The dragon’s flame washed over Lancel Vale.
Vermithor had overestimated the flexibility of its neck.
If it were Caraxes the Blood Wyrm, built long and serpentine, a backward snap might have incinerated the pest on its back.
But Vermithor’s thick neck couldn’t manage it.
The fire was vast and fierce, a wave of heat that swept across half of Lancel’s body.
It lit his clothes but never touched his silver hair.
A faint silver-red glow shielded him inside the inferno.
He gripped the dragon’s bone spur and flattened himself against the massive back.
“Vermithor, fly.”
The bronze giant grew more frantic.
It thrashed, trying to shake the insect loose, even though the insect carried a scent it found deeply pleasant.
Vermithor roared, calling for Silverwing.
Silverwing was busy trying to shake something off too.
“Vermithor, fly!”
The dragon bellowed at the sky, charged forward a few steps, spread its thousand-foot wings, and tore free of the earth.
The beast finally carried the boy into the air.
That didn’t mean Vermithor was obeying.
The dragon still wanted to teach the comfortable-smelling little pest a lesson.
It climbed vertically, screaming.
Lancel’s legs swung free, his body battered by the violent ascent.
He could only hold on.
The wind screamed past him, but something on the dragon’s back blocked the worst of the high-altitude gale.
The rider felt no true wind, no killing cold.
Lancel sensed it clearly as Vermithor lifted off.
In his magical sight, a thread of fire split from the volcano below.
That thread was what kept a rider secure on a dragon’s back.
“Vermithor, level out!”
Vermithor belched a plume of golden flame and dove straight through it.
The dragon hoped to burn the pest off.
The earlier failure was just a fluke, nothing more.
“Vermithor, level out!” Lancel fought to press his feet back against the dragon’s hide.
The fire couldn’t hurt him.
His clothes were another matter.
When the flames failed, Vermithor tried something else.
The dragon snapped its head up and stopped dead in the air, flipping its body inverted to hurl the boy off. This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
Lancel’s legs swung free again.
“Vermithor, right yourself!
Level out!” Blood surged into his arms, pooling in his hands where they gripped the spur.
Silver-red blood seeped from his raw fingers and slowly soaked into the dragon’s hide.
“Vermithor, obey me.” Lancel shouted with everything he had.
“Right yourself!
Level out!”
Vermithor snarled in frustration.
Flying upside down was miserable for the beast too.
It grudgingly rolled upright.
But the dragon wasn’t done.
After a stretch of level flight, it folded its wings and dove for the ground, hoping the plunge would tear the boy loose.
Lancel’s feet left the dragon’s back again.
But this time, a grin crossed his face.
His blood had seeped inside.
Through his magical sight, he could see it.
The volcanic fire burning inside Vermithor’s body now carried a thread of silver.
Vermithor felt the change too.
The comfortable-smelling pest on its back was starting to feel even more comfortable.
The dragon sensed a new energy inside its body, slowly improving it.
The sensation was deeply pleasant.
More pleasant than the last creature who had bonded with it.
Something shifted in Lancel’s chest.
He felt the giant beneath him stop fighting so hard.
A message seemed to pour into his mind, something like: You’re not bad, kid.
This feels good.
Lancel understood instantly.
Blood magic alone could never forge a bond with a creature as powerful as a dragon.
Only one thing could achieve this.
He had tamed Vermithor.
What held them now was the mysterious link between dragon and rider.
Vermithor spread its wings and climbed smoothly into the sky.
“Vermithor, level out.”
This time the dragon obeyed without resistance.
Lancel could feel it, through blood magic and through something else he couldn’t name. Enjoying the story? Read on at g.com.
Vermithor was bound to him.
The dragon let out a sound almost like a sigh, beat its wings a few times, and circled.
“Vermithor, climb!”
The dragon lifted its head and rose to the height Lancel pictured in his mind.
Then it banked under his silent direction.
“Dracarys.”
Lancel finally roared the word.
Golden dragonfire answered, a long blazing trail across the sky before it burst apart.
Vermithor carried Lancel through the flames, roaring with something like excitement.
“Vermithor, return.”
The dragon wheeled around the rising smoke column and flew back toward the ruins.
A silver shape pierced the black haze and pulled alongside.
Silverwing.
Vermithor turned its head.
Silverwing let out a cheerful cry, wings beating faster, and shot ahead.
Lancel saw the rider on Silverwing’s back.
Valar.
His broad-shouldered brother had lost his clothes to fire as well, but he seemed to have tamed Silverwing even more smoothly.
He had already flown several circles and was now riding back to find his older brother.
Lancel felt a wave of irritation and resignation roll off Vermithor.
He laughed and patted the bronze scales.
“Vermithor, let’s land.”
The dragon leveled its wings and glided toward the ground.
Then it happened.
The shadow-binding stone against Lancel’s chest flickered with a strange light.
Shapes seemed to move inside it.
The amulet shattered.
Black shadow poured out like a tide, swallowing Lancel and Vermithor in an instant.
But the men below, waiting for the dragons to land, saw nothing.
Valar, already on the ground, saw nothing.
Only Silverwing sensed something.
The dragon passed a thread of unease to its rider, but no real alarm.
Valar frowned up at Vermithor’s slow descent.
“What’s happening?”