The Eyes of Prophecy

Chapter Eight

The sunlight streamed warmly in through the windows of the healer's hut as Terracotta lay curled up on one of the many leaf-covered tables. Her father had left a few hours ago to go check on her mother, and Terracotta's only company was the two healers and the three other sleeping dragons in the ward.

Terra sighed, pushing her nose through the leaves to rest on the edge of the table. She gazed forlornly at the other patients, trying to see their futures.

The closest to her was a bright red RainWing, with speckles of yellow scattered about on his wings. He was snoring quietly, and had a huge, painful-looking venom scar across his left side. Terracotta winced, almost feeling the pain he felt. He couldn't be more than twenty, yet he would probably have that scar for the rest of his life.

Nevertheless, his future didn't hold much intrigue. All Terra saw were six bumbling dragonets dancing around his claws and a plate of warm mango cookies. She sighed. Some dragons had the most wonderful lives, where they lived long and died peacefully. That's what I want, Terracotta thought. I want to have dragonets and a mate and be happy for the rest of my life. Terra's snout wrinkled with humility. It sounded cheesy and fake, kind of impossible if she thought about it. I'm a weird freak, she reminded herself. Dragons don't...like me.

But I like other dragons, her mind whispered. Terracotta covered her head with her talons. Tangerine popped up in her mind again for the hundredth time in the past two days. She didn't like the way it felt thinking about him, like she was completely helpless controlling her feelings. I forgot—she thought. I need to ask Allspice what this means.

Terra lifted her head up from the leaves and pointedly stared at the dragon across the room, forcing herself to read his future. Two of the healers were on suntime-break, and the other was pretending to stand guard outside the door; but Terracotta knew he was really just passed out on the porch, soaking in the sun. Until they returned, Terra had to keep herself occupied.

This next RainWing was a small dragonet, and she was curled up comfortably on her table. Her scales were a sugary pink with jets of yellow and red all through her ruff and talons. She burbled in her sleep and rolled over, her tiny pink talons twitching.

Terracotta closed her eyes. This dragon's future looked...cloudy. For the first time since she could remember, she couldn't see the vision clearly. There was a scent...strawberries. Mixed with something else, more of a metallic, pungent smell...

Blood. Terra thought, her eyes jerking open. All she could smell was blood. A whole lot of it, streaming over the rock and mixing with a pool of dark mud. She shivered and turned away from the tiny dragonet. I can't help her, she convinced herself. I don't know how. Things flashed through her mind, images, smells, shapes...but she couldn't grasp on to any of them. They were all swallowed by the mist faster than she could blink.

And then suddenly a vision came to her. It wasn't the pink dragonet's, though; it was crisp and clear, and the images took up more of her visual space than the real world did. She turned to the dragon in the middle of the room, between the scarred RainWing and the dragonet. He was a rich, leafy green with shoots of black and dark blue through his wings. He had a long, deep cut running through his skull down to his chest. It was stitched up, but it looked like the stitches were struggling to hold the wide gap together. Terra suspected the bonds would burst at any moment.

The images she saw were brief, but telling. She saw his face lighting up with happiness, a pink tail twined around his. She saw him struggling to fly, the gap in his chest healed over with scar tissue, but still wide and gaping. She saw blood, running down grey rocks and mixing with a pool of dark mud. Angry screaming, the wings of a black dragon unfurling.