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DUTY IS AN UNFORGIVING mistress. That is why so many fail to heed it.
—Doren, teacher at Scaleback Academy
* * *
ONIN TAPPED THE EGG lightly at regular intervals as he spun it in its berth. He pressed his ear to the shell, listening for any hint of a flaw in its structure. Despite the poor coloring, the egg grew in a healthy fashion, and the shell remained thick and sturdy. Its berth was heated from coals beneath, making the smooth surface warm to the touch as Onin rotated it continuously, per the master incubator’s instructions.
Onin stared at the strange shieldlike marking on the egg. It pulled at him in a way that was comforting and disturbing all at once. He couldn’t avoid a feeling of familiarity with it; he had seen it too many times in his dreams. Nonetheless, it was surreal to have his dreams come to life, to hold the egg in his hands. It made him think of other things in his dreams that would not be so wonderful to see in his waking life, such as dragon corpses toppling from the sky by the dozens.
He spent most nights in the hatchery. Only when the egg was under the watchful eye of the master incubator did he dare spend time elsewhere. He feared the egg would be stolen from him, destroyed for its supposed medicinal and cosmetic properties, as had the others in the brood. His encounter in the Midlands had demonstrated the value of dragon eggs, even feral ones, and he refused to allow his dream egg to meet such a fate.
His beard grew long and unkempt over the weeks, and he developed a habit of tugging on it. Whenever he got lost in thought, which was increasingly common, he would grab a handful of the bristles and tug absently. He found it strangely comforting, and sometime during the weeks of watching the egg develop, he decided he would keep it in its bushy state. Long beards were considered uncouth among the Great Families, but Onin felt no particular need to live up to someone else’s expectations. All that mattered to him was the egg.
Torreg came to check on him a few times but found him distracted and inattentive. His father-in-law tried to convince him to return to his home and reminded him his wife was waiting for him there. Onin took no notice or simply muttered something about going to see her after the task was finished. No matter how Torreg would protest or plead, Onin would not budge. Hangric also made a point of visiting him in the hatchery but fared no better than Torreg in convincing him to return home. Onin simply would have none of it.
Yolan came to visit him at the hatchery once, after a week had elapsed. She entered the dark heat of the incubation chamber with her usual alluring elegance. Her displeasure became apparent once the smells of sweating humans and rutting dragons assaulted her nostrils. Onin hardly spared her a glance. The egg consumed his attention, even in the face of his wife’s ire.
"By the gods, you stink," she said. Her tone implied the unpleasant aroma of the hatchery was solely his responsibility. "When was the last time you bathed?"
Onin didn’t answer her question. He knew she didn’t really care about that and was only trying to draw him out. He chose silence rather than engage in her game. He knew what she was really about. Sensing his resolve, she went right to the heart of it.
"This egg is sickly," she said, indicating his prize with a vague gesture. "It must be destroyed."
"No," said Onin. "It will hatch."
"You know as well as I do that it will not," she countered. "The striations have covered the entire shell. It even has a huge splotch there." She pointed at the shield-shaped mark. "We waste valuable resources caring for an egg that will never hatch. If we wait any longer, it will lose all value to us. Destroy it now and the remains will help offset our costs."
"No," repeated Onin. "You destroyed the rest of this clutch. You’ve destroyed every clutch since we’ve been married. At the slightest imperfection, you’re ready to do so. It’s no wonder the Manespikes haven’t produced a viable dragon in years; you’re too focused on selling the eggs for cosmetics and aphrodisiacs."
As was often the case, Yolan’s temper flared, and she resorted to violence. Her hand lashed out like a viper, but Onin was prepared. He caught her slim wrist in his beefy hand and held her fast.
"How dare you!" she spit. "You’ve no idea what it takes to keep our manor afloat. Since our breeders"—she sneered at the shocked attendants—"lack competence to produce a dragon for sale; I do what I must to bring money to us. If it wasn’t for those cosmetics and aphrodisiacs you deride, we would be paupers already."
"What of your family?" asked Onin. "You’ll never restore the Manespike reputation without producing good dragons. There’s no harm in trying to hatch one egg out of each clutch. Surely the profit lost won’t ruin the family estate."
Yolan yanked her arm from his grasp. Her fury so heightened, she seemed on the verge of tears.
"What good is reputation to the poor?" she said. "The Manespikes have a long and notable history as dragon breeders, but maybe that day has passed. We should be looking to new endeavors."
"Dragon breeding has been the family vocation for generations," said Onin. "Who are you to change that? What would your father say about abandoning such a legacy?"
