“Are you prepared?”

If you had told me two weeks ago that a dragon would be looking down at me and asking me if I was ready to save their people, I’d have at the very least called you a quack.

But right here, right now, I’m too busy trying not to crap my new silver britches to care about that.

“As I’ll ever be.”

With three hours to go until Thorn’s meeting, Palka called us back to her chamber. We’re all gathered here under the Brine dragon’s grim gaze: Me, Swiftrunner, and the Glenmaidens. Well, except Myra. She’s strangely absent.

“And you have elected to stay by his side?”

She poses the question to Swiftrunner, who straightens up beside me.

“A wolf shall never leave his comrade,” the proud lycan states. “Especially not when they go to meet their destiny.”

A single tear would drip from my eyes if I wasn’t already paralyzed with fear.

“Then it is settled,” Palka states. “You all know your positions. Guide him to the grove, but do not let him gain a single step further into our realm. Let the trees of Glenheim be your guide.”

One Glenmaiden chimes in, “Why the Grove, Mistress?”

I’m thinking the same thing, honestly. The grove beyond the waterfall was like a sacred place to them, right? Whenever me and Myra trained there, I always got a kinda spiritual sense from the air, the flowers, and the purity of the pocket realm. There was that whole business about it ‘reflecting the harmony of Glenheim’ after all, right? Then again, it could’ve just been my exhaustion talking, or hallucinations after Myra’s many bonks…

The dragon’s eyes dart back to mine.

“This will be known only to us,” she says. “We are dismissed. In three hours, my children, we shall have true freedom from those who would see us wither and die. We shall strike a blow against the Darkseed that the world shall not soon forget.”

The Glenmaidens shuffle off, trailing their white cloaks behind them and avoiding my gaze.

But when I turn tail to follow Swiftrunner out, a razor-piercing voice sears my mind.

Lightborn, Palka says. We shall speak alone.

Swifty gives me a knowing look as I nod to him with a shiver.

“I’ll catch up with you,” I tell him.

Palka waits for the sight of his haggard tail disappears before saying anything more, and several dim seconds of charged silence dwell between us.

“You wonder why I have chosen the grove for the execution.”

It wasn’t a question, and the way she was calling it an ‘execution’ left a bitter taste in my mouth. But I nodded all the same.

“The Grove is a place sacred to Glenheim,” she says, closing her amber eyes as though lost in memory. “When I awoke as a hatchling and found this place, the Grove was my first gift to the Elven people. I brought them beauty so that they might see me as their protector.”

I listen intently, following the meanings behind her words. Because she’s basically telling me she manipulated them.

“Why?” I ask, my doggie curiosity getting the better of me. “Why does a dragon like you need guardians like this? Why create this place at all?”

The hulking wyrm’s great throat pulses as it lowers its head to meet mine, and its eyes fix on me again.

“It is not a simple thing to explain,” she says. “Humanity is many. But we – dragonkind – we are one. Tokal’Muthtier – one-self, eternal. Each of us are as a nation unto ourselves. We live for centuries and never take a mate except in times of great hardship. We do not have Toroth. We do not know family.”

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

“You…you did all this…so you could be a mom?”

The dragon bristles, its throat gargling in what might be a guttural laugh. “You have a forwardness that must be native to your species. Tell me, Raziel, do you not know the pain of being a singular being in an uncaring universe? Is this not the very nature of the Lightborn?”

I shrug and stare at my paws, so small and insignificant in comparison to her great, scaly claws. A little laugh escapes my throat to join hers. Because she’s right. She had me pegged from the start.

“I’m learning exactly what that feels like,” I reply.

“Then you must know that a mother must do anything she can to protect her family.”

I lick my lips, anticipating what’s coming next.

“Yeah,” I say. “Even if it means watching someone die.”

Our eyes meet immediately after my statement. Her fiery pupils flare up in recognition of what I know, and what I feel. She’s looking at me with new eyes now, and I’m looking up at her without fear. This time, when she opens her mouth to speak, I don’t back away.

