Everyone panicked.

Sapphire found herself paralyzed. Flashbacks flooded her mind. She was used to them, but usually she could tone it down until it was bearable, and still manage to function. They always happened when adrenaline started pumping through her veins.

Images of her family.

Sapphire found herself trapped in memories. She was unaware of what happened around her; everything seemed muffled.

She remembered being thrown against the wall, many, many times. The bitter flow of insults that came out of her family members’ mouths towards her. Sapphire’s room, even now, was always locked. She had to climb up the walls in order to get to it, since it was on the second floor. She never kept anything of value in there, because her siblings—two brothers, one sister—stole things from her.

She couldn’t even remember their names.

Before she got kicked out of the house, Sapphire remembered how she used to get one meal every day of crushed bugs. She had to hold her nose and choke them down, or she would die of starvation. Knowing that the creatures were edible did not help.

Her mind focused on one memory, when she was about five years old. Her mom was always in the office, “studying”. In the memory, a small version of herself opened the door to the office and timidly poked her head into it.

“Mother?”

Sapphire’s mom looked up from her papers. They were brightly colored, and Sapphire always wondered what they were. Now, in the present, she understood that they were magazines. They advertised things like “Get Off Your Bottle Now” and “Lose the High, Keep the Brain” that Sapphire never understood.

Sapphire’s mom sighed. “Yes, child?”

“I-I-I was just wondering if I could have my satchel back? Please?” Sapphire’s satchel was the only possession she had. In that specific memory, Sapphire’s mom had taken it away because she was caught reading some of the books from the “library room” without asking.

“No.” Sapphire’s mom turned back to her papers. Sapphire sighed and closed the door, which creaked as it shut.

“Don’t creak the door!” Sapphire’s mom shouted, pulling open the door to glare at Sapphire and kick her shin. “I’ve told you that a million times! Now GO!”

Sapphire gulped, stammered, “Y-y-y-es, Moth-th-ther,” and ran down the hall as the door slammed shut in her face.

The next day, Sapphire oiled the hinges of the door so that it didn’t creak anymore. Maybe then her mother would let her have her satchel back. She hummed softly to herself as she dabbed the oil on, smiling.

Around midday, her mother pulled open the door to find Sapphire finishing up the bottom hinge.

“What are you doing?” Her mother bellowed. “You’ll get oil on the floor, you little squirt!” Sapphire backed away.

“Mother, I was trying to help!” Sapphire squeaked, smiling weakly. “See, the door doesn’t sqea—”

“I don’t care!” Sapphire’s mother grabbed her arm and dragged her down the hallway. “I’ve had enough of this. We’re going to your father.”

She opened a door at the end of the hallway and shoved Sapphire through it.

“Ah.” Sapphire’s father looked up from his papers. “What is it now?”

“This little tyke was playing with the oil!” Her mother snarled. “Right next to my door, I might add! Trying to get me to trip, were you?” She shook Sapphire’s arm.

“N-n-no—” Sapphire tried to pull away, but her mother had a tight grip on her arm. She brought her face close to Sapphire’s.

“Looks like you need to be punished,” her father said softly, slowly standing up. “You will spend the night in the cellar. You won’t get any meals, and you won’t get your satchel back for another two weeks.”

“Please, I just—”

But her parents wouldn’t listen. They never did. That night, she had to sleep in the cellar. It was her least favorite place to be, but she was there almost every night. Cold breezes whispered through the pitch-black space, sounding like ghosts. There were no windows, no blankets, and nothing to do except curl up on the hard, cold ground and shiver herself to sleep. However, it was the best punishment she ever got.

As Sapphire grew up, she got the message that she wasn’t wanted around, so she went outside all day, only coming in at midnight, when everyone was asleep. Soon after that, she had made a silent agreement with her parents—they would never see her ever again, and she could stay there at night. The only problem with living separate from her family was that she was forced to steal things in order to eat. Luckily, school was free, or she wouldn’t have that either.

However, it was better than living in the house. Sapphire had a free bed with no punishments whatsoever. She got to keep her satchel at all times, and she was never lonely because of Tanzanite.

But she never wanted to go back.

“Sapphire! Sapphire! Come on, we have to go!”

Sapphire blinked the horrible images flashing through her head. She shook it, and opened her eyes to find Alex trying to help her up, looking genuinely worried—not at all like his normal joking self.

“Are you okay?” Alex asked. Tanzanite sidled up to him and gave Sapphire a look that said, Ok? Ok. Sapphire nodded. She and Tanzanite had long since worked out some kind of silent language of their own, mostly consisting of looks and eye flickers. It was the only language Sapphire ever spoke in the six years before she met her friends.

