The Balborite Curse (Book 4) by Kristian Alva Page A

during her first mating season. She played dead and barely escaped with her life. The hunters destroyed her nest and slaughtered her hatchlings. After the hunters left the cave, she sat and wept, embracing one of her hatchlings, a little emerald male. His heart was still beating, and she tried to save him, but he died in her arms. She carried a great heaviness in her heart.”
    "Please —can you tell us how to find her?" asked Duskeye.
    “I’m sorry, my friend. I would help you if I could, but I do not know where she is now. On my last spirit journey, I sought her out, but she was no longer at the mudhole. I waited several days, and she did not return to the cave. But she left me a gift sitting on the floor of her cave —a marble of glass surrounded by a ring of polished stones.”
    "A firebreath circle!" said Duskeye, his voice catching in his throat. " May we see the marble?"
    Haluk nodded, slipping back inside his tent. He returned a few minutes later with a black pouch. He undid the strings carefully and a tiny glass sphere fell out, about the size of a cow ’s eye. Haluk handed it to Tallin, who accepted it carefully, grasping it between his thumb and forefinger. In the center of the sphere, there was a tiny, round emerald.
    “Duskeye, what is this?” asked Tallin.
    Duskeye was silent for a moment. He touched the stone with his snout, and it began to glow faintly. "That... is the soulstone of a newborn dragon, preserved in firebreath glass."
    Tallin ’s heart pounded in his chest. “What ghastly sorcery is this?” he whispered.
    Duskeye sighed. " It ’s difficult to explain to humans. When a dragon dies, his soul-light extinguishes forever, and his dragon stone crumbles to dust." Duskeye paused, and when he continued, his voice was sad. " But there are rumors among my kind —of females who preserve the stones of their dying hatchlings. They cut the tiny dragon stone from them as they are dying, and preserve the hatchling’s dragonstone using magic. Then they keep the soulstone with them always, and they continue to mourn."
    Tallin looked shocked. “But why would they do such a thing?”
    "I don ’t know," said Duskeye sadly. " Perhaps they believe it will soothe their torment. In an indirect way, it does —because a soulstone will suppress any future pregnancies. The magic in the soulstone inhibits fertility and will prevent a female from nesting indefinitely. Creating a soulstone leaves the surviving mother in agony, both mentally and physically. Before the war, soulstones were just a myth—but after the dragon hunters started raiding their birthing caves, many females started making them."
    Tallin stared disbelievingly at the circle of glass. Inside, the tiny emerald pulsed, and Tallin imagined that he could hear the cries of a weeping hatchling. He suppressed a shudder.
    “Do the soulstones have any power?” asked Tallin. “Do they strengthen the female somehow?”
    Duskeye shook his head. "No, exactly the opposite. It will only compound the mother ’s pain and misery. She becomes frozen in grief, unable to move on. A female dragon with a soulstone will often starve herself to death."
    “Well, perhaps Shesha abandoned her soulstone because she wanted to live,” said Tallin. His voice was hopeful.
    "It ’s unlikely," said Duskeye sadly. " Females with a soulstone implant will usually remove it just before they die."
    “That’s horrifying,” said Tallin quietly. “I never knew about this.”
    "It ’s not something that we dragons discuss freely, and a female will never admit that she has a soulstone, even to her own bloodkin. She-dragons have many private rituals, secrets that they never divulge to anyone."
    “Shesha left the stone for Haluk to find. Why would she give a soulstone to a human?” asked Tallin.
    "I do not know," said Duskeye. " Perhaps Haluk was the only friend she had. Her despair must have been unbearable." Duskeye turned away from them, and Tallin knew that his friend would