Among Dragons (Editing)

Chapter 7

“Is this it?” I peered around the landscape in wonder, not noticing much of a difference between where we had left from and where we had arrived. Sure, the grass was a little drier and the land was completely flat, but they were minor differences. Especially going from one kingdom to the next.

“Why? Are you disappointed?” Niram asked while helping me slide down from Raiden’s neck.

I stretched with a small groan surfacing from my throat. “A little. It’s not exactly the surroundings I expected a dragon of fire to be residing in.”

“Hm,” Niram noted while searching through the backpack to check if everything was still there. “You’ll find that most of the kingdoms are like that. They were formed long before the dragons claimed them, so they don’t really reflect their power.” He zipped up the backpack, seemingly content that everything that had been originally in there was in fact, still there. “Though I do have to say, Phoenix definitely picked this area for a reason. It’s the hottest out of all the others.”

“How far away is the castle from here?” I could already feel the dry heat around me increase in temperature now that we had been standing for several minutes. The last thing I wanted to do was hike for a couple of miles.

“Not too far. Bringing Raiden right to the front would be a little invasive, that’s why we’re leaving him behind for now. Dragons don’t usually interact with each other at all, they just speak through humans. Yet another reason why it’s going to take some convincing to get them to agree to this plan we’re pushing.” His voice was more of a sigh. He glanced back at Raiden briefly, watching the dragon curl up in the grass with tired movements.

I didn’t know the exact time we had been flying for, but I did notice that when we left, the sun had been spreading out a new, morning light across the sky. Now, its light was old, and it was closer to setting along the horizon.

As we walked along a dirt path that seemed like it was made accidentally by heavy traffic rather than purposely by hand, I began to notice more changes of the landscape. The grass became even drier, showing patches of light dirt in random spots. Large rocks littered the ground as well, along with a few shrubs. It still shocked me how flat the land was. Even as we continued walking along the path, I had yet to notice even a slight incline in elevation anywhere.

My gaze slipped over to Niram walking beside me. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, not like it surprised me, but he was staring off somewhere in front of us. I decided to break the silence. “So have you visited any of the other dragons?”

He looked at me quickly, almost as if the sudden question had caught him off guard. “Have I visited the other dragons?” I watched him ponder over the question. “Only one. Rhaegos, when he was first born. That was about eleven years ago, so I was only six, but I do remember it clearly.”

“What was it like? Or, more specifically, what was Rhaegos like?”

“Dark,” He said almost immediately. “I mean, he is the dragon of darkness. Just being near him, I could feel the power he threw off clearly. It was cold, the type of cold that you feel in a damp cellar. It just seeped all the way through to my bones. It scared me.”

“What did he look like?” I was surprised that he was sharing so much with me, especially a personal experience.

“He was black, but not the kind of black you usually expect. Instead of being like Raiden, with scales that reflect light, his seemed to obliterate it completely. They threw off shadows instead.” Niram’s voice was even and steady, and I could tell that he was absorbed in the description. “He also had the most vibrant purple eyes. They were beautiful. I’ve never seen anything like it.”