Hazel stared into the eyes of the person she was closest to: her Wizard Partner. Gaelyn was the one non-Dr’gon she trusted. What kind of friend was Hazel that she’d lied to Gaelyn, kept a dark secret from her? “I’m sorry. I should have told you.” Trying to calm herself, she ran her tongue over her longest right front fang then took a breath and pointed behind her at the tapestry. “Move the tapestry to one side, and I’ll show you.”

Gaelyn grabbed an edge of the twelve-foot tall tapestry and tried to pull it, but the weight was too much. She put her hands together, bowed her head, and said a simple Movement spell to push the tapestry to one side, baring the granite wall.

Hazel patted Gaelyn’s shoulder. “Did you ever notice how snarky I am about Fae stuff?”

Gaelyn shrugged then shook her head once.

“Good,” Hazel said. “I don’t want anyone to know how much I fear them.” She shook her head. “Not exactly fear. Just that there is something they could use to attack Cl’rnce and the Dr’gon Nations. The fault is mine. I should be able to control it, but I can’t. I can’t protect Cl’rnce. If they steal it …” Since Fae were supposedly unable to cross over onto the Dr’gon plane, she’d never thought much about them—until she found the Prophecy. And then everything changed.

She tapped three seemingly random granite blocks on the wall behind the tapestry, and the wall slid to one side. Now there was an opening to a small room in which a modest granite-topped table stood. On the table on a smaller rough linen pillow sat a fang that sparkled for a moment in the light from the open door but then turned dull. It looked like any other Dr’gon’s Fang, other than the fact that it seemed to be made of crystal. It was no bigger and no smaller than Hazel’s left front fang.

“Looks kind of normal, doesn’t it?” Hazel paced around the table. She never touched the fang. “It’s not. Legend has it that this is the poison Fang of the First Primus.”

Hazel looked at Gaelyn. “I know. Neither Cl’rnce nor I have a poison tooth. No Dr’gon does, not even the ones in the Killer Clan, but the very first Primus did. That Fang is both lethal and powerful. It is the key to the most powerful Dr’gon Magick there is, and,” she stopped for a second so Gaelyn could appreciate the seriousness, “I read that its poison could be used to make a coronated Primus ill and kill him! I’m not sure what it would do to you or me.”

“It’s a threat to Cl’rnce and Great and Mighty?” Gaelyn gasped.

This was the part that Hazel hated. This was her secret. She should have asked for her Wizard Partner’s help from the first, but … Hazel was too ashamed that she had failed to get the Fang to reveal its magick so she could train and protect Cl’rnce. “I could prevent Cl’rnce and Great and Mighty from being harmed if I could wake the Fang and teach them its unique magick. Then it would serve them and give them that extra power the First Primus had. I tried and tried, but I cannot make it do anything. I have no way to train Cl’rnce. No way to protect him.”

“But why hate the Fae? I mean, how are the Fae tied to this?” Gaelyn asked.

“Oh, an obscure Prophecy that one day the Fae will steal it, harness the power, and kill everybody.” Hazel tried to say it all as if it meant nothing, but she felt fury when she thought of the threat she had discovered when she found the Fang. One minute all that had sat on the table had been the Fang, but in the time it took Hazel to draw close to it, the parchment with its warning of a future Fae attack along with the Prophecy of how the Fae could be defeated had appeared.

Hazel had picked the parchment up and read it once, stumbling over the Ancient Dr’gon language she barely recognized. After re-reading the archaic language a second time, she was furious.

The paper had been densely covered with text spelling out the history of the Wars between Fae and Dr’gons. Specifically, it told the tale of the death of the First Primus. During the final battle, a Fae had knocked the Primus to the ground. A unicorn fighting with the Fae had galloped up and kicked out the Dr’gon’s poison fang. She’d been about to retrieve the Fang when one of the Fae had grabbed it and stabbed the Dr’gon Primus with the Fang instead. The Primus had staggered to his feet but was attacked again by the Fae warrior. In the ensuing battle the Primus retrieved the Fang and drove off the Fae forces. He’d only had enough strength left to fly back to the safety of the Dr’gon’s Council Chambers.

