The Cursed Deal ✓

Chapter 10

In the stables to the east of the base, Faine opened the useless wooden gate keeping Tyvni in her enclosure. Too many times had the young dragon scaled the side of her pen and scratched the solid wood to splinters. Picking small pieces of wood out between her claws while sitting on the straw floor of the stables used to be one of Faine's most esteemed time-wasters.

A leather halter strapped against the green scales of the dragon's face; arranged carefully around the many spikes growing back off her scales and buckled by the dragon handlers. Two mortal boys that served no purpose other than to feed, provide water, and avoid losing an arm or a leg to a hungry beast that felt they didn't get enough during their meal.

Faine pulled against the lead, a frayed rope, and tugged Tyvni to the middle of the stables. The other dragons—hidden by the wooden doors to their pens—huffed hot air, growled, shook out their scales, and squirmed altogether. They couldn't stand when one received freedom and the others, the unlucky beasts, didn't derive the chance to roam.

Another terrible occupation by the two stable boys that had since disappeared since Faine arrived in her flying leathers. In a wooden bucket, she stuffed a whole chicken, plucked of feathers and skin, a turkey leg, goat ribs and loin, and a single cup of oats. Tyvni, after eating hours ago, was more than pleased to stick her head inside, not to eat the oats, but push them off to get to the meat.

Faine frowned at the beast. "You need your oats," she protested. The dragon wasn't listening. "That's why you were the runt, you know. You would only eat what you believed tasted good. You need everything to grow larger than the other dragons here."

She placed her hand against the side of Tyvni's large body, shifting her weight to one hip, but the dragon merely crunched the goat ribs between her sharp teeth and moved onto the next. She'd always been a slow eater, even after being the runt of the litter. Faine remembered the day affectionately; Zebulon had stolen dragon eggs meant to go to the high elf family to go through extensive years of training, all leading to becoming hunters.

Instead, Rising Eternity raised the beasts and kept them for themselves. As they grew, all hatching around the same time, it became clear that Tyvni would not grow as large as the others. She was too slow, didn't fight for her food, and constantly faced scrutiny from the other, stronger dragons. It was through Faine's coddling that she reached this point of survival.

"She won't listen to you, you know."

Faine looked up from where she was gathering Tyvni's saddle, smaller than all the rest. Standing in the large open doorway of the stables was Nalea Havise, an elf. Master of seduction and gathering information, yet sweet and on the quieter side.

She smirked at Tyvni and made her way into the stables, her noticeably curvy hips swaying back and forth with each step. The young dragon was too focused on pushing through the oats to care that Nalea was running one of her teal hands along the spikes on her head, nor did she mind the presence of anyone that wasn't a stable boy. The runt she was, but it brought out the fighter in her against the mortals.

"Dragons aren't fond of listening, apparently," Nalea went on. "As you can tell from my own."

They both looked toward Nalea's dragon, a male with purple scales that often reflected blue and green in the sunlight. He had his large head leaned over the side wall of his pen, crushing the wood underneath, and batted bashful eyes at Nalea in hopes of being released to explore the grounds of Rising Eternity's base. At one point, they had roamed free.

"If I recall correctly, your dragon was the reason they're forced to remain locked in these pens except during flight and a brief walk during the day," Faine mocked.