A month has passed. My hands, sweaty with nervousness, clench tight when I overlook the white egg on the burning coals. The crack has not moved an inch, nor has it opened. Those are good signs, considering I feared it might open more once placed on heat.

However, there is no movement. I’ve not held a dragon egg before this one. I have not seen a dragon egg to know if the embryo moves before hatching. Like bird eggs, reptile eggs—any… they move, stirring with life. Here, there is nothing. Not a quiver or any vibration to know if they are moving when I place my hands on the egg.

Nothing.

My stomach knots when I place the egg onto the coals and step away.

“What do you believe? Wholeheartedly. Do you think this egg will hatch? Or am I to wait in the hopes Helion brings one back?”

“It will hatch,” I say, hiding the lack of confidence. “Besides… you do not want Helion as a rider. Madness stirs in him whenever someone gives him orders. What do you think would happen if you were to tell him what he needs his dragon to do? Burn you without thought.”

Norlon’s frown deepens into sudden irritation. “What do you suggest?”

Folding my arms across my chest, I stare blankly, uttering no emotion on my face and in my voice when I say, “Dagen. If you do not trust my egg will hatch, send Dagen.”

“He is my best archer.”

“Therefore, he will be a better rider than Helion. Send him out, hoping he returns before the crows enter the mailing house.”

Norlon leans back in his chair, rests his fingers on his forehead and sighs. “He cannot go.”

Turning away from him to mask my irritation, I stand over my egg, hands over it, feeling the heat tingling my pores. “Why?”

“A letter came through three days earlier. It seems the prince’s Maiden Knight escorted him to Daragon Island and took an egg from Elghul.”

“Life Giver,” I murmur. “And so why does it matter?”

I touch the egg, and the scales move across my fingertips, tough and rough… like bark from an oak tree. In my mind, I wait for the egg to move—anything to happen so it can ease my haywire thoughts of believing it is nothing but a rotten egg.

“The rules have changed in place of Prince Nicor. The King of Ellarian has announced that Prince Nicor’s Maiden Knight will journey up the Blessed Mountain with him.”

My eyes narrow. “What does it have to do with Dagen?”

“It opens the door and allows you to have a travel companion. I want Dagen to be your protector.”

My organs churn with the utmost distaste at the thought of someone I want to move away from now becoming someone who needs to follow me up the Blessed Mountain. And then what happens after? Is he to stay by my side forever? Norlon would soon propose a marriage scheme. He enjoys the company of Dagen… more than I ever will.

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“I can do this myself—”

“There will be no protest. This is an order, not an ask.”

Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath in until it seems as if I am filling my lungs with dragon breath, and when I exhale, the anger and frustration for Norlon fade. When my eyes open, I stare at the egg a little longer, then leave the Heart without another word. For if I did speak, the words coming out would be unkind, filled with annoyance over the fact that he does not believe I can do this on my own.

Yet, he was bold enough to let me go to Daragon Island and claim an egg, risking my life for the egg. Now that I have one, he wants to do everything in his power to protect the egg, assuming that I cannot do this without an aid guiding and protecting it.

Cold air bites into my skin when I leave the warmth of the Heart. The setting sun hides behind tall trees, and shadows stretch, crawling across the mossy ground until darkness covers the homes within the trees. Animals skitter across the land, running across browning, crinkling leaves.

I drink in the dense air, tasting the lavender and thickened mulch underneath my riding boots. Soon, when I return with my dragon, the scent of decay and rotten animals will linger the more it grows and hunts for its food. Unlike wood elves, they do not have an appetite for vegetables and fruits. I will have to skin rabbits—something uncommon around here unless a human, dwarf, high elf or halfling happens to enter Wyl. With might and restraint, we try to keep the peace with the animals to keep the cycle moving forward and not stagnant with fright.

We keep Woodlain Path safe, and they keep us hidden and secure when we call on them. A cycle we do not want to break. So… where will my dragon stay when we return from the Blessed Mountain? I do not think Norlon has thought that far ahead.

He wants a dragon, but I do not believe he knows the first thing about how to keep a dragon. I do not know how to keep a dragon. I doubt anyone knows how. There is a reason high elves place barriers around Daragon Island. If there were none, Ellarian would be a brittle, smoke-filled world where dragons ruled, and we were the fodder.

“Inari,” Dagen calls from outside my home, leaning against the wooden panels beside the vines covering the door. “Did Norlon tell you of the good news?”

How… disappointing.

An old friend wanting nothing more to settle our differences at the Dusk Tree holds more excitement than a mating season for rabbits. He makes his intentions glaringly obvious, and the more he speaks of it makes me not like the idea of bonding with anyone and having a life of solitude.

As I stand at the entrance to my home, my smile strains when I say, “Yes. It seems we’re going on this journey together.”

His beaming grin softens like butter, and those piercing eyes melt when they focus on me. No bone in his body will harm me, no matter how angry my words can be when he aggravates me.

“How is the egg?”

I part the vines and enter. “Still an egg.”

“Let us hope the Shrine Maidens can get it to hatch without difficulty,” he says by the door, not wanting to enter without my consent.

My frown deepens at the thought of the egg not hatching after spending hours on end every day holding it, caressing it, touching it as if it is a child I have carried in my womb for nine months.

“Do you know of others journeying up the Blessed Mountain? Any who should worry me when it comes to protecting you?” Dagen knits his brows together. “I want to prepare for anything.”

Vidian crosses my mind for a fleeting moment.

“No,” I say. “Besides, everyone should have the same objective when we’re there. This is no challenge between us, or how are we to fight against Nerkactor if we cannot trust and live among each other.”

“Norlon told me to eliminate Rialdranth’s eggs if they came from the same nest.” A dark look crosses his face. “Will the high elf be a challenge to remove?”

“No,” I say, this time my voice flatter and stirred with irritation.

He sighs. “It seems no matter what I do, friendly or not, wanting to protect you or distancing myself from you, aggravation comes as swiftly as a dagger in the night, with no whistle of a noise in sight.”

My hands tighten on my knees, crinkling the leggings. “Because there is always an objective with your conversations. You cannot talk to me without your main cause of wanting to talk to me slipping through. After hundreds of years, I’ve grown tired of the same repetitive conversations. I’m looking for something new.”

“And what is new?”

I smile crookedly. “Becoming a Dragon Rider.”