A Crown Of Blades(ARTK, Book 3)

Chapter 119-120

Juhna 28th,3330 A.G

The witnesses had a sense of what were going to happen here before they'd been informed. None could have missed the dragon in the sky, the screams in the streets. For what seemed like the first time since the high priest's funeral, the entirety of the Amalone family were in one place-

  And nearly everyone present were thinking of how this couldn't possibly end well. With a united family- maybe. With the divide that were so clear (Isolde standing next to Millie Amalone, Millie's husband and her second and third eldest children standing closer to Marriota with her eye patch nowhere to be found, and a dragon added to the mix-
 
  Someone would be burned. None could know if it would take the beast ten days or ten years from hatching to mature enough, but that day would come- and on that day the people of the world would hear a specific sort of scream that hadn't graced an ear in thousands of years. The woman in the crowd who had that thought-  a baker's wife, shuddered. Her husband next to her did the same,  as did his brother- until Millie Amalone noticed.

  As everyone there, she knew very little(though perhaps more than the commoners) of the bond between a dragon and rider but there were stories. Children's stories, bedtime stories passed down and (likely) changed over and over again, but this were what she'd been told: A dragon could choose their person while still in the egg- once it'd developed enough.

   There could theoretically be a time when it were too early to form that bond, but bond knew for sure. Theoretically, Mille thought- if her eldest daughter received the egg on that day, she could have it stolen and prevent the bond. Oh, how very wrong she were.

Slowly, the last of the temple devotees files in- indicating that this thrown together ceremony would be starting soon. Though.... Perhaps it hadn't been 'thrown together' for them. Perhaps the high priestess had seen this coming; perhaps the gods gave her enough time to prepare. Millie weren't sure what purpose that would serve other than to piss her off; but the gods had loved doing so her entire life.

  She stood up a bit straighter, forcing herself to focus- but a few people down Marriota's thoughts continued to wander.

  If the egg hadn't been so textured, it could easily have been mistaken for a chicken egg. And it weren't that it had scales or anything ridiculous like that, it were just... different. It possessed a certain roughness, possessed bumps- were far from a perfect oval. However one wanted to say it, the egg were still incredibly small. The beast inside couldn't come out any larger than her palm, and that were saying much- as she'd been told more than once how tiny her hands were.

  At the beginning of it's life, the beast would be so fragile. She imagined a strong wind, a curious cat- even a nosy servant could take it out without realizing. They would be punished (the cat and servant), of course- but keeping it safe from itself the first days would likely be the hardest part. It would have to be fed, she imagined- in tiny pieces but enough to help it continue to grow. She would have to ensure she increased the amount of food as did so, until it were large enough to make the decision for itself- and there were no telling when that could be.

  But suddenly it all clicked- and everything that hadn't made sense suddenly did. Image after overwhelming image flashed through her mind, so quickly some of them did not register-

  Enough were understood. Her mother would not bond with a dragon on this day. Nor would her cousin, her father, any of her siblings- any of the servants or guards or commoners in the crowd. The honor belonged to her alone.

  She would have many years with the beast, she knew that much. So much else were blurry.....

  And she could not breathe as Aenor Rand walked in, side by side with the high priestess Auriol. Her face were as calm as ever, not a single hint of any emotion other than slight amusement- her hands clasped in front of her and around the egg.