Page 80 of Upon Buried Embers
“You’re not worried?”
He reaches around and pulls my chin up so I meet his eyes, the wind curling around us. “I’m a Dragonbond, wild dragons do not scare me.” His eyes bounce between mine through the slits of his mask. “I’m not sure much does anymore.”
It’s a short while later that we suddenly descend, and I can’t help but squeal, turning my face into Rohan’s chest and he cups my head, keeping me firmly against him, his chuckle betraying his amusement.
With a loudthud, and a jostle, Drogonah lands, and Rohan helps me descend on shaky legs, holding me steady.
I go to thank him, but the look in his eyes stops me.
It’s like he’s changed in an instant. He isn’t Rohan right now, he isn’t even a clan leader.
He’s a Dragonbond.
His eyes are hard, cold, a low ember burning within, ready to burst. His posture is tense, seemingly taller and ready for a battle I can’t see. The air around him also seems to thicken with warmth, like touching him would burn you, and I make sure to keep my distance as he turns and searches our surroundings for threats.
Drogonah does the same, his head moving back and forth as he comes to the left of me, always keeping me in his sight with his right eye.
I look around, nerves settling inside of me when I see the sprouting of ivory sticking out of the ground, cracks flowing through them like an axe cracking open my heart as I spot others following in its wake. They are everywhere, so is an overwhelming feeling of sadness.
“It’s a dragon’s graveyard.” Rohan says it so quietly, like it has to be said this way and it causes goosebumps to rise on my arms.
I gulp as he makes his way forward and I follow. I’ve heard of this place, everyone has. No one dares to come here but the Dragorie, or dragons.
Huge bones arch this way and that as we walk beneath them, some littering the floor, some sticking up like poles. Others scatter around like something pulled them from the ground. We pass a large head next, it must have been bigger than Drogonah judging by the size of it.
“Covak dragon,” Rohan tells me as he walks ahead, back stiff. “Along with Immoral and Novid dragons, they were killed for what they were, hunted like vermin.”
Were. Because they don’t exist anymore.
“It’s not their fault they were born that way,” I reply quietly, a heaviness washing over me. I hesitantly reach out and touch the off-white bone as we pass it, and I instantly pull back from the unnatural coldness. “They can’t help who they are.”
Rohan turns sharply and we still, staring at each other. I don’t avert my gaze from his penetrating stare, I don’t lower my head or clasp my hands in front of me.
Instead, I watch him as he watches me, his gaze seeming intense, thoughtful, even.
“No, they couldn’t have helped what they are.” Then he turns, releasing me from his gaze. “We meet here as neutral ground,a reminder of the blood that was spilled, unjustly. Though some are glad to see the back of those dragons.” It warms me a little that he too doesn’t like how they were killed. “This is sacred ground, and we know not to defile it no matter what our thoughts are. Morana would hold that against us and cause great harm to not only the one who displeases her, but his family, his clan.”
She is the Dragon Mother of all.
“Harm how?”
“Sickness, drought, crops dying, dragon eggs failing to hatch. You would feel her wrath for defiling her grounds. Her first children’s final resting place.”
I nod even though he can’t see me.
There must be hundreds of bones here, and it makes my heart hurt thinking about the dragons that lost their lives because they’re different.
Just likeI’mdifferent.
I reach up and brush the top of my ear without thought.
How many times did I want to cut the tops off, get rid of it so I could be like others? It was too many times to count.
Being an elf in Dracozar, I don’t fit anywhere.
I touch another bone and this time, I don’t shy away from the coldness of it. Instead I put my other palm to it and send my thoughts. That I’m sorry it died the way it did, that I understand how it feels to never be accepted. That I wish it was different.
A warm breath flows over the back of my neck, and I turn at the unexpected feel of it, my hand flying up to it. But no one is there, not a single soul, not even Drogonah.
