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A head poked into the doorway, revealing Lily with sliced irises and tiny fangs poking from her lips. Tiny scales glittered on her cheeks and her hair floated around her face as if there was an invisible wind that only applied to her.
She seemed far more “dragon-like” than I remembered.
“Vivi!” she shouted excitedly and burst into the room. She barreled onto us on the bed as she squealed with delight.
Laughing, I gratefully held onto my friend.
I wasn’t sure what I had done to deserve such amazing people in my life, but I was going to do everything in my power to make sure they all stayed safe.
CHAPTER 6
Lily allowed me the grace to get dressed in my battle armor before grabbing a bite to eat.
Or a lot of bites, rather. Apparently I’d been in a coma for weeks and I had a lot of calories to make up for.
Solstice took her fill, both in the private trough by my dorm and at the cafeteria’s platform before we were ready to move.
“It’s been too long already,” I insisted as I grabbed a saddle from the wyvern stalls’ equipment closet.
Solstice leaned down to allow me to wrap the massive strap around her waist. I secured the series of buckles with practiced moves that came second nature to me now.
I wasn’t just a graduate for show.
But my “Egg Hunter” specialty was a title I was definitely going to earn today, no matter how ridiculous it sounded.
“So what’s another few days?” my mother asked.
Her baby wyvern wrapped a black tail around her neck and hissed at me, adding her two cents.
I sighed. “Out of everyone, you should understand the urgency. My goddess blood is all but depleted, but Penne explained it to Killian. Solstice isn’t just any Lost Queen, she’s the beacon. That means that she is connected to all of them and she’s the one who’s supposed to unite them under the same cause.” I jabbed a thumb into my chest. “And as her dragonrider, and a descendant of the goddess, I’m the one who needs to make sure that happens the right way.”
Penne had also warned Killian what would happen if corruption won, even over a single Lost Queen when she hatched.
It would kick off a series of events that would spiral the realms into darkness. The Lost Queens was something Penne and her people had been researching, namely because of the disruption the egg had been causing in the Malice Realm.
They’d thought it had been the impact of elven magic for a while, but actually it was more to do with the reemergence of the Lost Queens and Nera’s perversion of it.
She’d been seeking them in order to alter destiny. The Lost Queens were only reborn during times of great need.
And Nera knew that rampaging the realms with Corrupted Wild Dragons would do just that.
It had all been a part of her plan—perhaps even the part where she’d been defeated.
Because if even one Lost Queen was Corrupted, it would spread to them all.
And they’d bring the one who had summoned them back.
Nera would return, and that was something I absolutely couldn’t allow to happen.
My mother frowned and crossed her arms in that “you’re going to listen to me or else” way she did when I was in trouble. “You do understand that we are descended from a powerful supernatural, right? She’s called a goddess, but only because her bloodline is capable of reformatting energy in ways no other supernatural can do. That’s why you were able to separate your spirit from your body without dying when you felt the Lost Queen calling for blood. You knew what was happening because of your innate gifts and the way that you’re connected to all the realms.”
I rolled my eyes. My mother had been taking classes, too, under supervision from the Dean, now that she had bonded a wyvern and Lost Dragon Queen. With that education she’d transformed into a more scientific and technical personality when we talked about magic.
She saw it now as some sort of science, which I supposed it was.
I didn’t really care about the “how.” It was more important to me that my instincts led me in the right direction, and right now my instincts were telling me that I might already be too late.
Killian attached our weapons racks including spears and daggers—weapons I didn’t intend to use. But he’d insisted on being prepared for anything.
