Eternal Fire

Chapter 32

Waiting, waiting, waiting, that was the next part to this game that she was playing, and her instincts were soothing the urge to move, to do something, allowing her to wait in silence, to wait for her energy to recover to allow her to escape this miserable place. She flicked her tail, lying on the warm stone- from her body heat- and started to channel fire through the stone, below the inbuilt bindings, and heated up the stone, melting it as quickly as she could. Her tail continued to sweep side to side, sweeping small amounts of dust into the air as the stone leading to her escape became orange, then red before dripping to the ground, she scrunched up her face at the pile of cooling stone slop. Rising to her feet, Ember strained her ears, listening for any disturbances, but as expected, she didn't hear anything. 

The bindings fell to the floor as she stretched her muscles, and walked out, slowly stepping through the whole that was just big enough for a dragon, careful to step over the pile of now cooled stone. Looking around, she identified that all the details were the same as when she had walked in, fires burning in small dents in the walls. Except for the melted stone that was on the ground behind her. Ember started walking down the empty grey hallways, she didn't meet any dragons in the caves, at first, this seemed normal, there weren't much down them except old and abandoned cells. 

But when she turned down a what was normally a major cave, she met no dragons, so she just put it down as being a strange time and that they were all busy. This trend continued as she walked down the cave, silence greeting her ears- except from the sounds made by her walking- and she kept her sense on high alert as she became more and more curious as to why they were no dragons at all at this large base. Ember slunk through the caves, trying to listen for anything moving, but nothing came up.

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Darting into a cave, Ember listened and waited for the dragons to walk past her, the steps sounded familiar, but she didn't know the dragon well enough if she couldn't put a name to them. The dragons headed towards the direction she had come from, she glanced around the corner to look at the approaching dragons as their footsteps fell silent. A pair of green eyes flicked right to her orange ones as she took a step back from the black dragon, the usual black dragon stood next to him as Ember started to move away from them, towards the exit- where she thought the exit was- and Midnight stared at her, his eyes were softer than she remembered them, and his wings were slightly slumped against his sides.

"Ember, please don't go." Ember stopped moving backwards, surprised at the pleading prince before her. The fire inside her urged her to go, possibly killing these dragons along the way. "Where are you going? Please, tell me how to protect those I care about from the armies of Humanyos."

"I am not the gullible hatchling that you found eight years ago, but I will give you some advice. Learn how to bow. And accept new leaders. And how to not sliver in the shadows like a snake. Otherwise, you're all doomed." Ember watched the dragon in front of her, falling apart as he went to his knees before her, his eyes looking at her in disbelief at her unfeeling words.

The dragon begged. "Ember please, I just want to protect." His eyes darted to the ground in front if her, a dragon submitting to their superior, Ember's drifted to the grey pair next to the black dragon, those grey eyes drifted to the floor as well.

"Please, we are struggling we are-"

"A falling order. Where's that sound dragon gone, the one I used to chase around? Or has he fallen?"

"He disappeared." Midnight said quietly.

"Fine. What do you want? As two members of a large group that is clashing, what do you want from me?" Ember stared at the once great prince on his knees in front of her, her eyes softened as she saw the goodness in him, she would have never thought that a prince would be kneeling in front of her, a common hatched, when she was a bumbling hatchling.