Page 42 of The Dragon Queen Complete Series Collection
Chapter 42
“What the hell…?”
We’d packed away the dishes, giving what food remained to Glacier, who’d demolished it in seconds, but now the big blue dragon was leading us down a ramp into… What? Light pooled in from various slots carved into the ceiling, but it appeared to be a massive room underneath the amphitheatre above.
“I said the same thing when we found it,” Flynn said. “We arrived here in the midst of a bloody awful storm and Glacier was sick of my grumbling.” The dragon huffed at that. “So he led me down here.”
“He knew this place?” I asked, staring out at the massive space.
“Knew it?” He looked back and then scratched his dragon at the base of one of his ridges. “I’m not sure if he did before we landed, but once we did…” Flynn nodded. “He showed me things when we got here, memories that weren’t his. I held him in my arms when he was a hatchling. Every time he flew out of Wyrmpeak he did so in my company. We hadn’t been here before, but…”
I felt… something at the edges of my awareness. Something that had claws, scratching to get in. The sensation wasn’t an entirely positive one, a little akin to being on the verge of getting a terrible headache. Glimmer peered down at me, humming as she did so. As I rubbed my hands on my temples, it felt like the world flickered. The bare stone appeared and disappeared, replaced by richly coloured mosaics and painted walls, the whole room separated into four equal sections.
“Pippin?”
It was as if my name was being called down a long pipe, the syllables echoing and fracturing inside my head, then being wiped out by a high whining, one that was joined by Glimmer’s voice. I let out a sound, a whimper that sounded like a bellow to my sensitive ears, then stumbled forward. Glimmer’s hum got louder and louder the closer we got to the centre of the room and the pain increased.
“Gods, you’re fusing with her! Glimmer, pull back, love. It’s too soon!”
What was ‘fusing’? Was it a jack hammer applied directly to my brain, smashing the soft pinkness within my skull to smithereens? Was it the thin trickle of blood falling from my nose, splattering the earth? Was it the memory of dragons doing just that? Of dragging goats or sheep or whatever the hell those animals were, their motionless corpses still warm as their throats were slashed so that the blood poured into the channels cut into the stone floor? Was it me stumbling forward, pressed onward by my dragon’s hum, the sound of it vibrating the natural barriers in my mind.
Until they broke.
Blood on the stone, Pip , a feminine voice said inside my mind. Blood on the stone. Claim it. Claim it!
Flynn tried to stop us. I could feel his fear now, pumping through me, trying to prevent me from taking another step. He put a hand on my shoulder, but I shook it off. He rushed to move between us and our quarry, but we stepped aside. He tried to rally Glacier, not wanting to deploy the massive beast against us, but when he tried, the dragon stayed exactly where he was. A hum started up in his throat, creating a strange choral accompaniment inside my head, one that forced my feet onwards.
“What stone?” My words came out slurred and distorted. What stone? I cried mentally.
Here.
In the centre of the room was a small recess, all of the channels on the floor feeding into it and that’s when I saw it. Each of the dragon clans would bring animals here, sacrifice them for the lifeblood to raise the stone and…
I fell to my knees, hunching over the recess, searching for what she showed me but not finding it. As I knelt there, blood began to fall freely from my nose. One drop, then another, then a rapid spatter that abruptly stopped. As did the humming.
Only to be replaced by the rumbling of the stone under our feet.
“That’s it. We’re getting out of here,” Flynn growled, reaching out to grab me, but he didn’t make it. Glacier lumbered closer and Glimmer peered down at the stone receptacle, catching the moment the blood showed five lines forming, the stone cup breaking apart and then receding by some hidden mechanism to reveal something incredible.
Blood on the stone. Glimmer’s order had become a reverent prayer and my hand moved, by her volition or mine, I wasn’t sure. It didn’t seem to matter. When I’d cracked her egg, I’d felt like I cracked my heart with it, breaking it open to admit her and now she rushed in more completely than ever before.
She was me, and I was her, and we were… I couldn’t dwell on my thoughts, my emotions because a slender pedestal emerged, forged from some sort of metal the like of which I’d never seen before. The silvery surface shimmered with a finish that resembled a rainbow, there and gone again. But it was nothing compared to what it bore.
“What in the name of all of the gods is that?” Flynn said, staring at the swirling egg-shaped stone, its gleaming surface quickly marred by my bloody fingers touching it.
But not for long. Light exploded through the room, blinding each of us for a second, taking with it all sense of who we were and replacing it with something more.
It felt like a dream, that moment early in the morning, when you’re halfway between sleep and conscious thought. You can hear the birds chirping outside your window and the sounds of people moving around the house, but still… Your mind swims in the strange sea of dreams, concocting fantastical adventures, even as you know they are coming to an end.
Little queen?
Her voice was not Glimmer’s or Glacier’s or that of the queen who sat on the throne, and somehow I was pretty sure she wasn’t Zafira either.
Glimmer , my dragon corrected, her voice like that of a young, headstrong woman and my heart swelled at the sound of it.
Well met, young Glimmer. It’s been some time since I have spoken with another queen. There was an audible sigh. I gave up hope of ever hearing one of our kind using the speaking stones again. You must come and find us.
Soon , Glimmer promised.
Grow well and grow strong. You will find me when you are ready.
I let out a gasp as the light died away, my fingers reaching for it, wanting to snatch it away as it receded back into the stone.
No! Glimmer’s voice was imperious, making sure my hands fell back by my sides. It belongs here .
What belongs here? Why can you talk to me now but you couldn’t before? Glimmer, who was that?
Hungry…
Her voice was the sound of grinding rocks, dark and desperate, and right then it felt like my stomach was turning inside out with an intense need for food. I groaned, clutching at my stomach, feeling what I had eaten earlier shift restlessly in response to the sensations she was flooding me with.
“You need to screen her out,” Flynn said rapidly. “We’ll get her food from the nearest village but?—”
“Food, now!” I howled, and Glacier roared with me.
The dragon lumbered over, grabbing me by my leathers and tossing me on his back, forcing Flynn to do the same and no sooner did our butts hit the saddle then he started for the ramp.
“Now, lad…” Flynn tried for calm, I could feel it, hear it, along with the rapid skitter of his heartbeat. He was like a child in a snowstorm, screaming at it to stop. “Not so fast! We need to grab…”
What we needed to grab was the saddle, because as soon as the dragon got out of the depths of the underground space, he started his run towards the broken lip of the amphitheatre. My hands wrapped the ropes around my arms and Flynn’s palms slapping down on the horn of the saddle as Glacier launched himself into the sky.
Flap, flap, flap. I was conscious of the strength, of the speed of Glacier’s wing beats because Glimmer felt them as if they were her own. She wouldn’t crawl inside my jacket, no matter how I pleaded, her claws digging into the saddle as she flattened herself against Glacier’s spine. He flew, she flew, over the trees, but not towards Wyrmpeak. A thin spiral of wood smoke floated up into the sky and he zeroed in on that.
People came out of their houses as we arrived and I could see why. It was a town about the size of Deepacre, so dragons would not be a common sight. There was an inn in the centre of the town, and savoury aromas were coming from it. Glimmer went to leap off Glacier’s back the moment his feet hit the ground and I was forced to throw myself sideways to catch her.
FOOD , she ordered, her eyes taking on a reddish cast.
“She needs something to eat right now,” I told Flynn with a shaky voice, fighting the urge to throw up.
“In here.”
“Evening, riders,” the innkeeper said as we strode into his bar, people looking up as we passed.
“Meat and lots of it. Raw if you have it,” Flynn said, tossing a bag of coin down on the counter.
“Right you are, sir.”