Dragon Rising Read online

  Dragon Rising c1-44

  Chapter 1: Clash of the Giants

  Chapter 2: Raiding the Castle

  Chapter 3: Chione the Benevolent

  Chapter 4: The Fated Raid

  Chapter 5: The Castle of Albinastre

  Chapter 6: Sweat and Blood

  Chapter 7: Their Failure

  Chapter 8: So Weak

  Chapter 9: Bargaining Chip

  Chapter 10: My Name is…

  Chapter 11: The Calling

  Chapter 12: Underneath

  Chapter 13: All Connected

  Chapter 14: Family

  Chapter 15: Trust

  Chapter 16: A World of Ash

  Chapter 17: A Town of Grey

  Chapter 18: For What Control

  Chapter 19: Great Sacrifices

  Chapter 20: The Game They’re Playing

  Chapter 21: What a Strange Place

  Chapter 22: Survival and Happiness

  Chapter 23: To Trust or Not to Trust

  Chapter 24: You Are Not Alone

  Chapter 25: War of the Giants

  Chapter 26: My Friends

  Chapter 27: Suppressed Memories

  Chapter 28: Wyverin, the City of Dragon Seers

  Chapter 29: The Room of History

  Chapter 30: An Eye for an Eye

  Chapter 31: The Decision

  Chapter 32: Blast from the Past

  Chapter 33: The Sacrifice

  Chapter 34: The Rising

  Chapter 35: I’m Sorry

  Chapter 36: Amymone

  Chapter 37: One Way

  Chapter 38: Strong, Stronger, Strongest

  Chapter 39: Poison and Fire

  Chapter 40: Wrath of the Giants

  Chapter 41: The End for Us

  Chapter 42: Believe

  Chapter 43: Dragon Seer Magic

  Chapter 44: The Perfect Pawn

  Chapter 1: Clash of the Giants

  History had promised dragons would never go to war again. But it lied.

  Aerith stayed out later than her mother would have liked. The games the children played were fun, too much fun, and she was reluctant to spoil the game by telling the other children she would have to leave. And so she stayed, hour after hour, in Ebanon, the neighbouring village, frolicking in the woods and squealing with laughter with others of her age. Before she knew it, darkness had fallen and the parents were calling out for their little ones. She decided it was time to go home.

  When she left Caestro that morning, it had been a typical day. Merchants wheeled their goods down the streets, and the older children darted around the carts and animals, running errands, whilst their younger counterparts played outside the simple wooden huts. Farmers already had their harvest laid out, fruits and vegetables of all shapes and colours. It was a bountiful year, and Aerith’s home village was blooming. The people were cheerful and happy.

  When she returned that evening, she came home to hell.

  Even before she had reached the village gates, there was a distinct, sharp smell in the air. She sniffed. She wasn’t sure where she had smelled it before, but it reminded her of the kitchen, whenever the cook got upset. The sky was tinged with a pulsing orange, even though the sun had just gone down and it was getting dark. She moved as quickly as her short legs would carry her; her feet crunched on twigs underneath and she brushed her way through the low bushes, huffing as the hem of her dress caught on the plants.

  The screams and explosions reached her ears moments before the village came within sight.

  As she emerged through the thick undergrowth of the woods that separated her village and Ebanon, she could see Caestro was no more.

  The squat thatched houses were bathed in a liquid orange glow, throwing violent shadows across the cobbled road. The beautiful colours of nature that had decorated her home were replaced by stark shadows and a fearsome blaze. The whole sky was alive, lit by the flames. The crackling from the fire was everywhere, accompanied by squeals and pops of expanding wood and crashes as roofs caved in. Sparks danced in the sky, like fairy dust. Aerith, coated in sweat, shielded her face with her hands as she toddled through the front gates, disorientated. How could a fire be so hot? She wondered if she had taken the wrong path when meandering back.

  But no, she recognised the street signs. This was Caestro.

