Powder

Chapter Eight: Fire

"The jewels." I said sternly as he approached, my eyes half-lidded with black spots under them, I hadn't slept since sunset.

He sighed. "I figured you would ask about those, they were a gift from the Nightwing Queen to my mother, before I was born."

"What's a Nightwing?" I asked, straining my voice with each word and enunciation.

"The Nightwings are dragons able to tell prophecies and read minds, they're an extremely mysterious tribe of dragons."

"And the Teardrops?"

Smolder lowered his voice to a whisper. "They're marks of mindreaders, at least that's what the legends in scrolls say, that they can be a mindreader or a seer."

"Are you saying I'm some type of mindreader or seer?" That would explain the night before.

"Wait, why would you-"

I point to the tear shaped marks below my eyes, faintly visible on my face due to the bags on my eyes.

"... No... that's not possible... you'd... you'd have to be part Nightwing."

"No. Absolutely not. I am not part dragon. How would that even work?"

"You're probably right... however you have to have some relations to Nightwings, that's the only way to explain it." He shrugs.

I groan while putting my hands to hold my face to keep it from falling. "So I guess if I want more answers, I'd have to talk to the Nightwings about it?"

"Yeah, though, considering you belong to Burn now..." He trailed off.

"Why keep me alive?"

"My guess, the other one she caught a year ago."

"I heard the women say that to me as well..." I thought aloud.

"Women?" She asked.

"Your scavenger." I sighed, dumbing things down, annoyed I have to draw this conversation further due to the pain in my throat. "Who's the other one?" I asked while crossing my arms.

"I don't know, but he looked like you, same color, even the teardrops, he could even breathe fire."

I scoff and roll my eyes. "I assure you, us 'scavengers' can not breathe fire, at least none I ever heard of."

"Well I was there, and I saw it, I can confirm that it shot fire at Burn.

"Oh yeah? Show me."

"Very well." he said as he grabbed my cage with his talons and started to walk down the hallway where I was met with the sight of several stuffed dragon corpses, the limbs not of webbed Seawings and seven claws with no owners, weird and deformed claws and wings, a two-headed stuffed lizard, a bright red but cracked egg, what looked to be the hybrid of a ice and sand dragon, a giant insect wing, the skin of a titanoboa, an aquarium filled weird and exotic creatures and of course, at the end of it all, in a small cage compared to the rest, even smaller than the insect wing, was the body of a pale human, a large cut sewn back together on his stomach seen by his torn shirt, a uniform I had seen on those of Sunset's Watch, the goggles on the top of his head, wearing something called a vest, a second shirt like cloth filled with several pockets, and hanging out of one of them was a small slip of paper, and in his hands was a large silver object mixed with pieces of wood, a hole in one end. The guy himself, from what I saw other than being pale, looked relatively normal, well fed, someone who had been inside the invincible city but with the brand of exile marked on his left palm, and on his face was...

My breath hitched. "Another Teardrop." I muttered loud enough for Smolder to hear me.

He sighed. "Alright, don't tell Burn but..." he trailed off as he unlocked the cage and angled it to allow me to jump inside the human's cage.