Chapter 2 - The Scent of Treason
The steel bolt struck the stone flagstone just inches from Lyra’s right boot, shattering into iron splinters with a violent crack. The colossal mother reacted before the sound had even faded. A roar of raw maternal fury tore from her throat, rattling the foundation of the fortress and blowing the dust from every arched beam above. Her thrashing body pulled taut the four anchor chains fastened to the chamber’s central pillars, groaning under astronomical tension.
“Seize the royal bastard!” Commander Vane’s voice barked down the spiral stairs, accompanied by the urgent clatter of a dozen armored boots. “Kill the runt if it bares fangs!”
Lyra stumbled back, shielding the hatchling with both arms. The small dragon hissed, spitting a speck of white fire that singed the hems of her tunic before she tucked its head firmly beneath her chin. She knew there was nowhere up to run; Ronald’s elite guard occupied the stairwell. Her only chance lay behind the dragon's massive flank, where an ancient aqueduct drained runoff into the river ravine beneath the castle.
She darted beneath the sweeping arc of the mother’s tail. The dragon instinctively curved her body, forming an impenetrable wall of ivory scale to shield the child from the incoming volley. Crossbow quarrels pinged harmlessly off her armored hide, sparking in the dim torchlight.
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“Go, child,” a low, telepathic murmur rumbled directly inside Lyra’s skull, raspy and drowning in centuries of fatigue. “Run to the Crags. The embers must not die.”
Lyra scrambled toward the low-arched drainage grate, pulling an iron pry bar from her leather belt. She jammed it into the rusted padlock, leveraging her small frame with desperate strength. The metal snapped with a sharp groan. She squeezed herself through the narrow, slime-slicked opening just as heavy steel gauntlets seized her ankle, pulling her backward into the dark.