“She’s fine, just a little tired,” Tanzanite answered for her. She knew what Sapphire had been through, and also acknowledged the fact that she preferred to keep it hidden. When she and Sapphire had first met, Sapphire had been crying, alone and in the dark. Tanzanite had compassion, and decided to become her lifelong companion.

“Tanzanite’s right,” Sapphire said, hiding her guilt as she stood up and hopped on her CrystalDragon. She hated lying, but—just like stealing—she deemed it necessary to function properly. Now was not the time to spill her secrets everywhere. Maybe someday.

The entire LavaDragon palace was in chaos. Everyone rushed about, hiding important documents and hurrying dragonets into safety. Outside of the palace, growls and booms that sook the palace could be heard.

How on Terrarestria are the StealthDragons attacking us? Do they have magic too? Sapphire wondered. Her brain felt like it was frying at all the scientifically impossible things going on.

Everyone else was ahead of Alex and Sapphire. It looked like Alex had doubled back to check on her, and Sapphire was touched.

They ran towards the sounds of the attack, and ended up near the entrance. The wall of lava had turned see-through, which gave Sapphire a perfect view of the destruction going on outside the palace.

About two dozen StealthDragons in armor that shone oddly were battling with the LavaDragons, while others were attacking the palace with odd weapons—a kind of metal stick with a black ball of essence on the end of it. It appeared that the StealthDragon had to charge it before shooting a powerful black magic blast into the palace walls.

“Go, go, go!” Sapphire and her friends took to the air.

CloudWing turned invisible and flew up to the StealthDragons. Sapphire could feel an electric charge, and then a lightning bolt struck a StealthDragon in the chest. It spread out to ten more StealthDragons, causing them to drop unconscious.

Roewyn and Pathtalon started shooting spikes at all of the StealthDragons. They easily pierced their armor, but everyone else was having trouble. Tanzanite’s and Erinite’s crystals just bounced off of the silvery material, which frustrated them. Shadowstar just flew there looking uncomfortable, before she decided to take care of CloudWing’s victims.

It was an unfair battle. The StealthDragons were outnumbered five to one, and even with their armor, they seemed to only be able to stay under the lava for a certain period of time before having to go to the surface for air. When it was all over, however, there was much damage to the palace.

They all landed back in the hallway of the palace, looking grim. The King and the Queen stood together, with their council in the shadows behind them.

There was an awkward pause.

“It appears,” King Ignatius started, his voice slow but sharp, “that the StealthDragons followed you here.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Pyrite said, bowing her head solemnly. “We did not mean for it to be so.”

“And yet it still happened,” Queen Ash said disapprovingly. “We have no choice but to—”

“Wait!” The LavaDragon princess landed between Sapphire and her friends, and her parents.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

“Princess Ember.” Ignatius glared at her, but she didn’t back down.

“Father, what if these people have good intentions?” The princess cried. “Will we just kill them off without mercy? They warned us of a threat like nothing we have seen before, which means they truly care. Will we denounce everything that they said as lies? They fought by our side in battle! A few of them almost fell!” She gestured to Roewyn and Pathtalon, who both had long wounds on their sides. The heat had cleaned them, luckily, but they had to hurt.

“Ember—” the Queen began.

“No, Mother!” Princess Ember said sharply. “I am sorry that we don’t see eye to eye. I know that you are wiser than I, but I also know that killing—or imprisonment—isn’t the answer to every problem! The StealthDragons now have armor that allows them to go in the lava. Are we just going to sit in our little hidey-hole and do nothing about it?”

There was silence. Then, King Ignatius strode forwards and placed a talon on his daughter’s head gently. “I believe you,” he said simply.

He looked at Queen Ash. She sighed. “As do I,” she said. “But we must not act rashly. We will not imprison these people and their dragons. But we won’t go to the Surface—yet. We will need time to decide. You may stay here for the night, and leave in the morning.”

Ember beamed. “I’ll show them to their rooms!” she bounded in between where her parents were standing, gesturing for them to follow her with a flick of her tail.

Sapphire tried not to make eye contact with any of the LavaDragons. The other royal dragonets, two princes that were each bigger than Ember, gave them odd looks.

“I can give you a tour!” Ember cried after they had left the presence of the Royal Court. She grinned at each of them. “First, I need to know your names, though! I’ll go first! I’m Ember, as you all know, but you can call me E for short. Or Ember, I don’t really care!”

They all introduced themselves, beginning with Turquoise and ending with Sapphire.

“All you humans are named after minerals!” Ember observed.

“Well, we were born in the Cave system under the ground,” Pyrite said. “So the only names that anyone knew were of minerals. A few weeks ago, I didn’t even know what a deer was!”

Everyone nodded. Ember looked thoughtful.

“So, you didn’t study the Surface?” she asked. “I’ve never been there, but I know what types of creatures it has.”

Pyrite shook her head. “We barely knew anything. Andy here had to teach us a lot.” She gestured to Andy, who grinned in recognition.

