mouth and gasped, clutching my shirt.

"Are you okay?" Darius asked, panicked.

"Dragon!" I stumbled to my feet as quickly as I could while I pulled my sword, which had been lying in the snow beside me, out of its sheath. I dropped the sheath back on the ground before running toward Vixia. I was almost to her when a dragon swooped down from above.

"Vixia, look out!" She opened her eyes and threw her hand toward the monster that was flying toward her.

Reflect!

A beam of light shot forth from her palm and hit the dragon head-on. It screamed and veered away from us, falling in the snow. I rushed toward it, ready to strike, but something snagged my clothes and held me back. I looked over my shoulder to see Puff biting the back of my cloak and digging his claws into the ground.

"Puff, let go!"

He snorted in response and tugged at my cloak again. I tilted my head, then turned my attention back to the other dragon, which was starting to get up. When it turned, I could see its eyes were not pitch-black like the other dragons I had fought. Instead, they were the same as Puff's eyes. I froze for a moment as the dragon and I stared at each other.