The Dragon in the Volcano by Kate Klimo Read Free Book Online

gazing into a fire. At first, all you saw was red, but when you looked closer, you saw streaks of orange and blue and yellow and white and green.
    “I wonder who lives here,” he said.
    “Dragons!” Daisy crowed as she pointed down the beach. Two very large dragons were bounding toward them. They were tossing a ball that looked as if it were made of fire. As the dragons drew nearer, the smaller one looked very familiar.
    “It’s Emmy!” he shouted.
    “It is! It is!” said Daisy, flapping her hands in excitement.
    They both began jumping up and down and calling out to their dragon.
    Emmy pulled up short and waved both arms. Tossing the ball to the other dragon, she popped open her wings and skimmed along the beach toward them. “Jesse! Daisy! My favorite Keepers!” she cried, catching them up in her arms.
    “We’re your
only
Keepers, I hope,” said Jesse as he nestled against bright scales that were, if anything,more dazzling here than at home. “We thought we’d lost you.”
    “But you followed my trail of socks and found me. Aren’t I a clever dragon?” Emmy said with a pleased chuckle.
    “You’re the cleverest dragon in the world!” Daisy said.
    “Oh, no!” Emmy said, setting them back down again and shaking her head. “Jasper is the cleverest dragon in the world. He’s my fiery mote.”
    “Your
what
?” Jesse asked.
    “The fiery mote of my heart,” Emmy said. “That’s what they call boyfriends and girlfriends here.”
    They all watched as the other dragon—the fiery mote of Emmy’s heart—approached.
    “I thought a mote was a tiny little thing,” Daisy whispered to Jesse. “This guy’s anything but.”
    Emmy said shyly, “Jesse and Daisy, meet my fiery mote, Jasper.”
    Jasper bowed to them. “The adorable child exaggerates,” he said in a rumbling voice. “Emerald and I are just boons.”
    “Boons?” Daisy asked.
    “He means friends,” Emmy said. “And we’re that, too.”
    Jesse stared up at the hulking dragon. Muchlarger than Emmy, he had bronze-gold scales that looked like medieval armor. Jesse felt more than a little intimidated, and it wasn’t just the dragon’s size. It was the two heavy bronze horns that sprang from his head. Emmy’s horns were just little nubs. These horns were long and sharp. What did Emmy see in this guy? He was about as far from Dewey Forbes as you could get!
    “How do you do?” Daisy said. “Any boon of Emmy’s is a boon of ours.”
    Daisy prodded Jesse with a sharp elbow.
    “It’s nice to meet you,” Jesse said with a nod. “Nice, uh,
horns
you got there,” he added rather awkwardly.
    “Aren’t they
magisterial
?” Emmy said adoringly.
    Jesse thought they made him look like a monster Viking or a king-size devil, but he said, “So, how did you two kids meet?”
    “Right here on the shores of the Lake of Fire!” Emmy said. “Isn’t it romantic? Like Chad and Amanda in Maui!”
    “The Lake of Fire?” Jesse said. “I don’t see any fire.”
    As if on cue, they heard a dull roar. A mound, like a mini-volcano, erupted from the surface of the lake, spewed a fountain of fire and magma, and then subsided.
    “What
is
this place?” Daisy asked.
    “The Fiery Realm!” Emmy said. “And that there is the Ruby City. Isn’t it nifty?”
    Jasper bent and rumbled something into Emmy’s ear.
    “Whispering must not be rude in the Fiery Realm,” Daisy commented to Jesse through tightly clenched teeth.
    When Jasper was finished whispering, Emmy said to them, “I must take you to meet Lady Flamina and Lord Feldspar.”
    “Who?” Jesse asked.
    “The Grand Beacons of the Fiery Realm,” said Emmy. “I have met them many times. Jasper says it’s against the Beacons’ Code for you to be here without their sanction. Come on.”
    Jesse and Daisy hurried along after the two dragons as they led the way through a set of soaring arched gates into the heart of the Ruby City.
    Jesse said, “I don’t know about you, Daze, but I don’t