Ember made a thoughtful noise, then bounded down the corridor.

“This is the Main Room, which has all the passageways leading to every other room,” Ember said, waving one wing at the big room they had just entered. Sapphire recognized it from their brief walk to the throne room.

It was large and roomy, with a chandelier hanging from the ceiling, and about three stories high. Arches leading to different rooms occupied all the wall space.

Ember led them through one of the doorways on the highest floor. “I’m going to take you to my favorite place,” she said eagerly. The princess sped through a small hallway and past a few other rooms. Everything was large and grand, with several balconies. It did not feel like an underground tunnel, like how Sapphire had imagined. In several places, they entered gold-railed balconies, leading to huge rooms with windows to look at the outside. Everything was elegantly made, with swirls on the doorknobs and wavy patterns to the railings.

After a few minutes of speedwalking, Ember stopped. In front of her was an arch, and in front of the arch was a long hallway. Ember stepped through the arch, and everyone gasped.

It was an art gallery. Paintings, sculptures, tapestries, and what looked like blown glass art and mosaics. Each piece was unique, with its own shape and design. The tapestries were all shades and colors, some portraying a scene like a night sky, others featuring individual images, like a flower or a tree. The blown glass art pieces all had something glowing inside of them, so that prisms threw magical shimmers of color around the hallway. The sculptures usually depicted mythical animals, like wolves with wings or foxes with many tails. The paintings were mesmerizing, with beautifully realistic scenes, like a moonlit lake or a trial through the woods. As for the mosaics, it was easy to see what they portrayed, because each piece of colored rock was as small as Sapphire’s fingernail. They told capturing stories of dragons who could perform magic, and a dragon palace under the sea, and one in the sky. Sapphire had never seen dragons like that before, and wondered if they were real Legends or just the artist’s fancy.

“It’s…beautiful,” Sapphire breathed. Her friends said nothing, but it was obvious that they agreed.

“Where did you find all of this art?” Turquoise asked Ember.

“This was gathered by the LavaDragons before we entered the volcano. Very little of it was actually made by LavaDragons,” Ember answered. She had been watching their expressions. “You know, I’m one of the few LavaDragons who visits this gallery,” she added sadly. “I have to remind the servants to clean it every week. It’s nice to see other beings that actually care about art.”

“I’d visit this every day if I could,” Pyrite said. Everyone murmured their agreement.

“I wish I could create a piece like this,” Sapphire said wistfully, gesturing to one of the night sky tapestries.

“Same!” Ember agreed. “Maybe we could, with enough practice.”

Sapphire sure hoped so. She loved to draw, and although she had never painted before, I sounded fun and easy.

She opened her satchel, brought out her sketchpad, and flipped through it.

“Oh!” Ember cried. “May I see your drawings?”

Sapphire hesitated for a small second. Like her satchel, her notebook, and her map, her sketchbook was one of her few treasures and was very important to her. She didn’t want them taken away, like her parents had. But, looking at Ember’s cheerful face, she knew that this dragon would be careful and respectful to her possessions. So, she handed it over.

“Wow!” Ember said, turning the pages gently, her claws barely touching the pages. “You’re amazing! You can draw better than I can! You must’ve had lots of practice.”

Sapphire beamed. “Yeah…yeah, I did.”

Ember handed the sketchpad back. “You know,” she added, glancing at Sapphire’s satchel and back to the sketchpad, “it almost looks too big to fit in there. Must be my imagination, though!” The princess dismissed her theory with a chuckle.

Sapphire froze. She had suspected that nobody noticed, but now she knew that she had been a fool. Of course her friends noticed that she could pull four large things out of a tiny satchel. Their eyes were on her, and she knew they were waiting.

But should she answer their unspoken question?

It was a secret that she had kept for so long, from her mother and father and from her friends. Her bag was bigger on the inside than it was on the outside. It was almost like there was a mini pocket dimension in there, where she could reach in and pull out her things of any shape or size.

“Well,” Sapphire began, “It actually is bigger than the satchel.”

Ember halted. “Really?”

Now her friends were staring at her, too. What did I get myself into?

“You see,” Sapphire said, “I think my satchel is enchanted. I can pull any item out of it that I had put in there already, big or small. It’s bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.” And she demonstrated by pulling out her map of Terrarestria, which was quite a bit larger than her satchel. She made a mental note to update the map later.

“That’s so cool!” Ember exclaimed. “Why didn’t you say something before?”

Sapphire shifted, uncomfortable. Why hadn’t she said anything before? It had clearly done her no harm to tell her friends—in fact, it probably made them trust her less.

“Maybe she didn’t want to be in the spotlight for everyone to see,” Alex suggested. “Everyone would have been swarming her, asking to look at it or forcing her to keep it in a museum. Personally, I think that she made the right choice.”

