Page 31 of Draekora

Zaronia turned to Xiraxus. “You didn’t tell her?”

“I was going to,” he said in a small voice. “I hadn’t made it that far before you got here.”

The purple draekon released what sounded very much like a weary sigh as she turned back to Alex. Like her son, Zaronia’s eyes were a brilliant blue colour that began to glow with an inner light, a sight so hypnotic that Alex was lulled to drowsiness.

“Sleep, mortal,” Zaronia commanded in an oddly soothing voice. “When you wake, you shall have answers.”

And without giving her body permission to do so, regardless of where she was or the fact that she was alone in the woods—and in a different time period—with two massive, mythical carnivores, Alex’s eyes drifted shut, her legs gave way and she fell into a sweet, blissfully dreamless sleep.

Eleven

Mortal, it’s time to awaken.

“Mortal!”

Alex’s eyes snapped open to see a reptilian face the size of a small car barely inches from her own. Incapable of thinking let alone controlling her reaction, she screamed so loudly, so shrilly, that it hurt even her own ears. It certainly surprised the hulking beast who jerked backwards in alarm.

Alex scampered away but her retreat was halted when she bumped into a jagged rock wall. She sat pressed up against it, panting in terror, while her mind slowly began to clear enough for her to remember that, at least so far, the creature in front of her hadn’t eaten her. It was thereforepossiblethat she just might not be in as much danger as she had believed upon her shocked awakening.

“Zaronia?” Alex said. “What…” She trailed off, not wanting to offend the massive draekon by shouting, ‘Does the phrase ‘personal space’ mean anything to you?’ Instead, she said, “You, uh, gave me a fright there. Sorry for screaming in your face.”

“It’s been a long time since my kind has been so near a human,” Zaronia said. “I forgot how fearful your race can be. It is I who must apologise—I didn’t mean to startle you.” The draekon tilted her head slightly. “Please, come with me.”

Alex used the rock wall to push up on her wobbly legs, noting somewhere in the back of her mind that it looked like they were in a cave. As she began following Zaronia through a large channel hewn into the rock, she noticed the intermittent torches of the rainbow-flamedmyraeslighting their path.

“Are we underground?” Alex asked, somewhat stupidly since she had already deduced they were at least in some kind of cavern.

Zaronia, surprisingly, let out a rumbling chuckle. “I suppose you could say that. However, I doubt you will in a moment.”

Raising her eyebrows at the draekon’s vague answer, Alex continued onwards in silence until a stronger brightness at the end of the tunnel came into view, the sunlight flooding the darkness.

“No human has ever stood upon our lands before,” Zaronia said, moving her shadowing bulk out of the way. “Welcome, young mortal, to Draekora.”

Eyes wide and mouth gaping, Alex barely heard the draekon’s words, so consumed was she by the sight in front of her.

“We’re, um—” She cleared her throat. “We’re definitely not underground, are we?”

Way to state the obvious, Alex thought, looking out over the cluster of islands floating above the clouds. It was like… It was like… Alex didn’tknowwhat it was like. She had nothing to compare it to. No visual imagery to her recollection could match the impossibility of the view.

At least a dozen islands were spread out as far as her eyes could see, suspended mid-air as if by invisible strings. One or two were barely the size of football fields, but others were large enough to hold entire mountain ranges. A few even had smoking volcanoes, with molten lava trickling steadily down the sides.

The floating mass to Alex’s left contained a dense jungle that hugged a large lake filled with the clearest blue-green water she had ever seen; water that tumbled over the edges of the land and straight into the thick cloud cover below. The island to her right was covered in snow and icy glaciers, while another further on from that was overcome by desert, with cracked earth and rugged sand dunes.

There was no rhyme or reason to the nature of the islands, but they were, without a doubt, the most magical, fantastical sight Alex had ever seen—and she’d seen a number of amazing things since her arrival in Medora.

“How are they floating?” Alex wondered aloud, unable to muster much volume in her awe.

“The Draekoran Isles are largely made out of a lightweight metamorphic rock not native to this world,” Zaronia answered. “When we arrived here long ago, we brought a fraction of our lands with us. The natural gravitational pull of Medora’s atmospheric pressure enables our home to remain above the clouds, exactly where we draekons belong. As you can see, up here we are free to be ourselves.”

Alex could see that. Because it wasn’t just the islands that captivated her. It was also the multitude of draekons inhabiting them.

The magnificent creatures were everywhere. Some were soaring lazily through the skies, some were bathing in the lakes and waterfalls splashed across the islands, some were napping in the sunshine—draekons of all sizes and colours filled her vision.

“Does the rest of Medora know you’re up here?” Alex asked, amazed that such a place could exist.

“The Meyarins are aware of our existence, though few have the privilege of ever seeing Draekora for themselves,” Zaronia said. “We tend to value our privacy. However, we do allow them to partake in the collection of theTer’a Ora Vorren—the Pool of Tears—twice a year to replenish their supplies.”

Before Alex could ask what supplies the Meyarins could possibly need from the Draekorans, let alone from something called the ‘Pool of Tears’, a shadow emerged from beneath the cave’s edge, causing Alex to skitter backwards.

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