  People screamed all around her. Mothers sprinted past with babies in their arms, dragging their children behind. Men yelled at each other, trying in vain to put out some of the fires and rescue the loved ones trapped inside, who were shrieking and crying. The noises and the fear scared Aerith. She couldn’t understand what was going on. Why was Caestro on fire? Where was everyone going?

  She picked up her pace, trying to avoid bumping into people running in the opposite direction. They were hysterical and fleeing chaotically, left and right. The baker from down the road was clutching his arm, which was purple and shiny, and weeping as he stumbled towards her.

  “Jason!” she called. “Where’s my mother?”

  He appeared to not hear her as he looked up from his injury, dazed.

  “Aerith!” His eyes focused on her, with a look of panic. “You have to run. It’s dangerous here!”

  “I need to find my mother,” she said. A blast of hot air as the house nearest to them collapsed, whipped her dark curls off her face. “You go. I’ll find her.”

  He shot out his remaining good hand and grabbed her thin upper arm. She struggled, but in vain.

  “Let me go!” Her voice became shrill, but he was strong despite being hurt. He dragged her back towards the village gates. More and more people ran past them, armed with nothing and clutching their loved ones. Ash marks were streaked across the terrified faces.

  “No, you have to run – this place is dangerous!” Jason repeated, his tone desperate. “It’s no place for–”

  His voice was drowned out by an almighty roar. Something huge plummeted from the sky, landing onto the ground at the other end of the village with an earth-shattering smash, sending both of them to their knees. Dust and debris were blown into the air. The wind created from the impact dimmed the flames for a moment before they rose again, crackling as before.

  Aerith shielded her eyes as curiosity got the better of her fears. She squinted, bending her head further and further back as she contemplated the figure before her. She nearly toppled backwards as she straightened up, admiring the shining, elegant chest, with two giant, clawed limbs folded in front. The sharp talons were curled. The creature was impossibly tall, even when lying sideways on the ground, and covered with gleaming dark purple scales, thicker than any shield she had seen. Graceful wings were folded atop its back. A long neck curved into the sky, ending in a distant head with a pointed snout, against the black sky. Its mouth was open, showing glittering sharp fangs. It glared up at the black sky.

  “A dragon?” she said in wonderment. She had only ever heard of the legends and of the duties her mother had always said the family were bound to serve as a Draconian family with a dragon’s bloodline, but she had never seen a real one in front of her before. Mother had always said dragons spent their lives in the sky as sacred deities and only appear to humans during dark and difficult times. She’d never thought it would be so beautiful.

  Snarling, the elegant dragon spread its wings – the wingspan was as wide as the woods Aerith had traversed earlier that day – and the next thing she knew, she was forced onto the ground. Her face pressed against the bumpy stone ground and her bare elbows and knees stung from the impact. A sharp screech sounded, echoing all around her and piercing her brain. She screwed her eyes shut, curling up. She could feel the baker trembling, his arm around her.

  The noise continued, shrill and furious. The sound of powerful wings beatin
g filled her ears. If Jason hadn’t thrown himself at her and forced the two of them behind the crumbling remains of a brick wall, the gust that followed would have swept them off their feet. Aerith buried her head in her arms, her heart beating out of control. What was going on?

  “Astraios!” She heard Jason whisper in a hoarse voice. “And Gisella! But what are they doing in Caestro?”

  Aerith raised her face and was met with a grand sight.

  Another dragon had arrived. Its wings were dark blue and outstretched. It stood on top of the other dragon, pressing it down amongst the flaming remnants of the village. A shower of sparks flew into the air from the impact and rained back down again. The fire threw shadows across their smooth, shiny bodies, and outlined their silhouettes. The first, downed dragon hissed and struggled, to no avail. A viscous, dark liquid seeped out of its body and dripped onto the ground, sizzling as it met the hot flames.

  The second dragon drew its head back and let out a stream of fire. The heat was unbelievable. Jason shielded Aerith as the blast of hot air whipped through them; he yelled with pain as his skin was scorched. Aerith cowered, whimpering. The first dragon screamed an unearthly, agonised sound that chilled her to her core. For some reason, she could almost feel its fury and wounds as its antagonist bathed it in flames again, crushing its body and neck to the ground. Her family’s dragon was losing.

