Curse of the Stars Book 1

Chapter 31

Chapter XXXI

"You've been doing exceptionally well my little dragon. But today you have the day off. After all, you wouldn't want to miss your own coronation, would you?"

"My coronation?!" Stygian dropped the scroll she had been studying. It bounced on the tile and then lay still.

"Of course! The Priests understand that you live here now. That we share this temple. What's mine is yours and what's yours is mine." Turbulence's beady red eyes gleamed in the candle-light. "You ought to be very proud of what you've accomplished. You now understand the vocabulary of a five-year-old child. Though like a five-year-old, your grammar still needs some work."

It doesn't seem possible. This was all happening so fast. Stygian had only been here for a week, and Lyngoriann wasn't even close to Dragon Speak. Yet she had no problems pronouncing the words even though she didn't have the voice for it. She didn't stumble upon the strange syllables, the long angular words that filled her mouth up with so much space. She didn't skip a single consonant, including over words that were 14 letters long. Lyngoriann wasn't an easy dialect by any means, even within the human languages, nor was it the most widely used. Instead it was the direct language of the people of the City nearby, and one only one the Northern Hemisphere spoke.

"I don't understand." Stygian voiced outloud.

Turbulence tapped her temple, a coy smile on her lips. Today she sounded more female than normal.

"It's because you're a really fast learner." She praised. "I've never had a student as excellent as you! What is there to understand?"

Stygian doubted Turbulence had ever had a student before her at all, but she didn't say that outloud. Again doubt glimmered like a spinning coin in her heart. She had never known herself to be a particularly fast learner of anything, certainly not language. In fact out of all the siblings, Malachite had been the best at absorbing knowledge. Stygian had never been excellent at anything really. She had considered herself an average Lustrous Dragon who was good at things all Lustrous dragons were good at. Swimming, climbing, floating, walking on water, and doing quick turns and acrobatics. Lustrous Dragons, aside from their walk-on-water trick, weren't especially known for being specialized in much except looking beautiful.

But Stygian didn't even have that anymore.

"You learn something new about yourself every day." Turbulence went on happily. "And you are very good at this."

Is it just me or is she trying too hard?

Still, although embarrassed slightly, Stygian couldn't deny the praise. She really had learned this all very quickly...though it hurt her head a great deal to do so. It was strange how the learning went... How a murky mind shrouded with darkness could form such clear words. How her mouth could just naturally distinguish the dialect as if she had been born speaking it. She still had a lot of learning to do but still...

"Turbulence." She said slowly. "Do your powers, by any chance, have something to do with giving other dragons skills they didn't previously have?"

Turbulence narrowed her eyes at her and his happy demeanor vanished instantly.

"Perhaps." He said carefully, his eyes guarded.

"Why is this some big secret?" Stygian demanded, growing angry at his stubbornness to be open again. "Shouldn't I have a right to know what exactly you're doing to me during these activities? Why does my head always hurt? Why do I always wake up with almost no memories and a headache, yet seem to remember the words from the pages so clearly, like they had been planted there in my brain almost overnight?"