Page 69 of That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Human
She yelped when my foot hit her side. Kohara’s body flew back and plummeted into the clouds below.
Cherry
“Less snacking, more walking!”
His voice caused me to jump, dropping my handful of berries. Frustrated, I snatched a few of them up and threw them in the direction of the voice below. “How long are these damn steps?!”
The sound of his snickering echoed through the area but he didn’t answer. When I rounded the corner, I could see the barest hint of pale scales beneath the fog below. Kohara was muttering something to the blob next to her. Smaller figures shifted beneath the fog but I couldn’t make out what they were. The dragoness slumped on her side, her long tail flicking like an irritated cat.
Her body jerked to the side with a loud “Oof!” followed by the sound of claws scraping on stone. She let out a low cry, before her body plummeted into the mist.
Did he just punt his sister off a cliff?
After climbing for what seemed like forever, the steps finally arrived at the peak. I half crawled up the last step before collapsing into a heap. A pair of black boots appeared out of the mist. “This had better be good, Remnac.” I spat out his last name like a curse.
“Why don’t you tell me?” he asked. Dante waved a hand through the air and the fog began to melt away. The summit was shaped like a bowl with a high arch on one side. Fruit trees lined the edges of the bowl, their branches weighed down by heavy-looking apricots and cherries. On the east side, a long balcony was carved into the mountain.
Dante lifted me from the ground and carried me over to the arch. I reached out to snag a few cherries as we passed by. “Careful,” he warned. “They’re incredibly sour.”
Curious, I popped one in my mouth anyway, then spat it out. “Snapping gators, I’ve eaten lemons less sour.”
“You just don’t listen.” He plucked an apricot from a nearby tree and I wolfed it down, trying to chase away the sour.
He set me down at the base of the rock wall and I looked up to see it completely covered in red handprints. They ranged in size from that of a small child to hands big enough to belong to a bear. “What is this?” I asked.
Dante’s eyes softened as he gazed at the wall of hands. “This is the Whispering Isles marker point. One of seven. Do you remember when I told you that dragons age slowly?”
I nodded.
“Well, our dragon forms are exceedingly hard to control at first. Some take as long as two hundred years simply to fly straight. Even longer to make it long distances.” He paused and retrievedThe Big Book of Beastsfrom a spot on the ground. “In order to prove our worth as a fully realized dragon, many of us take the Floating Isle Challenge. Seven high peaks spread across all of Mytheglin. If you manage to make it to all seven isles and put your mark on the wall, you are granted the title of Lord of your element.”
He bit his thumb, and smeared a drop of blood on the index page of the book. “Back when the world was full, it was often the only way you’d be considered strong enough to hold a territory all your own. To make the task more difficult, it was common for a lord or lady to have their territory overlap one of the isles. In order to get to it, you’d have to face them in combat or make it through whatever challenge they threw your way. Guarding an isle was considered a great honor, reserved for only the strongest. The isles aren’t grounded to anything. So a particularly powerful dragon could even move it into their territory with the help of a mage.”
He paused, glancing over the sea of hands. When he spoke, the words came out in a soft whisper. “When my brothers were alive, we made a game of sabotaging each other whenever one grew old enough to take the challenge.”
“Did you still make it?” I asked.
His smile was wistful. “Yes. They didn’t make it easy, but I made it.” He lifted the book up to his face, then handed it back to me.
When the book stopped glowing, its pages flipped to an entirely new section: Dragons.
Its first entry held the image of his two-legged form with a winding silver serpent behind him. I stared at the page in wonder until I felt a hand at the small of my back. Dante pushed me forward, nodding at the wall of hands.
I lifted the book up. The second entry appeared in the form of a red dragon with flames licking at her feet. “She was Idalia, Lady of Flames. I only met her once, but someone had made the mistake of angering her and she wound up melting the side of a mountain.”
When the book moved over more handprints, dragons of every shade and power filled the book until my arms ached from holding it up. I rested it against a nearby rock and flipped through the entries. “Dante, this is amazing.”
“I’m glad you like it.”
“Like it? Are you kidding me, I love it!”
“Good, come here then.” I turned to see him crushing something in a small bowl. When I approached, he bent down to kiss me, then dipped my hand into the red paste.
“Wait,” I pulled my hand away when he guided it to the rock. “Is this allowed?”
He raised a brow at me. “You made it up the steps, didn’t you?”
“But I’m not a dragon. I didn’t fly here on my own.”