There in Ghost Mountain, his Wizard Partner had kept him alive long enough to do the Primus’ bidding. She’d cast a spell to bind the Fang from being used by anyone other than a team of Dr’gon and Wizard Partners. At that point, the Prophecy had used some ancient words Hazel was certain referred to the future and the now current Co-Primus, Cl’rnce and Great and Mighty. In order to use the Fang, the Partners had to be bound together by the Heart Oath. That was the same oath Cl’rnce and Moire Ain had taken at their coronation ceremony. The old Primus’ wizard had concluded by warning that a Fae Queen would one day find the Fang, and the Heart Bonded Dr’gon and Wizard Pair would be all that stood between the Primus and death. And then the wizard had secreted the Fang and the Prophecy parchment.

After that, Fae had been banned from the Dr’gon Realms, but the part that worried Hazel was that the Prophecy said a Fae Queen would manage to travel between the Fae and Dr’gon realms. Which meant the Fae had never meant to honor the Peace that the second Primus and his Wizard Partner made with all the Fae Courts. How dare the Fae even think of threatening her brother and Great and Mighty?

She’d been so angry at the threat to the Co-Primus, that she’d flamed a bit. Hazel hadn’t thought she’d breathed on the parchment, but the scorched edges said otherwise. She had been wary enough of the Fang not to touch it, but she did tuck the slightly smaller scroll in the pouch she carried around her neck.

Gaelyn leaned over and ran her slender fingers through the ashy dust left on the table after Hazel’s accidental flaming. “I’ve never heard of such a Prophecy.” She looked up quizzically, but Hazel ignored the doubt in her Wizard Partner’s voice and the question in her eyes as she rubbed the ashes between her fingers.

“This Prophecy is a big secret only a few seem to know about. I think. Well, I discovered it, and I’m sharing this secret with you, because I need your help.” Hazel leaned over the Fang. She wondered if she could pick it up safely. She was pretty sure she’d read the poison only worked on the Primus. Or was it the Primus’ enemies? She’d had a lot of trouble translating the Ancient Dr’gon on the scroll. There were so many prophecies and warnings, half of which seemed to have expired or were myths to begin with, but still, the warning on the parchment had been worded like all the prophecies and legends taught at Wiz-Tech. It sounded official and there was a vibration that whipped the air as she muttered the words aloud that Hazel associated with dire true warnings. So, she took it seriously. This was a true warning that Fae would sneak in and steal the Fang and use it to kill the Primus.

“Fae are liars and killers,” Hazel said, picturing the creatures she’d never met, but who had warred with Dr’gons once in the distant past and were prophesied to come back and kill a Primus. “They must be. They signed a truce, and yet the Prophecy says they will break it and try to kill Cl’rnce.”

Oddly instead of chiming in with her usual supportive statements, Gaelyn cleared her throat and frowned, still staring at the ash on her fingers.

“What?” Hazel said. “What’s bothering you?”

Gaelyn took a deep breath and peered up. It took a long moment before she said, “Nothing. I’m glad whoever was in the outer chamber did not take the Fang.”

Hazel nodded. She’d changed her mind about sharing anything more about the Fang and why she was really upset. Something was off with Gaelyn.

“How long ago did you find the Fang?” Gaelyn asked.

Hazel sucked on her teeth, uncomfortable once again. She hated lies, and not telling Gaelyn, her Wizard Partner, felt like a big lie. It had been almost a year since she’d found the Fang and tried to get it to work. Breaking into a sparkling shine was all it did. If only it had answered her pleas in some way for more information, she would have been able to train the Co-Primus, to make sure they were the ones meant to use the Fang without dying. She’d failed, and she couldn’t let anyone know that. She’d told herself it was most important that everyone including Gaelyn see her as strong and in control while Cl’rnce and Great and Mighty were learning to be The Primus on their own. It was imperative no potential enemy could see any weakness in her or The Primus.

For now, she’d held all the day to day business of the Primus together. She was relieved that her immature brother, Cl’rnce, and Great and Mighty Wizard Moire Ain were at least attending all their Primus ceremonial duties. There had been very few embarrassing incidents from the two, and those had been mere bumbled spells from the young wizard Moire Ain. Of course, Gaelyn had been indispensable in saving those situations.

Gaelyn and Hazel had handled all the serious disputes and daily Dr’gon Nations governing issues, which was another reason Hazel could not look weak. Her failure with the Fang would make her look very powerless indeed. Enemies would take advantage of the Dr’gon Nations if they saw her as an inept regent or if they thought there was a chance to steal such a powerful magick.

