Fire Scales E-Book

Bárbara Pastor

• Herausgeber: Angels Fortune Editions
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

The young Kyone, priestess of Hibernia, is taken as a prisoner to the king. She possesses something very valuable that the king needs to maintain power. However, in exchange for handing it over, she Kyone imposes a condition on the king. Captain Dasheth takes on the difficult task of mediating between the monarch and Kyone; but an unexpected event between the captain and the young prisoner endangers the safety of both. The future of the royal family and the entire Kingdom of Hibernia will depend on whether the king accepts the condition imposed by Kyone. True power is not always that of the strongest, but rather that of the one who uses force best.

Leseprobe

A novel by

Bárbara Pastor

Fire scales

The Kingdom of hibernia

First edition: June 2024

© Copyright of the work: Bárbara Pastor

© Copyright of the edition: Angels Fortune Publishing Group

ISBN: 978-84-128676-0-2ISBN digital: 978-84-128676-1-9

ISBN translation: 978-4-128873-4-1

Legal Deposit: B 8957-2024

Translation: Taylor Doyle

Translation review: Blanca De La Rosa

Editing by Ma Isabel Montes Ramírez©Angels Fortune Editions www.angelsfortuneditions.com

Rights reserved for all countries. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, nor compiled in a computer system, nor transmitted in any form or by any means, whether electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording. or by other means, nor the loan, rental or any other form of transfer of the use of the copy without prior written permission of the copyright owners.

«Any form of reproduction, distribution, public communication or transformation of this work can only be carried out with the authorization of its owners, except as provided by law.»

Part one

1

She knew as soon as she looked up. There was no sign of rain, so the fire was going to continue devouring the forest. Khione would have to choose between letting her mother die or dying with her. They’d managed to escape the massacre in Hibernia together. The fire had burned the Highlands’ capital to ashes, and after several days, the fire was still raging. Khione was rushing ahead, hoping to reach the lake. She could barely continue to carry such weight, and she was losing her strength. Grâanna fell behind. Hopefully, he could still lift off despite his broken wing. Dragons are survivors by nature, and Grâanna, had proven that on many occasions. Upon seeing the flames advancing, he surely tried to get to safety… or so she wanted to think. Khione wouldn’t be able to live without her dragon.

The most important thing now was her injured mother. She was losing a lot of blood, and her leg didn’t look good at all. She needed rest, which was the only thing Khione couldn’t offer since the flames were spreading fast. They wouldn’t reach the lake if they didn’t pick up the pace. Black Lake was their only hope. Judging by the crackling of the fire, Khione knew that the flames were near.

Either I leave Mum behind, or I keep walking and risk the fire catching up on us…

If she’d both hands free, she would be able to hold on to her mother tightly, but in her right hand, she was carrying the Penates, the little statues of the household gods. The hope of building a new home lay within them.

‘Don’t look back, Khione. Don’t look back…’ her mother repeated in a faint voice. What she was really telling her daughter was to leave her there and go on without her. But how can a daughter leave her mother abandoned in the forest? For days they’d endured a fire that was sweeping through Hibernia. There were hardly any signs of life left, only the screams of people fleeing the infernal blaze. All Khione had left was her mother, but not for long. She was losing a lot of blood and the wound in her leg was proving fatal, but if they stopped, it would be the end of everything. The flames would reach them, just as they’d reached her father. All the effort would’ve been for nothing. Who would look after the dragon tree if Khione didn’t make it to the Black Lake? If she died with her mother, it would be the end of the Simorgh bloodline. Hibernia would fade from memory, the thousand-year-old dragon tree would face destruction, and evil king Taurion would convert Astyrion into the sole kingdom.

A groan pierced the air. Was her mother trying to tell her something? There was no time to find out. Holding her by the arm with the little strength she had left, Khione quickened her pace, staring straight ahead. Don’t look back…

An unmistakable smell told her that the lake was close by. She had to get to it. Her mother’s weight was becoming unbearable, and she could hardly breathe from the heat of the flames that were only a few metres away. She felt them getting closer and closer. She heard the same groan, but this time she knew it wasn’t her mother who was trying to tell her something. It was Grâanna! He was there with them. He looked miserable and seemed to be badly wounded, but he was alive. The little dragon had escaped the flames. They were safe.

Khione helped her mother to lie down on the grass. There was nothing to fear now that they were near the lake. Not even fire or arrows could pierce the Silver Circle. Behind them lay the completely burned forest and their home in the Hibernian Highlands.

‘You’re alive!’ Khione stroked the little dragon, who was trying to keep one eye open because the other one was…

Khione felt the warmth of a tear sliding down her cheek. Now wasn’t the time to cry, she had to think about what to do next. She brushed the tear away and covered her mother’s shivering body with her tunic. The blood had spread all over her leg, and her breathing was very weak. She glanced up to the heavens, longing for a ray of sunshine. However, the sky was turning grey, giving no indication that the sun would appear.

Suddenly, lightning struck the ground and Khione shuddered. It was the signal of the gods. Very carefully, she held her mother’s head, knowing that this was the last time they would be together. Looking into each other’s eyes, both mother and daughter said their final goodbyes.

Surrounded by clouds, the mother disappeared into the vastness of the Black Lake. Beside Khione, little Grâanna had fallen asleep.

Goodbye, Mum…

2

Khione knew she wasn’t alone, someone close by was watching her. She could barely see anything, only the shimmering of the leaves coming from the Drago. She felt safe in the Silver Circle, and all she wanted right now was to regain her strength and for Grâanna to recover from the injury in his left eye.

