Dragons Rising ✔️

Ch 69: The Final Confrontation

When I came to, ropes were binding my wrists to the portal, and Oren and Farot were messing around with the mindstones. Farot cut through their protective enchantments with the dagger and started collecting a select few mindstones near the portal. All of the ones he chose were at least as big as both my fists put together, probably belonging to class 7's, 8's, and 9's.

I thought about using my fangs to spit venom at Farot and Oren, but there was a gag in my mouth. Looking around, I searched for a weapon I could use to stop them or free myself. Farot's pile of mindstones started whispering.

[Use the dagger.]

I couldn't do that because Farot had it. Some help the mindstones were.

[You can...] They whispered.

The discovery that they could read my mind was weird, but when I thought about the fact that I was being talked to by neck crystals taken from baby dragons, it didn't seem too weird after all. So, how could I use the dagger while Farot had it? Wait a second, the dagger was still glowing. It either thought that Farot was a mage or that I was still holding it.

If the latter was true, maybe I had linked with it magically. I reached out with my mind to access the dagger's power. It was just like when I'd borrowed Leera's strength through our mental link. All I had to do was concentrate on the energy and pull a little.

The flow of magic that rushed into me was so strong that I started glowing myself. Farot and Oren had their backs turned and didn't notice. I stopped pulling on the magic, and the glow dimmed significantly. All the magic I'd gathered seemed to dissipate. Before I could try again, I felt a sudden pain between my shoulders.

There was a flash of light, and I glanced over my shoulder to see that dragon wings had grown from my back and burned through my shirt. I was taller, too, and somehow stronger. I wasn't sure how useful that was while I was tied up, though.

Oren turned towards me with another armful of mindstones and promptly dropped them all. More than one hit his feet, and he yelped in pain, causing Farot to spin around. At the sight of me, he wrinkled his nose in disgust.

"You look even more like an animal than before."

I want to say that no, I looked like a katalni, but the gag made that impossible.

"Knock her out again before she causes trouble," Farot said.

Oren hurried to do as he'd been ordered, and Farot went back to looking through the mindstones. When Oren came close enough for me to reach him, I kicked out at his shins—the only part of him I could reach. To my surprise, my shoes fell to pieces at the first impact, revealing clawed feet that left deep gashes in his legs.

He stumbled back, staring at his legs as I stared at my own feet. "You have claws."

I was just as surprised as he seemed to be, but I didn't let that stop me from taking advantage of the situation. Before he could pull himself together enough to fight with two heavily bleeding legs, I used my newfound claws to cut through the ropes tying my wrists to the portal. Once free, I leapt to my feet and yanked the gag out of my mouth.

Somehow, my movement seemed more fluid and graceful than normal, like a cat's. Or a dragon's. Oren swung his sword at me, but I easily dodged and jabbed my tail into his stomach. New spikes on the end of my tail cut deep. He grunted and swung again.

I blocked Oren's attacks with the armored edges of my wings when I couldn't dodge. Every time he took a momentary breather, I attacked with my wing claws and tail spikes. In minutes, his arms looked like he'd been thrown into the fanged mouth of a katalni. He could barely hold up his sword.