Not that I minded leaving, but why was the red dragon staring at me?
I'd been waiting for half a minute now, and she hadn't moved. Just stood there at the tunnel mouth, crimson eyes fixed on mine, as if expecting something.
I shifted my weight. She didn't blink.
I took a step to the left. Her gaze followed.
I took a step to the right. Her gaze followed.
Was this a test? A dominance thing? Some kind of dragon staring contest I didn't know the rules for? Because if it was, I was losing. My eyes were already watering, and I was pretty sure blinking counted as defeat.
Fine. If she wanted me to lead, I could lead. I was the only male in the clutch, after all. Someone had to set an example. Someone had to show courage. Someone had to—
I took a step forward.
The sound of my claws on stone was sharp in the quiet tunnel. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement.
A red dragon, nearly twice my size, fell into step beside me.
Not behind me. Beside me.
I glanced sideways. Vesperra. Of course. She matched my pace exactly, her crimson eyes forward now, her stride long and unhurried.
I frowned.
If she'd wanted me to scout ahead, she'd have hung back. Let me take the risks. Follow at a safe distance. That's how it worked — the expendable one goes first, the smart one watches for what kills him. That was the corporate ladder I understood: interns get sent to the dangerous meetings, middle management watches from the safety of their cubicles.
But she wasn't doing that. She was walking *with* me. Shoulder to shoulder. Claw to claw.
Which meant... she wasn't using me as bait?
I didn't ask. Not out loud. Questions were weakness, and I wasn't about to hand her that information. So I just kept walking, trying to figure out what game she was playing. Maybe she was testing my nerve. Maybe she was bored. Maybe she'd just never learned the concept of personal space.
The tunnel stretched ahead, long and dark and endless. Another corner. Then another. Then another. My claws clicked against the stone in a rhythm that was starting to feel like a metronome set to "bored."
This tunnel was ridiculous. Had it always been this long? Was the cave system trying to kill us with monotony? I was halfway through a particularly creative insult aimed at whoever had designed this geological feature — something about a "failed architect" and "poor career choices" and "maybe you should've been a accountant" — when—
Wind.
A breeze. Faint, cool, carrying the faintest hint of moisture against my snout.
My pupils contracted. The exhaustion of the long walk — the dull ache in my legs, the mental fog of too much darkness — lifted in an instant, blown away like dust.
Wind meant movement. Movement meant space. Space meant *outside.*
Something deep in my blood stirred. Not a thought — a *knowing.* The kind of knowing that didn't come from my brain but from somewhere older, somewhere scaled and sharp and absolutely certain. *There is an exit. There is air that has never touched stone. There is sky.*
My head snapped toward Vesperra. She was already looking at me, her crimson eyes bright, her nostrils flared. She felt it too. The same blood. The same knowing.
She didn't speak.
She didn't have to.
*Run.*
We moved at the same instant, as if we'd been waiting for the same signal. Claws scrabbling for purchase, bodies low, tails streaming behind us. We were side by side, matching each other stride for stride, and the tunnel blurred past us in a rush of dark and wind and the growing sound of—
Water.
Running water. Getting louder.
Behind us, the other hatchlings had caught on. The breeze hit them too, and their instincts took over. One by one, they broke into a run, a scrambling, tumbling, enthusiastic procession of round little dragons chasing the wind.
I didn't look back. I didn't need to. I could hear them — the clatter of claws, the occasional squeak of someone who'd tripped, the general noise of a group that had no idea what was coming but was committed to finding out.
Then the tunnel ended.
Not gradually. Not with a gentle slope or a widening passage. It just *stopped* — one moment I was running through darkness, and the next—
Light.
Not sunlight. Not anything I recognized. But *light* — diffuse, gray-green, filtering down from somewhere above.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
And space. Enormous space.
I skidded to a halt, claws gouging the dirt, and stared.
The tunnel mouth opened onto a cliff face, and below me — far below, maybe twenty body-lengths down — stretched a valley. A vast, bowl-shaped basin carved into the stone, wide enough that the far wall was a distant smudge. The floor of the valley was covered in low, emerald-green plants, thick and lush, swaying in a breeze I could feel but couldn't name.
And through the center of it all, a river.
Black. Fast. Churning past in the dim light like something alive.
My scales tightened. Every one of them. A full-body flinch that started at the tail and rolled forward like a wave.
I knew that river.
That was *the* river. The one from the hourglass. The one where I'd watched myself — older, bigger, foolishly thirsty — walk right up to the black water and drink. And then something had risen from below. Patient. Dark. Absolute. And the vision had ended with me sinking without a struggle.
That was my death. Or at least a preview of it. And it was right *there,* twenty body-lengths below me, flowing as calmly as if it hadn't just shown me how I was going to die.
My hindbrain — the old scaly thing coiled around my instincts — had one opinion, loud and pre-verbal: *no.* Not a reasoned position. Not a cost-benefit analysis. Just a flat, absolute *no,* the kind that used to keep little lizards alive in a world full of big teeth.
I was not going near that water. Not today. Not ever. This was the single most important strategic decision of my second life, and I was—
Vesperra launched herself off the cliff.
She dropped like a crimson meteor, wings snapping open at the last second, and landed in the middle of the valley with a ground-shaking *thud.* The shellcrabs scattered. The other hatchlings were right behind her, tumbling and squeaking and completely committed to the chaos.
