Dragon Unleashed (Book 1 of the Dragon Mage Saga)

A Plan of Sorts

Before her was a room completely carved of glass.

            Glimmering, iridescent glass in every color of the rainbow-it shone from the tables, to the bookshelves, to the walls. Darla had never seen anything so magnificent in her entire life. This room appeared to be something out of a fairy tale.

            “Welcome to the Glass Room-the name is pretty self-explanatory,” Hugo began, stepping onto the glass floors which Darla feared she’d break. “Let me give a bit of back story. You’ve never been to Pharix City, our capital, buts it’s carved out of multicolored glass. This room was created from the glass that hadn’t been used for the city so it didn’t all go to waste.”

            Darla looked up at the towering bookshelves stacked with old, musty-looking books and scrolls.

            “Is this some sort of library?” she asked, walking over to a glass sculpture of a man holding a crossbow to his side. “Or a history museum of sorts?”

            Hugo shook his head. “This is where the king and queen keep all their top-secret information-from banned books, scrolls, priceless antiques, anything their enemies might want to grab. It’s all here. Not even my dad knows about it, and he’s the king’s right hand man. I only stumbled upon it a few years ago.”

            Darla gasped, marveling at her exquisite surroundings. She felt like she was inside a diamond or a pearl.

            “So, what did you want to show me?” she asked inquisitively. “You said it was something very important.”

            Hugo nodded, his expression darkening. Darla stiffened nervously. She and Hugo still weren’t friends. Maybe they’d be accomplices, but they’d never have a real, true friendship. That just wasn’t possible-not with all the pain and trauma Darla had inadvertently caused the Hannigans.

            “It’s my mother’s prophecy-the one about you,” Hugo explained. “I believe it is trying to send us on a quest.”

            Darla raised an eyebrow. “A quest? For what?”

            Hugo hurried over to the glass statue of the man Darla had been fiddling with and unscrewed his tiny glass head as if it was a cork from a bottle of champagne. Out of the statue he pulled out a yellowed scroll tied with a black ribbon.

            “What?” he asked, when Darla gaped at him. “I’m a bit of a snoop. If it wasn’t for me not keeping my hands to myself, we wouldn’t have this.”

Darla rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Let’s read it.”

            She was desperate to find out what this infamous prophecy was. All she knew was the brief tidbits the king and queen had said when she visited their throne room. It had something to do about going head to head with the Shadow Master.

            “Here,” Hugo said, thrusting the scroll into Darla’s hand. “I’ve already read it. You’re turn.”