“The Grove is designed to entice and enclose,” she says. “It can be sealed with a thought, or by the touch of my Glenmaidens, who hold my power within their veins. Once sealed, those within are forever wrapped in the Grove’s extra-dimensional plane. And there is no escape.”

I don’t say a word. Even though she waits for – what? Me to complain? I’m passed that.

“You’re telling me that, if I fail to kill the guy, you’ll seal us in the Grove, right?”

Now it’s her turn to sit in silence. And it’s that silence that tells me all I need to know.

“You thought of everything, Palka,” I say. “I’ll give you that.”

Still the dragon says nothing.

“Does Myra know?”

A flaring of the nostrils. That tells me enough.

“’Course she doesn’t. She hates how ‘dishonorable’ this plan is from the start. But that doesn’t bother you, right?”

I don’t know what compels me to say something this stupid. I don’t know what makes me look a dragon in its giant eyes and tell it something that could lead to me becoming a little crispy Corgi. But I do. And I watch Palka reel back as if she’s about to light me up right here and now.

“Myrathellon tells me you are not like those who have come before,” she says. “I have some reason to believe her, for it is not through just any base creature that the coldness of her heart could be melted. But that does not mean you understand us. I must protect my family,” she says firmly, flexing her charred wing. “I have already felt the pain of losing them before. It cannot happen again. It will not happen again.”

The dragon’s looking at me, but I get the feeling she doesn’t really see me. I dunno how to explain it. It’s like her mind was made up way before the new Lightborn ever came to her asking for help. She’d never spared a thought about anything beyond the walls of her lair – because that’s what this place was, really. It was a dragon’s lair. And she’d chosen it wisely. But, I think, she’s chosen it for a reason. That’s why I can’t hate her. I can’t blame her. If you’d given me the option between stewing away in my own little home and heading out to confront the evils of this world, you can be damn sure I’d have chosen the option that’d make a less fun story.

But that was back when I was just a dog in a cage, looking at the world through the bars of my prison. And it’s only in this moment that I realize Palka’s been doing the same thing for more centuries than my dog-brain can even imagine.

“There’s a world out there that’s on the brink of dying,” I say, unsure if these are really my words or someone else’s coming out. “There are people out there that would give their last copper coin for just a breath of Glenheim’s air. Sure, you love your family. But we’re all part of the same world, like it or not, and if we don’t all start caring about it soon, there won’t be any world left. You know that, don’t you?”

When I hear no reply, I simply go back outside, following the long dark cavern towards a destiny someone else has written for me.

…

Just outside the tunnel, I hear a familiar voice call my name.

“Raziel.”

Lo and behold, it's Myra. Suited up, hand on her silver blade, she’s staring down at me from beside the doorway to the dragon’s lair.

“Don’t suppose you heard that little convo?” I ask her.

She avoids my gaze. “It is not my place to pry where the Mistress does not wish me.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“Never mind that,” she says, stepping forward and bending down to whisper in my face. “I need you to come with me. Now.”

“I’ve got three hours till I either become the first doggie-assassin in history, or the first fried pup. Believe me, I’ll take any distractions I can get.”

She looks around, making sure no other Elves are in the vicinity. “There’s someone I have to see. I want you there, with me.”

I cock my head. “Someone…”

Realization strikes me as I look into her silver eyes. She nods.

“Are you sure?”

“I have to face her,” she says with determination. “I have to hear, from her, the things she’s done.”

“I dunno…” I murmur, equally whispering now. “Isn’t Palka gonna catch you?”

“Not if we’re quiet,” she says with a slight blush. “I hear you have been practicing on that front.”

She stalks away round the bend of the elevator and beckons me to follow her down another shaft – the one that leads, of course, to Seneca’s prison.

I shake my head slowly as my [Softpaws] come out.

“Myra…I really have been a bad influence on you.”