I watched her land. And I understood the problem.
I couldn't stay on the cliff. I couldn't opt out. I was a hatchling in a valley full of food, surrounded by my siblings, with a red dragon who'd already decided we were hunting. If I refused to go down, I'd be alone on a cliff with no food and no water. If I went down and stayed away from the river, I'd be fine. The river was on the valley floor — I could hunt on the cliffs, eat shellcrabs, and keep my distance from the black water.
The vision had shown me drinking from the river. So the solution was simple: don't drink from the river. Don't go near the river. Treat the river like a coworker who'd once tried to get you fired — acknowledge its existence from a safe distance and never, ever turn your back.
I could use the sensing vine to probe the water instead. A vine wasn't me. A vine could go where I wouldn't.
That was the plan. Stay dry. Stay high. Stay the hell away from the black water.
Below us, in the valley, dark shapes moved among the green plants. Dozens of them. Massive, broad-backed, their shells catching the dim light in dull, wet gleams. They were tearing at the plants with lazy, methodical motions, their claws working with the patience of creatures who'd been eating here for centuries.
The Dragon Inheritance stirred.
[Shellcrab — a low-tier monster native to underground ecosystems. Their thick carapace is a formidable defense against most predators, but against the claws of a true dragon, it parts like parchment. Weak. Magic-less. Prey.]
Shellcrab. Right. Except they weren't crabs. Not really. They were the size of dining tables, with claws that could snap a hatchling in half and shells that looked like they'd been forged in a volcano.
But they *were* crabs. Just... enormous ones.
And the meat inside those claws?
My mouth flooded with saliva. I swallowed hard, the sound loud in my own ears. I was not a dragon who drooled. I was a dragon of dignity and restraint. I was a dragon of—
*Gulp.*
Damn it.
The tunnel mouth behind us was filling up. Hatchlings poured out of the darkness, skidding to a halt at the edge of the cliff, eyes wide, tails stiff. Some of them made noises — little squeaks of surprise, or sharp chirps of excitement. Most of them just stared.
The exit was narrow. Maybe ten dragons wide, if they packed tight. Vesperra took up two spots by herself, her red bulk planted firmly at the center of the cliff edge. The rest of us — the smaller ones, the ones who hadn't spent their first week eating dirt — jostled for position.
A white dragon, round as a pebble, was trying to squeeze between a blue and a black. The blue didn't move. The black didn't notice. The white dragon pushed anyway, her chubby legs working overtime, her round head ducking under the blue's tail—
The blue's back foot came up. One casual kick. The white dragon went tumbling, rolling back into the tunnel with a soft *whump,* then scrambled up and tried again.
Fifth time. She'd been trying for the fifth time.
An — the other black dragon, the quiet one, not Nyx who was still somewhere in the back of the tunnel — watched this with the calm expression of someone who'd already given up on expectations. Her tail twitched once — a small, involuntary motion — then went still.
I looked at the white dragon. Looked at the cliff edge. Looked back at the white dragon.
No. Not yet.
She made another run for it, fat little legs pumping, and I stepped sideways and put one claw on her back. Pressed down. Gently. Firmly.
She froze. Looked up at me with enormous white eyes.
I raised my claw. Waggled it.
She put both front claws over her head, as if protecting it.
I grinned.
This was fun.
Behind me, Vesperra cleared the last of the space by picking up the black dragon — An — by the scruff of her neck and tossing her back into the tunnel. The motion was absurdly precise — one claw, clean grip under the jaw, perfect parabolic arc. An's legs dangled limp for exactly one second before she remembered she had limbs and flailed them toward the ground. She landed silently, got up, and walked back without a sound. No complaint. No resentment. Just... acceptance.
I'd seen that look on interns before. The ones who'd been passed over so many times they stopped expecting anything different. You either learned to accept the system, or you left. An had clearly chosen option one. Whether she was keeping score, I had no idea. But if she was, she was better at hiding it than anyone I'd ever worked with.
Vesperra turned back to the remaining hatchlings. Her voice was calm, matter-of-fact.
"The valley below is full of shellcrabs. Low-tier prey. This is our first hunt. Be ready."
Then she walked back to her spot at the center of the cliff edge and settled into position.
Front low. Head down. Hind legs coiled. Tail up, taut, streaming behind her like a red banner.
The diving stance.
I looked at her. Looked at the valley below. Looked at the shellcrabs, fat and slow and utterly unaware that they were about to become the most important meal of our lives.
My body knew what to do before my brain caught up. The stance settled into my muscles like a memory I hadn't known I had. Front low. Head down. Hind legs coiled. Tail up. My scales shifted — not visibly, but I felt them, each one angling slightly, tightening against the wind like tiny aerodynamic flaps adjusting themselves without permission. The muscles in my wings — muscles I hadn't even known existed until this moment — hummed with tension, coiled and ready.
Something in my blood — something old and sharp and absolutely certain — whispered: *This is what you were made for.*
The wind rose around us. I could feel it now — not just on my scales, but *through* them, reading the air pressure, the humidity, the exact angle of descent I'd need to hit maximum velocity without overshooting. It was like my body had a flight computer installed, and it was running calculations I couldn't even begin to understand.
Beside me, Vesperra's claws dug into the stone. Her tail tightened, every scale along its length locking into place like a rudder finding its groove.
Then she settled into the stance. And waited.