The Shining Wyrm

12.9

Jewel was glad to be home to stay at last.

To finally be looking back at the war in its entirety. To be able to focus on lessons other than training for battle and bloodshed.

They had been held at Kaeketeh for the entirety of the festivities. Making numerous showings and appearances for both the populace of the city and those that had traveled clear across from Viznove and beyond.

There had been a particular surge of guests most notably pressing the capacity of the capital to bursting at the seams halfway through their stay.

But all of that and the trials of the road home were behind them.

Sleet no longer needed to be shielded off her family with an extended wing.

Strangers no longer needed to be reminded of her status.

It only took four trips across Viznove, participation in a war, ten days of speaking in a festival to thousands, being declared the heir of the entire county and a betrothal to the countess’ only son to make being treated like an animal on first impression a bit less common.

But Rochford was home and she was glad to be back.

Samuel had not yet gotten his gardens back on the walls. But Jewel had already heard him speaking of it happening come spring. There were already young boys picked out to help with the heavy lifting of timbres if they survived winter.

There was now war spoils flush in both the Footmen and returned Levies’ coffers or whatever it was that peasants kept coin in?

Maybe bags like those peddlers in Kaeketeh?

Jewel shook her coils out in the training yard, finally empty of men and the feet of armies. But beneath her claws, the stones and earth still trembled and hummed with the memory of them.

The weather had not quite managed to fully turn to snow yet, but the rain was thick with a slushy kind of ice most days that kept men, women and all other beasts indoors.

Not even Gryphons wanted to be out in this weather.

No one did but Jewel and Tsulogothulan.

They sat in the rain and the ice, enjoying the feel of the sopping mud beneath them and the burbling dance of the water and the wind Jewel had enchanted to dance there before them.

“It still hasn't shown any signs of stopping? Truly?”

The Weird of Bogs shook their ‘head’, still following the sleet and occasional twirling crystal of ice with the one eye. The glittering slush that flowed and swept around in arcs and lines like the most flowery lines of ink from a quill.

Far better than any actual penmanship Jewel could manage on a page.

And she’d done it by accident.

“Why have Fizzbunches and your circle promised and done so much for Father and I to simply sit and talk to me and watch me live, Tsulogothulan?”

The weird considered the waters a moment longer before turning to Jewel and sighing.

“You consider me a friend, Lady Jewel?”

To which she nodded firmly.

The Wizard sighed and looked up at the sky. Seemingly unbothered by the sleet hitting their eye.

Only blinking occasionally even as slush welled up upon it.

Then shaking the ice and water loose and blinking loudly.

“That’s good, I feel much the same. But there are by our counting at least two hundred and thirty eggs of true wyrm in the hands of men. Some in the open, but most simply are stowed away in cellars or treasure rooms without a thought. Few men that even remember what they have. But so far none have hatched yet besides you?”

Jewel blinked at that, she knew that the occasional slaying a feral wyrm could turn up a true egg. But she was not such a beast.

“Yes? But why not study other wild wyrm for that? The histories speak of only a dozen or fewer from the clutch of the Tyrant.”

The weird shook their head.

“As your friend, I must apologize for a lie by omission made against you and your Father. You are not the first to hatch from the clutch of the so-called Tyrant Wyrm.”

Jewel glared a bit.

“But Fizzbunches said I was the first to hatch in mortal care within the last seven centuries.”

Tsulogothulan raised a finger.

“In their care, but how many eggs do you suppose were left abandoned by happenstance as they moved and were inherited between the families Jewel? Urul the Written found one three centuries ago. And it had duly hatched before he came.”

Jewel stilled, there was another dragon out there? Not just another but another offspring of the Tyrant wyrm? The being that by all accounts, Jewel could no longer deny was her flesh and blood?

That she had truly grown to earn the title of Tyrant Wyrm herself?

As unfitting as it felt.

But Tsulogothulan shook their beak of a nose.

“It hatched in the care of rats, it has to this day barely grown longer than you were on your first day out of the egg. It still lives to this very day in the cellar of a collapsed fortress long forgotten. Caring for and living among those same rats. It is nothing like you.”

Jewel stilled.

An Egg of the Tyrant Wyrm, Hatching a Rat-Dragon?

Some miniscule Rodent Wyrm, which was centuries her elder and yet barely even grown longer than she was as a hatchling?!

Jewel stared at the working that still persisted before her.

“It’s a Feral Wyrm... A Feral wyrm hatched from the clutch of the Tyrant?”

The Wizard nodded.

Jewel focused on the welcoming presence of mud, water, storm and sky.

Of the familiar stones that had been there for her since she hatched.

Of the soothing presence of her friend and the fauxfire around her.

The way the world dotted upon her even now.

Relaxing her wings back to a close, letting her coils unflex and settle in the watery earth.

Her friend continued.

“We are giving so much to study and know you Jewel, because you are the first to hatch in the care of men, to grow among men and become like them in a very long time.”

The Weird stared at the dancing water of Jewel’s working.

“The record of when last this happened is barely legend, and although we have suggestions it once occurred seven hundred years ago, Urul has disputed that such tellings might in fact be from much older times.”

Jewel focused on calming herself, trying to think about this like a lesson instead of yet another flipping of every sensible thing in the world. She’d had so many of those in the last two years that she was feeling almost numb to them.

“I’m the only one?”

The weird sighed with a burbling croak.

“You are the first.”

The Weird gestured over Jewel’s coiled body and folded wings. With sleet flowing down them in cascading falls.

“You are the first to hatch into the care of mortal men in sorcerous memory. But if a Tyrant’s eggs can hatch feral when among beasts, then why can a Feral’s egg not hatch as a Tyrant if the right conditions are met?”

Jewel stared at her friend, her wings flaring not in shame or embarrassment. But in a chilling fear. Her neck arching back in horror at what the Wizard was saying.

The wyrm’s voice was quiet and strangled. So much of her throat closed so tightly it was barely open at all.

“What conditions are the right ones?”

The words round as always came soft in reply.

“That is what Fizzbunches and all of his circle are trying to find out about you Jewel. Before it is too late.”

And then there was silence between them.

Eventually the Weird slipped away into the mire around them. And Jewel turned to go in for her Bath and Supper.

Along the hallway she stopped in front of Kraok, staring down at him, he was so fragile. A breath from her lips could leave him as nothing but ash, could strip her home to its foundations.

Jewel could do it.

Had done it in the war in moments.

And she was the First of who knew how many Tyrant Wyrms.

Jewel stared down at the brave man who had saved her Brother’s life.

Who would be nothing against her or any other of her kind.

A fierce dragon faced a valiant knight.