When Gaelyn’s fingers hovered over the Fang, Hazel stopped staring at the Dr’gon’s tooth and making excuses to herself about lying to her Partner. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Hazel warned her. “I mean it’s poisonous. Definitely to the Primus, but I don’t know what it would do to anyone else.” At least she was pretty sure that was what the scroll had said.

“You’ve touched it?” Gaelyn’s stare was intensely fixed on the shine of the Fang as if she was mesmerized. She didn’t look up at Hazel. Her eyes stayed plastered on the Fang.

“No,” Hazel said. Which was a lie. Another one. When she’d found the chamber and the Fang, she’d finally picked it up using an edge of the linen pillow. She’d thought inspecting it closely would tell her if she had accurately translated the Prophecy. If the Dr’gon’s tooth had felt like a fake, she would have thrown it all out. After all she’d arrived in the secret chamber thinking it would make a good place to have some privacy. Cl’rnce was a lot of work, and Hazel was tired. A nap or just some alone time was all she had been after.

But in her paw, the Fang had transformed from dull gray to sparkling with all the colors of the rainbow. Only for a moment, but it had happened. She’d nearly dropped it but managed to close her fist around it before she put it back down.

Now that Hazel thought about it, it was odd that the legend and Prophecy had not been told through the ages, at least by the Wizard Partners. The Dr’gon had died, but the Partner was a witness as well as a participant. It was more than strange that finding the Fang was the first inkling Hazel had had of any of this.

In fact, when she first found it, she’d thought perhaps this was all a practical joke. Maybe Cl’rnce’s, or maybe not. She’d asked Professor Gralph about it. He’d said there existed such an obscure myth, but since the Fang had never been seen, it wasn’t believed. The battle with the Fae that had killed the first Primus had gone down as the end of a long war.

Professor Gralph had been so dismissive of the tale, that Hazel had not asked more. Besides the professor had been busy, and that day she and Gaelyn had five more meetings with representatives of the Dr’gon Nations to which, of course, Cl’rnce hadn’t shown up.

Days then weeks fled by; Hazel was so overwhelmed with the work of being the Co-Primuses’ regent, that she’d only had time to visit the Fang once, and that time to put on a ward. She had used a Confusion spell to keep anyone else from finding the secret chamber.

That spell had undoubtedly stopped the Fae today from getting past the outer chamber to the secret one. The shock of the Fae even getting so near the secret chamber had panicked Hazel. Surprise, shock, and panic. She shook with the possibilities if that Fae had gotten the Fang. From several representatives of the other Dr’gon Nations who had visited recently, she’d heard rumors that the current Fae Queens of the Summer and Winter Courts ceaselessly warred with one another and only managed brief truces when they were busy trying to find a way to travel to the Dr’gon Realms plane. Until now Hazel had just dismissed it as harmless gossip. The magick barrier that kept the Fae from crossing into the Dr’gon Realms was impenetrable to all Fae. They had never before breached the ward that kept them out, so she hadn’t truly worried they would be able to do it now. Perhaps she would have tried harder to learn the magick of the Fang if she had truly believed the Fae posed a real threat.

“Let’s get out of here,” Hazel said thinking how she could use a cool drink and a sit-down. Anything to not think about what could have been if the intruder had gotten into the secret chamber. Anything to avoid the guilt and powerlessness she felt over not being able to harness the Fang’s magick to protect Cl’rnce.

Gaelyn nodded. “I’ll cast a double ward on the outer doors to keep everyone out.”

“Excellent idea!” Hazel led the way back to the corridor. She hoped her Wizard Partner’s spell would be many times stronger than the one she had cast. Who knew if the intruder had noticed Hazel’s ward on the secret room and would be back prepared to break all the way in?

Gaelyn took longer than Hazel expected, and from the length of the spells she cast, Gaelyn was using a truly serious spell on the door to the tower room. At last, Gaelyn was done.

“I see Cl’rnce and Great and Mighty didn’t stick around.” Hazel peered down the empty hall. She turned back to Gaelyn. “Will we be able to get back in?” She said it with what she hoped was a humorous voice to try and move past the tension she felt in Gaelyn.

Gaelyn looked at her, eyes wide. “You will.” And then she hurried back down the corridor to Hazel’s chamber.