Taurion’s damn soldiers… They’ve no respect…

As soon as she felt strong enough and Grâanna could take flight with his broken wing, they would have to leave before the soldiers discovered her. Although no one could break through the Circle, Khione didn’t trust those savages who destroyed the forest out of pure greed. She noticed something moving and thought she heard the neigh of a horse. Without a doubt, it was Taurion’s men. They knew Khione was alive. She wasn’t worried about being taken prisoner, but she wouldn’t allow them to harm Grâanna. He was possibly the last dragon alive. The sale of scales on the black market had cost the lives of thousands of dragons.

The neighing of a horse indicated that some soldiers were lurking nearby, waiting for the order to attack. Under whose orders this time? Without a doubt, they followed the captain’s instructions word for word. It was about to get dark. Would they wait until dawn to attack, or would they risk a misfire? In the darkness, none of them could be completely sure that the young woman they were following was Khione. So far, no one had seen her face.

After a while, the footsteps faded away, confirming that the attack would be at dawn. They would then take her to the palace of Astyrion as a prisoner and force her to reveal the secret of the ancient Drago. Taurion wished to dominate the Seven Kingdoms. With the violence of an army trained for years, he defeated the kingdoms that formed the League of the Highlands one by one. He had one more left to conquer: Hibernia. Since he couldn’t succeed with weapons, he resorted to the most devastating fire in the last hundred years.

Khione wondered who King Taurion had sent this time to lead the army. On previous occasions, the soldiers had shown haste to bring down the Drago, without realising that a three-thousand-year-old tree was in no hurry to be taken down… Taurion’s men already paid a heavy price when the Drago, feeling threatened, swallowed a hundred of them whole. In Hibernia, strength isn’t always a guarantee of victory.

I hope they’ve learned this time… Khione thought as she heard the soldiers moving away. Who will be the brave captain who dares to face the Drago…?

Captain Dasheth had heard many stories about the ancient tree. Incredible stories, all of them terrifying. When he was a little boy, he had nightmares. He dreamt a dragon-shaped tree guarding the forest of Hibernia devoured him. Was the tree a dragon? Dasheth would wonder when he woke up. In his dreams, a giant tree with silver leaves tapped on his windowpanes on stormy nights.

His grandfather told him stories that he listened to with his eyes tightly closed. He didn’t dare open them. The fear he felt, and yet the excitement of imagining dragons with silver scales, was overwhelming. When the story came to an end, he would ask his grandfather to tell it again. Dasheth grew up listening to these stories every night but never thought there would come a day when he would see the Drago up close. On the wall of his room hung a shield that belonged to his ancestors. Made of dragon scales, the shield was the first thing he saw every morning when he woke up.

‘Someday, you’ll carry that shield,’ his grandfather would say. ‘But first, you must learn many things. Anyone can carry a shield, but a drakust… Only a hero can carry it properly. Don’t be in a hurry, everything will come in its own time.’

The grandfather gazed at his grandson intently, hoping to see in his eyes the sparkle that every descendant of Taurion’s kingdom should possess. However, in his grandson’s eyes, he didn’t see such a sparkle. What had happened for that light to fade?

Now that Dasheth had become the youngest captain in Astyrion’s army, it was his turn to lead the expedition towards that cursed tree. Yes, it was cursed because it had swallowed many soldiers on previous expeditions. He never believed the story of the Drago to be true. He thought they were tales his grandfather told him when there was no other form of entertainment. As a child, he didn’t care if the Drago was just a tree or if it was actually a dragon. Now, however, as he went on, he felt the fear increase and prayed to the gods that the trunk of that tree wouldn’t swallow him or any of his men.

Dasheth was leading the expedition with a very clear mission. The king had sent him, and no one else. Despite his youth, Dasheth possessed a special talent for earning respect among the soldiers. This was demonstrated in the first invasion when, as a teenager, he accompanied the army, by order of the king, and to everyone’s surprise, he gave the order to retreat at the moment when victory seemed certain. Just as they had the Drago cornered, for some reason that only Dasheth knew, he ordered the attack to be aborted. This event impressed King Taurion, who was leading the expedition at the time. With astonishment, the king watched as the entire army obeyed the order to retreat without a word, which, despite his young age, had been given firmly by Dasheth. What surprised the king most was that, after returning to Astyrion, he didn’t ask Dasheth why he’d acted that way. Nor did Dasheth show any sign of wanting to talk about it. What was the captain hiding? This question tormented the king, for deep down he feared he knew the answer.

In this new attack on Hibernia, Taurion didn’t hesitate to put Dasheth in command of the army, who was already eighteen years old and respected by everyone in the palace for his loyalty to the kingdom of Astyrion. However, Dasheth’s youth could be a risk at the same time. This was already the third attack on Hibernia. The number of soldiers who’d lost their lives in the previous two was extremely high. Was the king risking losing his captain? This could be a sign of how desperate the King of Astyrion was.

Dasheth couldn’t fail. As much as his heart shrank at the thought of the tree once again opening up and devouring them, they hadn’t ridden day and night to flee like cowards. They hadn’t endured hunger and cold for their fear to make them turn back without completing their duty. They’d crossed the forest with one goal: to take the young Khione, no matter what they had to do to achieve it.

If they relied on their weapons, it wasn’t only because they were well-equipped; on this occasion, Dasheth carried his dragon-scaled shield that had belonged to his ancestors. The elite corps also accompanied him. For the first time, the king had allowed the royal guard to leave the palace. Dasheth knew how much was at stake. Taurion had sent them off with stern words:

Return with the shield, or upon it. The palace gates won’t open for the defeated.

Dasheth rode in silence, recalling these words that echoed in his mind. ‘Who is this Khione girl…’ the captain murmured, keeping his back straight and not wanting to hear his own voice of fear… ‘What can this wild young girl have that’s so valuable to mobilise an army?’

Of all the questions swirling around in his head, the one that truly mattered was: Will the drakust break through the Silver Circle?