The Dragon King

Glitter

With the new riders, training went a lot smoother. All the dragons were now able to shoot their elements, be it wind, lightning, fire, or boulders and all the dragons were divided into different legios or legions with a bonded pair as the commanders. The twelve new riders from the Academy farm were very skilled, and the Anchemi dragons had been training with them as well.

"Amy?". Cherry asked. "Are you even listening?". I flushed.

"Sorry, I'm just a little distracted,". We were in the main pavilion, listening to Darren talk about our planned attack on The Dragon King's palace. I felt the start of another headache coming. This had to be my sixth one today. It was lucky we were next to a wood. I need to find some willow bark to help with the pain . . .

Darren, the rider of Ventos, was the wind dragon rider who asked about the honour guard. He looked up before continuing. I focused on the plans as he said:

"In theory, we have seventeen legions, with about ten Anchemi in, each. If we focus ten legions on the castle, to attract the guards attention whilst the rest of the legion sneak in-".

I stared at him. "Darren, you can't be serious. You are suggesting that seventy Anchemi should try to sneak into the palace. That's 350 dragons!".

"It's not very sneaky,". Adam admitted. "You would be better off taking a few, excellently trained dragons with you,".

"Or,". Cherry put in, "excellently trained dragons and riders,".

Darren laughed. "That would be suicide! You would have no idea where you are going and what would we do with the rest of the dragons?"

"Put them as a reserve. It would be stupid to send them all in at once anyway,". Stephen stated, with an eye roll.

And so the plan was set. Darren, all the riders, Cherry and Cedar and Barney and Arctic would stay and manage the attack on the palace - a distraction whilst we snuck in. The ice dragons were particularly important, as they were the opposite element to fire. I would enter the palace with Adam and Furnace, Stephen and Atlas, Phantom, and a lightning dragon called Heffres. Five dragons and three riders. We would enter through a servants passage, and, guided by Heffres go up to the throne room. There we would split up. Adam and Furnace would go to the dungeons to rescue Liam, Stephen and Atlas would rescue any servants and hatchlings before the palace was destroyed, guided by Heffres, Phantom would go after Ceylon and Electra and I would go after Quaem. What fun. All of a sudden, my stomach churned. It was tossing and turning, and I got up, pointed at my mouth and ran to the nearby bushes that were next to the forest.

I retched, but nothing came out. There was a huge pain in my back and I was getting a pounding headache. I touched my head and my hand recoiled. There was some shiny, almost metallic substance on my head. I gingerly touched it. It was growing! I sprinted to the stream, running past the pavilion to the cheerful gurgling water. I saw what they were. I had horns! I heard shouts, calls to me:

"Amy, are you ok?".

"What's that on your head, milady?".

"Have you got horns?".

"Why have you got a tail?".

I couldn't take it anymore. I ran. Over the bushes, weaving through the trees, the new limb that looked suspiciously like a tail thumping into the ground behind me. I could hear dragon roars as they circled above the forest, Electra roaring out my name frantically. I noticed a cave and ducked into it, pulling vines, rocks, twigs, whatever came to hand to hide the mouth. I trembled. The darkness swooped in. I was alone.

The young dragonet lay curled up in a corner of the cave. She was silver all over, with golden horns, spines and claws. As you watched, the gold crept up her body whilst she slept, travelling from the horns, all the way down to the tip of the tail. In a blink, you would have missed it. Where once a silver dragon had been sleeping, she was now fully gold, her breaths coming out in wisps of smoke from the scale lined nostrils. The dragon slowly opened a silver eye, with turquoise highlights near the pupil. She was awake, shown when she shifted and froze, before nervously turning her head to look at her wings; staring at them as if she had never seen them before. Her gaze travelled to the spines, the talons, and finally the shimmering scales that gave the illusion of liquid gold. A gust of wind moved the vines covering the entrance. Light flooded in, illuminating her surroundings, the dragon glittering and sparkling in the light. The wind died. The vines fell back. The darkness returned.

And the dragonet trembled.

Sorry for the very late update! As an apology, I am going to upload some more chapters today. My aim is to get The Academy of Alactria up to 5.5K reads by my birthday - the 20th July. I hope you like the chapter!

Whekim