The Dragon of Charred Scales

Fury of a Scorned Dragon, Part One

Jacob

"They trap us as humans. That way, we can't use magic to escape," said the prisoner across the way from our cell. She is an older female dragon, in human form like us, who sat near her bars to get closer to us. In the back of the same cell, a younger woman sat in a corner, obscured by darkness that the hallway lanterns could not pierce.

"So, we're screwed," Oculeera spat out.

"You probably won't face death or worse. But otherwise, yeah," said the dragon.

"And why are you here?" I asked, hoping I did not say something I should not.

She shrugged. "Trying to kill Harogbas. His motives are good enough, but his methods of achieving them are not."

"You say that as if killing him is the natural thing to do."

"Youngling, you have no idea just what he wants to do. Few do, and most of those actually agree."

I backed away from the bars and sat down. Others trapped within their cells began to talk about mass killings and the usage of corrupt magic. Their voices mingled and echoed, making it hard to pick one to listen to.

"Shut up, y'all," said the dragon. The voices calmed down. "I won't dig into anything, but if you knew what Hernat did, at Harogbas' request, to Karomba here, you would want to kill him too. Your cell mate looks ready to kill him anyway."

Oculeera pulled at the unyielding bars. "What did they do to her?"

The dragon shook her head. "That is for her to say, not me. It was horrible, though."

Across the hallway large enough to fit a strength dragon, through our bars and theirs, I looked at the huddled dragon. Without much light I cannot see if she is injured. I can barely see that she is backed into the corner as far as possible.

"Karomba," Oculeera called out. "Are you okay?"

"Leave her alone," said the older dragon. "Times have been hard for her."

If humans could growl, Oculeera probably would have done so. Instead she sighed angrily. "I should have seen this coming. The signs were there. But we were too focused on doing what Harogbas wanted."

"Youngling, what did he ask of you two? Except for Karomba, he rarely turns to dragons your age."

"He wanted us to trigger Alustagal to erupt. To kill so many."

The older dragon looked sad and nodded her head. "Unknowingly, I take it. Luckily you failed or rebelled. Undoing the Joining or revealing ourselves would be so much easier if dragons and humans had a much smaller population. Therein lies the problem. But why you two? Why not a group of loyal spirit dragons or, better yet, a group of Zhenniao? Many of those poison birds live in Oita's sister clan, Talbagu."

"Novayar here is a conjurer. We are the duo of the prophecy. Harogbas has to be the shadow, the thing we fight. He has to be."

The dragon's eyes widened. "That duo? You're Oculeera then? Maybe he saw you as a threat and a means to an end. Kill you, and potentially achieve his other goals. Despicable."

Oculeera nodded. "He acted so nice, so sincere, and so many idolized him. He must be a good liar."

"And a good actor," I said. Not to mention my father, possibly. Not that it really matters to anyone else, but still it hurts to think I have been deceived by family.

"He always has been. Otherwise no one would ever catch on that he uses his brother's name elsewhere."

"Food," someone hissed, and everyone fell silent. Down the hall, I could hear light footsteps, broken by the sound of scraping. Soon, an elf came into view, surrounded by hovering trays that he slid in the small slot at the bottom of every cell door. I did not recognize the elf.