Yolan gave a bitter laugh. "My father chose to join the Guard because the dragons were not supporting themselves. We needed the money to cover the costs of raising them. When my mother died, father was still stationed in the Midlands, so it was left to me to run the household. Barely more than a girl, I managed a huge pile of debt incurred by my ancestors’ noble profession." Sarcasm dripped from her tongue.
Onin absently ran his fingers through the bed of warmed sand the egg rested in, the warmth pleasant against his skin. He had no reply for Yolan’s words—indeed, he’d never known the difficulties of the family finances. Then he thought back on the squadron of servants who cleaned, cooked, and did all of the work around the manor. Some were frivolous, such as the muscled fan-bearer, but many filled necessary positions. The manor required a full staff, and the resources needed to support so many were increasingly apparent to Onin. Still his stubbornness would not allow him to relent. "One egg will not sink us."
Whatever softening Onin thought he detected in his wife disappeared like a wisp of smoke in a strong breeze. Her expression hardened more than ever, and she spun and fled from the incubation chamber, one hand covering her face.
Onin turned his attention back to the egg. He might be the victor in the moment, but he knew the battle was far from over.
* * *
THE DREAM CAME AND went each time Onin slept, and it interwove itself into his waking life. His days and nights became a string of events surreal in their repetitiveness. He would check the sands, feeling to see if it became too hot or too cold. His fingers wandered the surface of the shell, looking for weaknesses or flaws but finding none. At moments the mismatched eyes appeared to him like a specter left over from his wound-induced fever. His eyes had followed the patterns of the striations so many times, he committed them to memory. In the sporadic moments he would lie down to sleep, invariably next to the egg, even with eyes closed, he was able to reconstruct the patterns in his mind’s eye.
The shield he knew best of all. He stared at the strange blotch for untold hours, lost in his own meandering thoughts. Often the child floating on a shield-shaped bed of reeds came to his mind unbidden. He was sure now that he was seeing himself as an infant; it was how he had been found, he knew. The shield was part of him somehow.
The old woman had known about the shield. Indeed, she seemed to know all about the dream. He wondered how she could know the things she did. The idea that the contents of his mind were not private was unnerving. If she knew his dreams, what else might she know? Did the gods grant her preternatural vision? The ancient stories of the Founders were filled with such things.
Onin’s musings were interrupted by a sudden movement from the egg. He jumped as it twitched in its berth. The movement was slight at first, but noticeable, and a tapping sound began to emanate from within. The activity became more pronounced, flinging little bits of sand about, and Onin crouched closer, watching with rapt excitement.
"Master Incubator!" he cried. The man rushed to the berth followed by his assistant. They crouched on either side of Onin, anxious to watch the egg wiggle about on the bed of sand.
All three gasped in unison as a crack appeared near the top of the egg’s shell. Without thinking, Onin reached out to touch it, but the master incubator placed his own hand in the way.
"Forgive me, my lord," he said in his raspy voice. "But we mustn’t disturb the hatching process. If the hatchling is to live, it must escape on its own."
Onin could only nod.
The crack widened and branched further across the surface of the shell until a triangle shape appeared directly over the shield-shaped mark. The piece fluttered in place several times and fell away from the egg. A scaled snout with a minuscule horn on its tip protruded from the hole it left behind. The nostrils flared ever so slightly, and Onin’s stomach dropped as the tiny dragon inside took its first breath.
The master incubator let out a burst of happy laughter. "That’s a good sign, my lord," said the old man. "It’s a small egg, but there’s a fighter inside, mark my words."
The cracks spiderwebbing from the hole continued to widen and branch further, and more pieces of the egg began to fall away. Minute wings, soft and wet, unfurled from the sides and flapped to shake away fragments of shell clinging to them. The front of the egg burst open, and the baby dragon plopped face-first into the sand.
Excitement turned to sober concern as the gathered men beheld the misshapen form before them. The creature’s spine was malformed, and a distinct hump grew from one shoulder. The general shape of the dragon kept one of its wings at an awkward, ungainly angle.
"Ah, deformed as well as a runt," stated the master incubator with obvious disappointment. "It’s doubtful the beast will even be able to fly with that twist in the back."
After a moment, the head rose and shook the sand away. The baby dragon opened its eyes and looked about uncertainly, blinking repeatedly as its eyes adjusted. Onin’s heart began to race as he noticed its eyes. One was amber, while the other glittered like a gemstone.
"Can’t be." The words escaped from his lips unbidden, barely a whisper.
The tiny dragon lifted its gaze to Onin’s. The small eyes burned into his own, and just as in his dream, they superimposed themselves over his vision, as if his dreams had broken free of their confines to be in his waking life. A word came to his mind in that moment, a name, the dragon’s name.
Jehregard.