Wings of Fire • Dragon of Secrets [2]

Prologue

Thanks to  @Ender2639 for the storyline of this book and this message:

Quick note, please read "Dragon of Storms" for deeper information on the tribe. Plus, it may help with timeline stuff. Cause this is the sequel.

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It was dark. Well after the sun had set, the three moons hung in the sky with a splash of stars sparkling above them. Along the edge of a lost continent, on the border of a vast forest, stood a lone pine tree. In it sat a creature unlike any other.

     It yawned as it looked at the stars. The creature shook its head and closed its eyes. As it slept, its body lay camouflaged among the branches.

     Far away on the western horizon, a fluttering mass of dragons came into view. As they drew closer, the sound from the dragons woke the creature in the tree.

     The little dragon, startled by the thunderous sound of hundreds of wings flapping, fell from her perch in the pine tree. She pressed her tiny wings to her sides and shot her talons out, catching a branch as she fell and consequently slamming into the trunk as a result of the hasty action.

     The dragon effortlessly pulled herself up after regaining her breath and scrambled up the tree's trunk. Because she was so small, she was able to do this quite easily. The dragoness emerged from the wild tangle of branches to watch the scene before her.

     Hundreds of creatures flew above her. At least, that was what the hidden dragon watching the SwiftScales flying by thought so. She had never seen another dragon species before, and all she could do was watch in amazement at what she thought were giant bats fly by.

     The dragon noticed that some of the bats were carrying what looked like large sacs. The dragon touched a pouch that hung around her neck, rubbing the leather flask through her talons.

     Are the bats carrying pine flower tea? She wondered. The dragon puzzled this further as she saw one of those sacs with a tail and wing poking out.

     Are the bats carrying other bats?

     Said bats also had a weird smell to them. The watcher recognized the smell like blood. Why do they smell like blood? She thought.

     The dragon waited until what she thought was a swarm of bats pass by. They seemed to be heading somewhere, likely their home, so she decided to follow them. Intruders were not welcome in their forest.

     The dragoness spread her tiny wings and jumped. The branch she was standing on earlier cracked. She was aiming for a tree not too far away. Because her wings were so small, she could only afford to glide between perches.

     Landing on her selected perch, she jumped to the ground. Once standing, she took off after the receding sound of the bat's wingbeats. She leaped over fallen trunks and wound through ferns. The little dragon was well adapted to the cramped spaces of the pine forest.

     She followed the bats easily and stopped at the edge of the forest. She was looking out to an estuary, where torches lit up wooden walkways built into the sides of the cliffs. The dragon gasped in awe.

     The bats were not bats. They looked like her – a dragon, yet they were not green. They had no quills, their wings were too big to fly in a forest, and they were far too large to be a dragon. All of the bat-but-not-bat-and-maybe-dragon-creatures flew to and landed on platforms along the cliffs.

     The dragon wanted to walk forward and get a closer look, but she was forbidden to leave the forest. Her queen's laws had to be followed.

     So instead, the dragon watched as the bat-but-not-bat-and-maybe-dragon-creatures all eventually slithered into cave openings on the island. There was one, in particular, a smaller one with a golden sparkle to her that caught the watcher's eye.

     She seemed to be fussing over another smaller dragon. The other one was covered in scratches and blood, and so was the sparkly golden one. The forest dragon watched as they too eventually disappeared.

     She felt a pull towards her. Why? It felt like that bat-but-not-bat-and-maybe-dragon-creature that she had seen was important somehow.

     The dragoness was pulled out of her daze as a voice calling her name caught her attention.

     "Clover?"

     The voice belonged to another dragon from the same species as her. It was male, and one Clover recognized. She turned around as Birch crawled out from under a bramble bush.

     "What are you doing here?" Clover asked. She was annoyed that Birch was spying on her again. "I told you, I don't want to be your wife. It's not even the season!"

     Birch huffed and stamped his light brown foot. "I know that, and I will stop, but don't you think you would follow the sound of someone running madly through the forest in the middle of the night too?"

     Clover shook her head. "Nope, just you. Come look at what I found," she offered, pointing behind her with her horns. Birch hesitated.

     "But didn't the Queen say to not leave the forest? That's the oldest law!"

     "I know," Clover said, shaking her head, "I didn't say to leave the forest but look."

     The dragons turned around and looked at the estuary. Clover pointed at the island and Birch gasped as another bat-but-not-bat-and-maybe-dragon-creature crawled out of a cave hole and flew across the bay. Clover smirked triumphantly as Birch's jaw dropped to the ground.

     "What was that?" He asked, awestruck.

     Clover shook her head. "I don't know, but let's go back to the village."