Age of Fire

Chapter 10

It was the intense pain searing through my mind that woke me up.

My throat was so dry that I couldn't even scream, all that left me was a strangled noise that scraped off my tongue.

Hot tears shamelessly sizzled down the sides of my face, and the pressure on my head made me fear that it might just crack open.

I writhed from the pain, but it was like someone had trapped me under a mammoth sized boot, that was pressed down on my chest. Constricting my breathing, and I wanted to scream so badly, but it was impossible to do anything but suffer in silence.

Nausea swept through me, and I thought I would be sick. Someone had lit a fire inside my head, and there was nothing that could put it out. Underneath me, even the cold gritty ground warmed because of the heat that swelled through my body.

A cough escaped me as I fought to breathe. My head felt dizzy when I tried to lift it, and I froze when something moved against my skin, something on top of me shifted. I could feel it's hot breath press against my cold skin, and gasped.

In the distance, I could hear voices shouting. Desperate cries but I couldn't even summon the energy to reply, I wanted to scream that I was here, even though I didn't know where 'here' was, but I couldn't.

All I could remember was the egg held in my arms, I knew I had to protect it. I wonder if I had managed?

Something nuzzled into my neck with a small whimper like noise. It sounded tormented, as I shook from the pain that threatened to eat me alive; like a steel hammer trying to crash through a wooden door, and I could feel myself splintering.

And then it obliterated my endurance.

I had expected pain unlike any other to flood through me, I expected my mind to flayed beyond saving, and for my body to shatter from the impact. But instead it was like being able to breathe for the first time forever, or feeling the warmth from the sun press against my skin.

It was almost euphoric.

My eyes went wide, as my body tightened from the elated feeling. It would have knocked me down if I was standing. My toes curled from the feeling, like there were sore cracks all throughout my body, and they were finally being glued back together by this feeling.

By someone.

Light suddenly slapped me in the face and the first thing I saw were large eyes that were several shades darker than gold. Maybe another color altogether, but they looked so close to melted topaz that I saw myself in them. They blinked lazily at me, and I could feel them.

"I have her!" Augustus's deep voice made the creature lift its head with a threatening hiss, "The egg hatched."

Intensely dark purple scales shifted as my dragon lifted his head with a small snarl, they looked like rolling waves that changed shades in the light. Metallically light before shifting to a purple so dark that it looked close to black.

I lifted my hand and trailed my fingers along the beautiful sides of him, they were soft. I didn't know what a dragon's scales felt like, I had always imagined that they would be hard. The dragons jerked in reaction to being touched and shivered, it's head swooping down to peer at me again.

He was happy that I had touched him. It was like the emotion echoed through me, but the sheer force of it made me feel like it was my own.

"Hello, little warrior." I recognized Tiberius's musical voice from anywhere. My dragon's tail coiled protectively, as he snarled threateningly. It was such a small noise that I found it adorable to listen to, "Do you have a name?"