  Trembling, she lifted her head to see the baker’s eyes screwed shut. His breathing was laboured. He still had his arms wrapped protectively around her. Aside from scuffed, a little bruised and terrified, Aerith was otherwise unharmed.

  The downed dragon kept on screaming as its assailant attacked it in a flurry of bites. Sounds of sharp teeth crushing the thick armour filled the air. Thick dragon blood oozed onto the ground around the two mystical creatures as they struggled. Aerith coughed; the smell of flames extinguished by the tarry substance was suffocating.

  Their wings flapped, sending structures either flying into the air or crushing them to the ground. Their long tails swept across the buildings, knocking most of the buildings clean off their foundations. Shards flew everywhere, raining upon the two humans. The creatures were both so huge that Caestro would have been demolished even without the fire. All around them, the village continued to burn, the roars of the flames swallowed by the roars of the dragons.

  Aerith didn’t dare move. Jason was half-unconscious from the burns, beside her. She couldn’t leave him when the two mystical beings were still fighting with all their might, and the terror from watching them battle it out made her numb all over. All she wanted to was curl up and squeeze her eyes shut, pretending nothing was happening, but she needed to find her mother. She couldn’t look after herself, being ill for so long. There was little time left. Aerith needed to find her, yet all she could do was cower and observe the giants at war.

  At the climax of the struggle, the blue dragon bent its neck and clamped its sharp teeth with enough force to shatter bones around the purple dragon’s throat. The latter screamed, but the volume was much weaker than when it had first crashed into the village from the sky. Its limbs flailed and its wings twitched. It emitted a final grunt before its vast body went still.

  Aerith stared, horrified. The blue dragon slowly and deliberately opened its jaw. The head of the purple dragon flopped and landed like a rock amidst the dwindling embers, sending sparks in the air. Its unseeing dark eyes stared like dark pools into the sky. Blood poured around its horned head, seeping out from between the pieces of its cracked armour. Ripped-off scales lay in the dust. Above, its killer raised its head with pride and spread its wings, sending a blast of fire from its mouth. The darkness was lit briefly by the explosion of light, highlighting the devastation that was the remains of Aerith’s home village.

  She caught sight of people approaching the blue dragon from the village gates. Wedged in the darkness between two charred brick buildings, she peered at the newcomers. They weren’t villagers, for they dressed in slim-fitting, dignified-looking clothing, with high collars and narrow shoes. They couldn’t have looked more out of place in a rural farming village that was Caestro.

  Clamped between two men that followed after the group, there was a woman with familiar dark curls. Her feet dragged on the dirty cobble and her long dress billowed in the wind.

  “Mother!” she whispered. She sat up, yanking the hem of her dress from under her leg and made to get up. “Mo–”

  A hand came from behind and clamped over her mouth. She squealed, the sound barely audible, and swung her arms, pummelling at the figure behind her. The back of her hand collided with a face, which grunted, before her arm was pinned by another hand.

  “Hush!” hissed the baker. Aerith stared at him, astonished. Her mother was there, caught. She needed her help, but no matter how hard she fought against Jason, he would not relent. Aerith was forced to sit and observe as her mother was dragged by her heels, barely conscious, to the four men standing abreast at the front.

  To her surprise, they all bowed, low, at the blue dragon. It surveyed them, unblinking, with its liquid golden eyes, one clawed forelimb still crushing its dead opponent’s neck to the ground. It folded back its wings with care and they rested in a sleek curve over its back. It waited.

  “Your grace, Astraios,” said the man standing at the front. He had a throaty voice, but as the flames died down, plunging their surrounding into darkness, Aerith couldn’t make out his features. “We present to you Amymone, the head of Gisella’s bloodline.”

  The blue dragon, Astraios, glared down at him in silence. The man appeared to understand what the being was conveying.

  “We have made sure with our very hands that every one of Gisella’s Draconian family has been eliminated. Amymone and her daughter, Aerith, are the last ones. She claims that her daughter was trapped in one of the burning buildings.”

