Dragon

Chapter 21

Maay ran a hand over her belly. A little dragon lay within. One night after mating and she already looked like some overfed cow. Would it grow as her time to lay neared? She daren't ask Jaimin for fear the answer would not be in her favour.

Guilt rolled in her gut at having allowed herself to be carried up the slope when she could walk just as easily and fly ever better – she wasn't infirm, after all, only expecting – but Jaimin claimed he wouldn't be able to keep up on foot and refused to let her go on ahead. Whatever did he fear would happen to her? She couldn't bring herself to ask that either.

Now here she stood, with the maw of the Hall entrance looming high above them. Booted feet planted firmly on the dragon-scoured stone, she submitted herself to close inspection from one of the council.

The golden feathers that formed a crest on the top of his head twitched as he regarded first Maay in her human form, then Jaimin. "I see you've decided to disregard the Law after all." The feathers along his neck and chest lifted. His crest near stood on end. "A double affront seeing that you were defeated in combat and had not the Right."

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Jaimin, his head already bowed, scrunch his tattered wings higher onto his back. "She lives."

"So I see." The dragon sneered, lips sliding up to reveal sharp, yellowed fangs. "No doubt due more to luck than any skill on your part."

Jaimin's head snapped up, teeth bared and his breath hissing through the gaps. He roared at the golden dragon, spittle flying from his jaws. The blast hit her ears with such force that she flinched and waited for the heat of dragonfire that would surely be next, but not a single flame was forthcoming.

The ancient turned his face from the blast, the sneer growing. "Such temper. One would think you were still a flighty youngling." He shook himself, feathers fluffing up all over his body. "May I advise against getting into any more altercations until your fire has returned?"

"I intend only to return to my chamber," Jaimin growled. He circled the smaller dragon, tail lashing behind him. "Providing that meets with the approval of he who is no longer the lair's most ancient one."

"Yes, you are most fortunate your haanfonaal survived, midling."

The silvery tail paused mid-lash. Jaimin glared at the ancient over his shoulder, lips pulled back in a silent snarl. "I suppose you would've preferred I fell in the challenge."

"You lost a fight to the death. Edict dictates that you should've died."

Maay smothered a gasp. Surely they wouldn't have actually allowed Teero to kill him. Of course they would have. This dragon was probably the very one who'd set that white-furred lecher on her in the first place. Just thinking about him so much as laying a single claw on her made her cold. She shuffled closer to Jaimin, seeking comfort in the faint heat radiating from his hide. How she wished he was still as warm as he'd been last night.

"I would like to believe Milandra did not wish for her niece's sacrifice to be for naught."

"Little 'Moyia?" One of the other dragons, a white male, stepped forward from the group clumped in the middle of the cavern, his mouth agape and grey eyes wide with shock. "This whole time, my cousin was alive and at their mercy?"

"Yes." The very air seemed to cease all movement as Jaimin told of how his mother had opted to stay behind and destroy the entrance on the wasteland side of the tunnel under Dragon's Spine. His flat voice had her sharply recalling the boom of earth as it rumbled its way down the tunnel.