Chapter 3
A stiffness in her wings forced Coquina to drop back, letting Tidi take the lead. Chills slid over her scales and pierced the ridges between them, making her whole body feel painfully tense, as if she were trapped beneath a heap of freezing ice.
All around them, mountains rose from the earth like rounded spires, some slicing through the cloud above while others sat just below, snow-capped peaks gleaming in the fading sunlight.
Dodging around the bulk of a particularly big mountain, its drawn-out shadow briefly cloaking her scales in a darkened grey, she beat her wings harder, fighting away whatever heavy thoughts clung to her scales. She wouldn’t let them drag her down.
As she swerved around the mountain and upwards, catching the full light of the twin suns for quite possibly the last time today, she fixed her gaze on Tidi. Her friend didn’t falter once, movement as sharp as her determination, every tail twitch and wing’s angle decisive. This was an opportunity to do something daring, perhaps even discover things they never would have known, and she wasn’t about to let it slip through her claws. Medicors didn’t give up.
But neither did Proeliars, regardless of rank, and so Coquina pushed on. She knew her flaps were more hesitant, weighed with doubt, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to do this.
Still, as the Peak Circle loomed above the horizon, a shiver snaked down her spine.
Tidi sped up, and so Coquina forced herself to do the same, beating the frost from her wings. The world seemed to darken by the second, as if the second sun was counting down the moments they had until the meeting would begin.
Barely slowing, Tidi shot for one of the towering peaks that made up the clan’s central circle and slid down the other side of it, claws tearing chunks of dirt as her flight transitioned to a desperate run. Coquina tried to shout for her to slow down, but she couldn’t bring herself to draw attention to them by yelling, and so the words were snatched by the wind.
Eventually, Tidi found her hold and halted on a ledge. Coquina landed with a little more grace than her friend, careful not to scrape her claws, though she still managed to stagger as she maneuvered past the steep mountainside above. Only once they were both sitting, tails coiling around outcrops of rock to keep them anchored, did Tidi finally stop moving. Coquina’s racing heart calmed briefly, and then pounded again as she scanned the circle, reminding her that the risk was far from over.
There weren’t masses of dragons scattered across the slopes of the eight mountains of the Peak Circle, but there were enough for the ordeal to feel intimidating. Coquina examined every one. Most she didn’t recognise, but there were a couple she couldn’t fail to identify. Korrae, the Duxil Proeliar, stalked the mountain opposite them, his light brown scales barely standing out from the earthen brown of the hill. Gelui, a Precil who had come to observe Fresto’s training once, of darker brown than Korrae but with a single splash of grey striping her snout. Tidi pointed out the Precil she’d gained this information from in the first place, who was peering at his wing.
“Checking I’ve done a good job of it, no doubt,” Tidi muttered with a growl.
But Coquina kept searching, a part of her desperately wanting to find another dragon who’d done the same as them. Her heart leapt when she came across one. It was Fresto, only on the next mountain over. His scales were patched with both pale browns and greys, so that he appeared almost like an eroded mountainside himself. Coquina flinched down, attempting to duck behind Tidi. Though she knew her Subil commander wasn’t of high enough rank to have been told of this meeting either, she was afraid of how he would react to her being here. He wasn’t fond of her already.
Thankfully, his eyes didn’t flick to her, and she started to relax. It was hard to tell whether there were other Subils, Concils or even other Humils, but the sighting of Fresto did give her some hope. They weren’t alone.
Tidi nudged her, inclining her snout toward the western sky. “There goes the Corisol.”
Following her gaze, Coquina saw what she meant. The second sun now sat low over the horizon, barely visible. Swathes of orange and reds thrown out like tentacles, grasping for a hold on the sky so the sun could stay a little while longer, gradually faded away, their grip failing. As she watched, the Corisol vanished entirely, leaving only its twin to light the rest of the day.
“And so it begins,” she murmured back.
Both of them turned their eyes to the tallest mountain of all eight peaks, where a monstrous cave reared up at the base, spires of rock hanging like readied fangs. From it emerged two dragons, one of a grey as dark as shadowed rock, the other pale, bleached by snow. Coquina recognised the paler dragon as Frigus, one of Latriis’ Secundux, and so she could only assume that the other was Scella, the second of their Dux’s advisors.
In the darkness between them, something glimmered, captured by the remaining sunlight of the Prisol. Scales shifted. And then a mighty dragon stepped from the cave.
“Latriis,” Tidi breathed. Coquina could only nod, her claws trembling.
She’d never seen Hiedium’s Dux. She doubted many had. But now she truly understood why the clan spoke of the awe-filled power she carried. She was huge, bigger than any dragon Coquina had ever seen. Latriis’ step was slow, precise, as if she were stalking prey. Her tail was lifted only slightly off the ground, the end of her tail curled over to display the wicked spikes waiting to impale any who crossed her. Her eyes were narrowed, inspecting every dragon with a mere sharp glance.
Coquina flinched as those eyes passed over her, half expecting for those hefty wings to unfurl and for the Dux to swoop towards her, intent on chasing her away. But then she peered at her eyes again, examining the colour that pooled around the slitted pupils, and leaned towards Tidi.
“Why are her eyes so dark?” she asked. Instead of the ordinary bright, sky-blue eyes of Celïsora, Latriis had irises closer in shade to the ocean. Deep and dark, whispering of hidden depths no dragon would ever see.
Tidi shrugged, shifting away. “Why are your scales so light? Genetics do weird things. Now be quiet and listen.”
The justification didn’t satisfy Coquina’s curiosity, but she obliged and kept her snout shut, silently observing the Peak Circle. Peering past Tidi, she spared Fresto a glance before zoning all her concentration on Latriis. The narrowed surprise in his eyes at least gave her some hope that her confusion was valid.
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