Dawn's Light

Chapter 29

'You—you have a ray of sunlight!' The voice spoke again.

Celia glanced around, briefly unable to locate the source of the voice. At first, she expected some sort of transparent specter. However, after she saw no such image, she looked to Irin as he continued to gaze at the light. "Irin?"

The dragon's amber eyes lost their gaze as he turned to Celia. He blinked a few more times as if he needed to clear his vision, then looked up to and focused on the human girl.

"Did just hear you?" Celia asked him in a wavering voice, "because that would be ridiculous, right? Right? Please tell me I'm not going crazy." She emitted a flimsy laugh that swiftly died into a squeak.

Irin exhaled a plume of breath in a snort, 'You've never heard me before, so why should you suddenly be able to now?' He seemed to roll his eyes in disbelief as he looked back to the ray of light.

"I am going crazy!" Celia shakily exhaled and slumped back across Verbena's shoulders, "all this traveling must have messed with my mind somehow." She cradled the glowing sphere in her arms.

Verbena worriedly nuzzled Celia's back, 'You not crazy!' She assured with a soft purr-like sound, "you healthy and perfect human.'

At the same time as Verbena's words, Irin also responded. 'You CAN hear me?!' Several clips of snow slid off of his side as the ice-covered dragon jumped back in surprise, then lowered his head towards Celia's face.

Celia searched her mind for possible answers, but could not explain to herself why she could suddenly hear Irin's voice. She glanced down to the ray of light, "maybe this is the cause?" She ungloved her hand and wiped her nose on the bare skin. "Or maybe I hit my head or something."

She searched her mind for a second mindlink, but only found the one she had with Verbena, and Irin's voice did not come from Verbena's mindlink either. Irin's voice simply appeared in her head as if she heard the voice with her ears. Celia frowned at the lack of possible explanations.

Irin paused and contemplated the events, then glanced back down to the orb and became excited again. 'Let's figure that out later, I need to show Xan this,' he grabbed the ray of light in his mouth, much to Celia's shock. 'This should calm his anger,' he turns and dashed off with the beacon.

"Wait!" Celia gasped and reached towards Irin to grab him, but her distress-slowed reaction time caused her hand to only grasp empty air. "Irin! Please don't run off with that!" She pushed herself off of Verbena's side and wobbly stood to her feet.

Verbena glared slightly as she sorely stood with soft moans. 'I'll go get him," she glowered. Without casting a thought to the offered food, she ran off after the disappearing source of light.

Celia sprinted after the three of them and continued to think of an explanation for the events as she followed. Many potential explanations came to her mind.

The ray of sunlight could have allowed it. However her mind countered with a new question, why didn't something similar happen when she found the first one?

The events may have come with her heritage. If her lineage explained the sudden events, then why she couldn't understand other dragons before?

The only plausible explanation in Celia's mind came in the form of the idea that perhaps she had a bit of magic inside of her after all. Her magic also could have been late to bloom into reality, which could explain why it suddenly appeared now.

Celia shook off those thoughts and instead refocused on following Irin and Verbena. She looked ahead and saw the light far ahead. Irin's body eclipsed the glow and Celia felt like she was chasing shadows.