The Dragon's Secret (The Fay Morgan Chronicles Book 2) by Katherine Sparrow Page B

girl and I watched each other.
    “I have a guess that’s not the kind of help this creature needs,” I said.
    “You know what I am?” she whispered.
    “Yes, dragon. I do.”

 
     
     
     
     
    2
    Mint Sauce
    Dragons are a singular species. Many creatures can learn to wield magic, but dragons are magic. Magic lays threaded through their bones and marrow, and they are elementally and always magic in a way that no other creatures, besides fairies, are. Fairies? They stand five inches tall at their largest and are full of mischief. Dragons? The truly old ones were as big as semis. And it isn’t only that they are magic, but they are also keenly intelligent—not in the way of humans, but in their own inscrutable way. To be honest, and I have no pride over this, when dragons disappeared across the world at the tail end of the dark ages my feelings were less of loss and more of relief. Not that I had any particular issue with dragons, as far as I could recollect, but I held a healthy fear of them.
    “Dragon? As in fire-breathing, flying-lizard dragon?” Lila asked. “Do you morph or something?”
    “Silence, human,” the girl hissed, jamming her hands into her pockets. Her jean jacket was soaked through from the morning’s rain, and steam wafted off her. An orange halo of raw magic shimmered around her, so potent that I could see it.
    “She is what a dragon looks like,” I said. “About half of all dragons look human.” I spoke calmly though my heart raced. “But don’t think for a second that she is one of us. It is good to see your kind. I have not seen a dragon since—” I shook my head. Truthfully, I did not know.
    “Since you freed Y Ddraig Goch on the bloody battlefield where Arthur was slain?” she whispered, her bright eyes searching mine.
    “Y Ddraig Goch.” I murmured the Welsh syllables. The Red Dragon . Arthur’s dragon. I had no memories of that dragon besides the name, I had only a blank inside of me made of fog and confusion, but then my own history came back to me like a flood, rushing over me and swallowing me whole.
    ----
    Arthur left on a quest to the craggy, barren Isle of Man with Merlin, on one of his early adventures. I followed them both, disguised as a sea gull. I watched them navigate through the rough waters. They landed and walked over the moss-slippery rocks, higher and higher until they came to a great egg, speckled and round. It sat set out on a flat stone covered with gray-green lichen as though waiting for them. They wrapped it in blankets and ran all the way back to their small boat. Merlin used spells to keep the egg warm and unbroken through the rough waters and summer storms I sent their way as they returned to Camelot.
    Y Ddraig Goch hatched just as they returned to the castle. The egg broke apart and a keening and crooning red-leather creature stretched his wings for the first time. He cried out for his mother, but found only a young king who stared at him as Merlin uttered spells over the both of them. He was a small beast at first, with wise yet confused eyes that soaked in his cold and human surroundings.
    The Red Dragon grew quickly, eating whole chickens, then goats, cows, and horses. Arthur let his beast fly free, and he devastated the lands of subsistence farmers with fiery fly-overs. At first I did not understand why my brother would want a creature like him, but then came war. Always war, wherever kings and knights existed.
    Y Ddraig Goch became both expert council and the ultimate weapon for Arthur. My brother went to the battlefields and won eleven battles straight with the dread Y Ddraig Goch in his service. Arthur rode across his newly conquered lands as his men raised their Red Dragon flag high. The true dragon flew high above them, keeping watch for any danger.
    But then came the Battle of Camlann, full of smoke and fog, magic and death. And crows—so many of the death-eaters swirling through the gray sky. I had not meant to be there, not planned on