Sun Bound

Life at the Keep

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Chapter One

Life at the Keep

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Lune watched the clouds roll lazily across the sky. The once lovely scent of spring grass and summer fields was starting to tinge with the far-off scent of ice. It was not yet winter, but the leaves were beginning to change colour and the sun no longer reached down quite as warmly. Lune didn't mind. He was a Kagame dragon. His scales were a strange and lovely iridescent white and silver. His species was quite used to the snow and the cold. In snow Lune could become invisible. He didn't know if the lovely ice crystals would fall here at the stronghold, but he hoped they did. He had not yet lived here for an entire year.

Life for the little white dragon had taken a very strange turn. He had lived his entire youth in the harem of dragons owned by his father, deep in the heart of the enormous snowy Kaempe Stor Mountain Range. Just as Lune came of age, an unknown male had challenged his father for the rights to the harem. The fight had been violent and deadly. Those thundering roars and flashing talons still occasionally echoed in Lune's nightmares. Lune's father had been slain and the victor was not interested in any young males loitering about. Lune had fled with many of his half siblings to escape the wrath of his childhood harem's new alpha.

From there his troubles had only just began. He had been caught in a storm and pulled even further from his old home. Battered and injured, Lune had been found by the human rider, Jason, and his powerful ebony Yoru dragon, Damon. It had not been much of a fight, especially as all human riders could use the ancient magic that allowed them to steal a dragon's fire. Captured and taken to the stronghold of the Sun King, Lune had been subjected to the human's training.

This had been met with... questionable results.

Much had occurred in the long seven months since Lune's arrival. Lune had arrived, injured and wild. He had sworn to hate humans, to escape and return to the mountain, but the longer he stayed with Jason and Damon, the more attached he became to them. The stall he shared with Damon had a floor of heated bamboo mats. He had begun to love curling up against the powerful Yoru at night. Whilst Lune missed hunting in the rivers and streams every day, being fed cooked meals and getting scrub baths of hot sand was almost as good. Despite his pampering, Lune might still have wanted to leave if not for one thing.

During his capture, Lune had been collared.

These collars were worn by all tamed dragons and controlled a dragon's own magic. They were awful things and meant that even an escaped dragon could never truly be wild again with a collar about their throat. This practice might have continued for good if not for a sudden and violent attack from another human kingdom, the Kingdom of the Storm.

Many riders and dragons were killed that day and for the first time, the Sun King had been faced with the decision to uncollar the dragons and set them free or leave them as imprisoned slaves to their human masters. Many beasts, like Lune, had become attached to their riders and fellow dragons. Uncollared, they chose to stay and protect the humans that had raised and cared for them. Others had taken to the skies as soon as their collars had been cut off. Riders who tried to control their animals with cruelty and brutality lost their dragons.

Just like that, the Kingdom of the Sun had changed overnight, but not necessarily all for the better. Whilst the dragons were free, there were far fewer than before, leaving the kingdom vulnerable. Though Jason had tried to minimize how much Lune was involved, Lune had heard that there had been several attacks on different town and hamlets. News had spread that the Sun King's knight were spread thin and ill-minded people were taking advantage. Already, new squires were being trained to replace those knights who had fallen but a lifetime of experience could not be acquired in a single year. The question from many of the humans that walked about the stronghold was the same.