Get comfortable, turn the page, and let’s see what this story has been hiding 🔥 ✦ A vast mouth split open, and orange dragonfire roared out, lighting the entire dark space.
In an instant, the temperature around them soared.
Before the dragonkeepers could prepare, the dragonfire swept forward in a wide fan.
“Ah!” Cries rose one after another as people fled in panic through orange flame and rolling smoke.
“Vaelor, run!” Rhaenyra reacted quickly, seized his small hand, and turned to flee.
But when she pulled, he did not move.
Vaelor stood rooted in place, staring dead ahead.
“Shriek!” The fire vanished as quickly as it had come, revealing a pale blue dragon that roared sharply in warning.
Like an enraged beast guarding its territory, it drove away every intruder.
Vaelor’s breathing quickened, but he refused.
“Wait, Rhaenyra.” He saw it clearly.
Dreamfyre had not chased them.
“What?” Rhaenyra was stunned.
“Princess, prince, for your safety, you should put some distance between yourselves and the dragon.” The old dragonkeeper hurried back, what little white hair he had left partly singed.
The other dragonkeepers were frightened as well.
They scrambled up from the ground and barely held their formation.
Vaelor’s small face was tight, and his thoughts were not on the people around him.
Clatter.
Chains kept shaking with the pale blue dragon’s breaths.
By the weak firelight, he finally saw everything.
In the dim cavern, she was a slender pale blue dragon with silver markings, a dignified crown of pale horns, pale blue wings, and silver spinal scales like the sky itself.
“The family’s second-generation dragon.
Dreamfyre.” Vaelor’s cheeks flushed, and his heart pounded wildly.
Boom.
Dreamfyre took one step forward.
Her amber vertical pupils were full of vigilance.
These little insects had entered her territory.
“So big.” Vaelor was so excited he wanted to climb up and fly a circle on the spot.
The pale blue dragon before him was magnificently beautiful.
Even bent beneath the cavern roof, her body was absolutely over fifty meters long.
Among older dragons, that might not be unmatched, but the destruction she could cause was unimaginable.
“Vaelor, are you still going to try?” Rhaenyra pulled, but could not move him.
She was afraid that if she let go, he would rush forward.
Of course.
Before seeing Dreamfyre, he had still wondered whether a dragon confined for decades would suit him.
But now that he stood across from her, that hesitation had been wiped away by her beauty.
“Let me try.” Vaelor took a deep breath and asked the old dragonkeeper, “Dreamfyre did not continue attacking.
Can you steady her?” The old dragonkeeper’s face was grave.
He nodded.
“We will do our utmost.” He ordered the shaken dragonkeepers to pick up their staves and approach the dragon bit by bit.
Dreamfyre was indeed fierce and would rage every so often.
But the dragonkeepers had to feed her livestock regularly, so they could always get near her eventually.
This sudden fury might have been caused by too many people entering at once.
To prevent deaths, every dragonkeeper moved with even greater caution.
“Stand farther away first.” Vaelor was unusually serious as he pushed Rhaenyra toward the wall.
Dragons were dangerous.
What had just happened proved it.
Rhaenyra opened her mouth, but the tiny Vaelor forced her firmly to a safer place.
Her resistance turned into shock at his strength.
On the other side, as a calming High Valyrian song was hummed, the furious dragon gradually lowered her hostility.
Dreamfyre shook her head, and her enormous body crouched down.
The old dragonkeeper approached carefully.
Only after confirming the dragon would not attack suddenly did he call softly, “Prince, you may come over.” Vaelor encouraged himself.
“Do not be afraid.
She will not eat you.” He patted the cowardly mouse trembling in his pouch and advanced on his short legs.
The process went smoothly.
Dreamfyre lay motionless on the broken stone, as if drained of strength.
“What should I do?” Once Vaelor drew close, he asked for guidance with clear reason.
Reality was not a book or a show, where taming dragons looked simple.
He was only a child and did not have the Dragonkeepers’ experience.
The old dragonkeeper kept his distance and lowered his voice.
“You must stand before the dragon and raise your hand.” To avoid provoking Dreamfyre, he explained as quickly as possible.
If the dragon did not attack, the prince could try to climb onto her back.
If she still did not refuse, the attempt was eighty percent successful.
The rest depended on riding the dragon into the sky.
“I understand.” Vaelor gritted his teeth, lifted his chest high, and slowly raised his hand.
His small hand was white and plump, like a fresh lotus root.
But it was raised high with real courage, aimed at those indifferent pupils.
“Rumble.” Dreamfyre glanced at it.
Low sounds rolled in her throat, and she turned her head away.
A boring human hatchling.
She could not be bothered.
Vaelor froze, then hurried after her.
“Look at me, Dreamfyre.” Wasn’t the rule that if she did not refuse, he could climb onto her back, and if she refused, he would be roasted?
What did it mean when such a large dragon simply refused to look at him?
Dreamfyre’s vertical pupils remained cold.
Like an aloof beauty who wanted no strangers near, she turned her head to the other side.
Not to her taste.
“You…” Vaelor’s eyes widened.
Today, he had to see this through.
If Dreamfyre’s head turned left, he ran left with his hand raised.
If she turned right, he chased right.
She moved.
He chased.
She was chained and could not fly.
“Huff…
huff…” After several rounds, Vaelor was panting, and his raised hand shook.
“Dreamfyre, what exactly will make you agree?” This was not the grand, roaring dragon-taming scene he had imagined.
Not even a little.
At last, through his unrelenting effort, Dreamfyre successfully became angry.
She rose suddenly.
Her pale blue wings braced against the broken stone floor as she lowered her head and roared fiercely.
Annoying human hatchling.
If not for the scent of the same bloodline as her former rider, she would already have roasted him with dragonfire.
“So much force!” Vaelor shut his eyes against the hot, foul wind, his skin stinging.
Even so, he did not retreat a step.
If she had not attacked, there was still a chance.
Dreamfyre was completely annoyed.
She thrust her dragon snout into his little stomach and directly shoved him away.
“That hurt!” Vaelor’s soft belly ached.
He tumbled backward across the ground, rolled over, and ended up sitting with his legs spread.
When he opened his eyes again, Dreamfyre had already turned to leave.
Vaelor panicked and chased her without thinking.
“Do not go.
I can take you out to see the sky.” Dreamfyre’s body paused slightly.
Then she left without the slightest reluctance.
Men chose dragons, but dragons chose riders too.
Her first rider had been a young and beautiful girl, at least when dragon and rider first met.
“Do not go!” Vaelor did not understand what was missing.
His short legs hurried after her, and he wrapped both arms around the thick dragon claw covered in pale blue scales.
That move directly frightened everyone present senseless.
“Vaelor!” Rhaenyra was horrified.
Somehow, she found the courage to rush over and grab the back of his collar.
She was the one who had brought him here.
How could he be this reckless?
Vaelor was already exhausted and was dragged away by the back of his collar.
The dragonkeepers did not dare delay.
They hurried forward to shield the two royals and cautiously moved them backward.
✦ ✦ ✦ Ready for more?
CREATORS’ THOUGHTS EmberHollow Thank you for reading.
I hope this chapter pulled you deeper into the story.
Stick around, because there’s still a lot waiting just ahead.