Chapter 5 - Sanctuary of the Shrouded Reef
The storm swallowed them just as daylight surrendered to black dusk. Sylva's beats grew shallow and erratic, her breath coming in wheezing gasps as the poison laced into the ballista tip seeped deeper into her bloodstream. Unable to maintain lift, she collapsed onto the serrated obsidian rocks of the Shrouded Reef—a graveyard of ancient hulls surrounded by whirlpools and jagged sea-spires.
Rowan tumbled into the tidal pool, immediately turning to help the hatchlings. Zephyr and Ash crawled shivering onto a flat slab, but Lumi lay motionless on her side. Her pearly scales were turning an unnatural bruised violet, poisoned by the shrapnel that had detonated across the nest. ""Sylva, look at her! Please, wake up!"" Rowan cried, shaking the mother dragon’s snout. But Sylva could barely lift her eyelids; her silver blood was pooling into the dark seawater, turning the tide into a luminescent mist.
Rowan looked across the foggy rocks. In the center of the reef rose an ancient hollow spire, carved with forgotten runes, from which a thin tendril of blue smoke drifted into the rain. Someone was living on this forsaken heap of rock. Desperate and terrified, Rowan pulled his damp coat tighter around his shivering frame, lifted the limp body of the dying hatchling into his arms, and leaped across the slippery sea-stones toward the light, leaving Sylva guarded by the remaining two babies in the shadows of the cave.