Sapphire relaxed. Maybe her friends still trusted her after all. She would thank Alex for his support later, but for now, she just smiled at him. He grinned back, but it was no longer unsettling to her. She had gotten used to his presence by now.

“Yeah,” Turquoise sidled up to her twin’s side. “I could totally see Sleazebag Camilla doing something like that.” She scrunched her face up and until it resembled a cross between a pig and a prune. “’Miss Sapphire, I would like to confiscate your…er…doohickey, for the good of me—I mean, the Elders—I mean, for the safety of everyone (that also includes myself) and our community, because…er…such an item is useful—I mean, dangerous!’”

Sapphire giggled. She remembered Camilla, who (like Turquoise had stated) was an old sleazebag who only cared about herself. She pretended to like children, but failed miserably, and liked to hoard things that other people liked even if she didn’t like them herself; just so that she could give it to that person for a favor. She was one of the main people who had told Sapphire off for going to the library. Turquoise did a very good impression of Camilla’s voice, which sounded like a frog met a magpie and they had kids together. (They often liked to joke that she even looked like a cross between the two.)

She now knew that one of Alex’s favorite pastimes had been coming up with names to call her that she would never understand. When he came up with sleazebag, it stuck—and now that was the name that they called her.

“Who is ‘Sleazebag Camilla’?” Ember asked, confused. “I think I’m going to use that word on my least favorite Councilors.”

“Sleazebag Camilla is one of the Elders in the Caves,” Pyrite explained. “The Elders are very powerful people, second in command behind the Leader.”

“But they’re all really old, like ninety, and super wrinkly (like a used tissue or something I swear), and some of them smell really bad,” Alex said, pretending to pinch his nose and fan himself. Turquoise snorted so bad that she choked, and Alex had to thump her on the back as she wheezed.

“Alexandrite!” Pyrite reprimanded.

“It’s true though!” Jade joked. Everyone laughed, and Pyrite elbowed him.

Ember wrinkled her nose. “They sound like the Councilors,” she said. “Alright, I think we’ve spent enough time dawdling here. Follow me.” She led the way to the end of the Art Gallery.

As they followed her, Turquoise sidled up next to Sapphire. “I didn’t know that about your satchel,” she whispered.

Sapphire smiled at Turquoise. During their two-week wander through the Barren Wasteland in the SpineDragon Kingdom, Sapphire had formed a bond with Turquoise. The brave girl provided assurance and confidence that Sapphire lacked, while keeping her in light spirits. Although she wasn’t incredibly book-smart like Sapphire, she wasn’t lacking in brains either.

“Neither did I.” Alex, not to be left out by his twin, came up on Sapphire’s other side. “Although, to be fair, I haven’t known you for a very long time.”

When she had first met Alex, Sapphire had assumed that he was odd and didn’t take anything seriously. She had held that belief for a long time, up to the point where he stumbled upon Turquoise and Sapphire’s camp in the Barren Wasteland.

Now that she knew him a little better, though, Sapphire found Alex more likeable and less foolish. He seemed lonely on the inside, and happy now that he was with his twin and her friends, even if it was away from home. She knew he was truly sorry for the poison incident, to the point where he had shown her his own map of Terrarestria, which included all of the Cave Entrances he had found.

Thinking about it, Sapphire found him strangely relatable.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” Sapphire whispered back, ashamed. “Alex had it right, though.”

Alex grinned his mischievous, foxlike grin. “You’re fine. I would have done the same.”

Sapphire sighed contentedly, feeling reassured. You’re fine.

“We’re here!” Ember called. She waved a wing at a long hallway with many doors, small compared to the ones in the Art Gallery. The hallway was set on a second floor in an open room, so there was a balcony along it leading to the level below it. They had a lovely view of several couches and a small table.

“We don’t really use the guest rooms,” Ember said apologetically. “Even the citizens in the city and the servants don’t spend the night here, and it’s not like we’ve had visitors before you guys. Honestly, I don’t even know why we built them, but I’m sure glad that we did!”

“So we just…pick our own?” Jade asked.

Ember nodded. “Yep! And a servant will some if you ring the bell to take care of your needs—food, extra blankets or towels. We have magically running water, so we created these things called shower cubicles and sinks.”

Sapphire and her friends exchanged excited looks. In the Caves, everyone got their water from one spring. They used that water to fill bathtubs and buckets for bathing water and handwashing water. If the spring ever dried up, they had to find a new one, and haul the buckets over to the new location.

“See you tomorrow!” Ember said, then walked back the way they had come.

“Alright everyone,” Jade said. “Pick out a room that you’ll like. Dragons, if you want to sleep in the same room as your companions, feel free. There are more rooms, though! For now, get some rest. We all need it!”