Dragon's Egg by Sarah L. Thomson Read Free Book Online Page A

pen. They were afraid I’d be killed, but the dragons just curled up around me and watched over me. That’s when Gran knew….”
    â€œKnew what?”
    â€œShe said I had the touch. She taught me.”
    â€œYour grandmother was a keeper?”
    â€œThe best in the kingdom,” Mella answered proudly, despite the tightness in her throat. Gran had been skinny and tough and gnarled like an old oak root, and she could make a dragon obey her at a look. “People came for miles around for her help if a herd was sick or if they wanted advice on breeding. Gran knew everything.”
    Everything.
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    Even before Mella had opened her eyes, she’d known.
    The herd was still asleep, huddled together as they always were, sharing the warmth of their scaly bodies. She’d felt them, a knot of limbs and tails and wings. It was not a dream, something that skimmed lightly over the surface of her sleeping mind. It was deeper than that; it lodged itself firmly under her breastbone, next to her beating heart. Her dragons would always be there.
    You look after them now, girl.
    â€œYes, Gran,” Mella mumbled sleepily. She pushed back the heavy winter quilt and stuck her feet out of the bed. Lilla moaned as an icy draft snaked its way under the blankets.
    â€œMella, what are you doing?”
    â€œFeed the dragons,” Mella muttered stupidly. The rag rug beside the bed was nearly as cold as the bare wooden floor.
    â€œ What? Mella, it’s the middle of the night. You’re dreaming.”
    Indeed, it was dark. No moonlight came through the one window in the far wall. It seemed as if the floor, the dresses and shawls hanging on the wall and the shoes beneath them, Gran in her bed on the other side of the chimney, had all vanished.
    â€œ Mella. You’re letting the cold in.”
    Mella hesitated. “Gran?”
    Lilla was right. It was the heart of night. It was no time to bring scraps and fresh meat out to the dragons. But why had Gran spoken to her then?
    â€œShe’s asleep. Honestly, Mella, I think you are too. Get back in bed.”
    Mella did. She would have to check on Blackie’s wing in the morning, she thought. Her own shoulder ached a little, and she rubbed it absently. He’d caught his wing on a nail, tearing the thin, tender skin. She’d have to make sure it didn’t get infected. Keep it clean, that was the key. Gran would help her. Even a sick or injured dragon was patient under Gran’s soothing hands.
    But Gran didn’t help her in the morning. Gran didn’t wake again. Mella, trying to keep Blackie quiet while she smoothed salve over the cut on his wing, remembered the words she’d heard in the night.
    â€œI will, Gran,” she whispered. “I promise.”
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    And now she’d left them. Run away with a knight’s squire and a dragon’s egg and left them behind.
    And it wasn’t the first time she’d broken her promise to Gran. Barely a week after Gran had gone, there had been Lady.
    â€œWhat about you?” she asked Roger quickly.“Why did you become a Defender? You didn’t even believe in dragons.”
    She saw a flash of white as Roger smiled. “I suppose I was wrong about that. But I thought there might be, when I first became a squire. Maybe not giant ones, fire-breathers. But something, some fact behind the legend. Some reason for all the old stories. And it was better than…”
    Mella felt sleepiness creeping up on her. But she was curious too. “Better than what?” A yawn nearly swallowed the last word.
    â€œLearning to fight. My brothers are all squires to military orders. My oldest brother died at the attack on Tyrene. Siege tactics and fortifications and hacking people to pieces…At least with the Defenders I got to be outdoors. They’re always traveling the borderlands and the mountains, looking for signs of dragons. My father wasn’t