  Aerith’s heart raced. But I’m right here, Mother! she wanted to shout, but Jason was too strong. He, too, was watching the scene unfold before them.

  The blue dragon snorted and jerked its head, its sharp eyes staring down the length of its pointed snout. Again, the man bowed.

  “Of course, we shall search through every single remains of these buildings for her body. We will not leave a single stone unturned.”

  He turned so that he faced the unconscious woman with her hanging head. Unsheathing something from his belt, he grabbed at her flowing locks with his other hand and yanked her head back, hard. She groaned. The man pressed something against her exposed neck.

  “And now,” he said in a low voice, “we shall end Gisella’s bloodline once and for all.”

  Jason slapped his hand over Aerith’s eyes just a little too late. A muffled scream exploded out of her mouth and mixed into the crackling noises of the dying flames as the man slid his knife smoothly, almost effortlessly, across Amymone’s throat. Aerith’s mother gasped and her breathing was soon replaced by weak gurgling. Blood poured from her throat down the front of her long dress, staining the pale material black.

  It was as though that man had plunged that blade into Aerith’s heart. She shrieked, screamed, and bellowed. She fought against the baker’s strong arms and thrashed to no avail. She was too small, too weak. With Jason’s hands over her eyes, she couldn’t see; but even her own cries couldn’t drown out her mother’s final breath. Even when she ran out of breath from the screaming, she couldn’t stop the pain. Even when she collapsed, exhausted from the struggling, she couldn’t control the tears. Numbness overtook her body, stemming all coherent thought, freezing her heart.

  Through the darkness, there was a thud, followed by the heavy flap of wings. A gust of wind blew over the two of them. When Jason lifted his hand again, she couldn’t make out any of the figures any more. All she could see were the embers, glowing in the distance, and a second glow. Something on the ground, where Astraios the blue dragon had previously stood, there was something gleaming.

  The murderer stooped and picked it up. The radiance from
the object outlined his slim figure in a purple light. Aerith’s tears blurred her vision, so all she could see was the glow, swimming in and out of focus. She saw him pass it to one of his men, who carefully placed it in some sort of container. When the object was fully in the box, the surrounding became dark once more, and she could see nothing.

  “Place the Essence somewhere secure. Ensure that nobody can get to it and revive Gisella,” said the man who had killed her mother. His words sounded faraway and foreign to her ears. “Those are Astraios’s orders.”

  “And the rest of us, Daedalus?”

  “We search for the girl. Every single house. Kill any girl around her age that you find. Those are my orders.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Numb, Aerith felt her feet leave the ground. Jason grunted as he lifted her in his arms. She felt him shudder and wince from his injuries, and he staggered away, moving as quickly as possible from the site.

  “Mother…” Her voice didn’t sound her own. Her eyelashes were still coated with tears, and they weren’t just due to the ashes. She swallowed; her throat was as dry as sand. Her face tingled.

  “Hush, now,” the baker said, his voice catching. “We have to get out of here. They’re after you, Aerith. I have to find you somewhere safe.”

  His words made little sense to her brain, which was slowed and foggy. It felt like he was speaking at her from miles away. He was moving downhill, but she couldn’t feel the steps or the bumps. It was too surreal.

  The scene of her mother’s throat being cut played over and over in her mind. Perhaps it was because she couldn’t comprehend it, but her mind lingered the longest over the glowing object the man – Daedalus – had picked up. She could see it clearly then. It was a set of purple crystals that glowed without a source of energy and pulsed with life despite the death of the dragon it had come from, for it contained its soul, even when the dragon’s body had passed on. Her mother had told her bedtime stories about it, but she had never seen it before.

  It was a dragon’s Essence.

  As Jason fled from Daedalus and his men through the night with the fatigued Aerith in his arms, she had made up her mind. She swore it upon her mother’s body. No matter how much blood had to be shed, no matter how hard she must try, and no matter what it took, she would get that Essence. As the last of her Draconian family’s bloodline, only she could do it.