Saving the Rifts (The Traveling Rifts Trilogy: Book Three) *ON HOLD*

A Black Dragon and a Bronze Dragon

The clouds looked down on thick stalks of grass. An owl hooted, and several insects chirped their songs. Just east of Lake Ontario, Canada, they seemed to be the only signs of life. However, as the moon began its ascent across the indigo sky, an eye opened in the darkness. It was a light blue, icy color with a slit for a pupil.

The eye appeared to not belong to any body, just hanging there in the air. However, just as suddenly as it opened, a second one did also. It possessed the same hue and shape as the first. Together, the two blinked to adjust on the sights before them.

Athryn, son of the Great Anloric, raised his head, eyes with it, and looked up at the sky. As a shadow creature, the night was his domain, and he slept in the day. The dragon looked down at his injured wing, where an Empire dragon had torn a rip in its webbed film. Just like the rest of his body, the wing was covered in pitch black scales, so dark that it was near impossible to differentiate one from the other. However, the wound comprised a big hole in those beautiful scales. It was thin, but long, and incredibly painful for Athryn.

With a sigh, the shadow dragon forced himself up. It had been nearly an Earth week since Sajen attacked the sanctuary, an enclosed glade in the rift Athryn had come to call home for many years. During the battle, the dragon acquired many injuries in addition to the rip in his wing. Cuts and bruises tarnished his beautiful scales. There were no broken bones—thank goodness—but there was still much pain for the dragon.

And worse than all this, Athryn no longer had a home. He grew up in the Empire. As the son of the head guard for the Empire, Athryn was raised on the castle grounds. Well... perhaps "raised" wasn't the correct word. Dragons didn't raise their young. Athryn grew up alongside his brood, his mother, and of course his father, but he learned all life's lessons by himself.

Athryn put up with many things in the Empire. But he found the frequent quarrels between shadows and woodlanders petty; dragons rarely had such fights. Just because the rest of Aldenuur had split into four different categories, it didn't mean the dragons had to.

So Athryn left the Empire. He knew the locations of several rifts where he might find peaceable company and set out. There were several mishaps where an Earthling spotted him due to his size, but being a creature of shadows, he was able to hide quite efficiently.

Athryn was no stranger to hiding, which proved useful for him now as he wandered the earth world. In the sanctuary battle, many of his friends had died: Skel, the red shadow dragon; Zandor and Kay, the shadow twins; and Hesper, a blue woodland dragon. Others had turned to Sajen's side: Mervin, a bronze shadow; Cole, a black shadow; and finally Gralon, a dark blue shadow dragon who was perhaps the fiercest of them all.

Only three of them had escaped: him; Zyroth, a red shadow dragon; and Zenna, a bronze shadow dragon. After they cleared the sanctuary wall together, Athryn hadn't seen either of them. They, too, were just as good as hiding as Athryn.

The dragon sighed and bumbled out the den he had been staying in. The inky blackness of night greeted his eyes; his scales blended in perfectly. The dragon stared in the direction of the second entrance leading outside of his rift. He was several miles from it, but had stayed close. He couldn't fly, so going further was out of the question anyway. But his main reason was to look out for Sajen and his men, or any of the creatures on the rebels' side. There had been no luck so far, and Athryn was just about ready to give up. He wished to find Raven and help the rebels on their mission, but not before he did everything possible here.

Athryn turned and looked across the grassy flatland before him. Few trees dotted the area, and a road traveled down the middle. His stomach rumbled, signaling the little amount of food he had partaken in the last few days. Prey was scarce in an area with such small coverage, and it was starting to take a toll.