Chương 178: Chapter 177 [A Promise Honoured]

Luka sat cross-legged on the blanket, the egg resting in front of him in a patch of full sun, and watched Sam get ready to try the stone again.

"You reckon it'll do the same thing?" Parmo asked, crouched a little way off with the safe distance of someone who'd seen this go strange once already.

"No idea," Sam said.

"That's the point of trying it again." He held the disk flat in both palms, same as before, and pushed mana into it. The runes lit along its surface, faint gold working outward from the center, and the whole thing lifted an inch off his hands, turning slow and steady in the air. The oval began to take shape above it—expanding the way it had done that first time, drawing itself out of nothing like a sketch filling in.

"Here we go," Rika murmured, wings tucking in tight. Luka kept half an eye on it and half on the egg, the shell warm under his palm where he'd rested a hand against it. It didn't move. He glanced back up. Sam's brow had furrowed.

"That's different."

"What is?" Torren asked, already moving closer cautiously.

"The drain. Last time it felt like it was pulling straight out of me, like I didn't have enough to finish whatever it was doing before it threatened to run my well dry. This time it's..." He paused, feeling for the right word.

"Slower. Like it's not all coming from me." The oval kept growing. Bigger than before. Everyone took a step back. Sam went still.

"It stopped."

"What stopped?" Phil asked.

"The drain. I'm not losing any more mana." Sam stared at his own hands like he expected to see something different about them.

"It's just... holding. On its own." The oval had settled into a shape now—tall, wide, easily large enough for two people to walk through side by side, tall enough that even Torren could probably duck through without much trouble. It hung there above the disk, faint and gold at the edges, somewhere between transparent and solid. There was nothing visible through it, just a soft, featureless shimmer, like looking at heat coming off a road on a hot day.

Sam set the stone down on the grass, carefully, like it might do something worse if handled wrong. The oval stayed exactly where it was.

"I have no idea if that's meant to happen or not. It was generated by the stone, but it doesn't seem to be attached to it anymore," Sam said. Everyone drifted a little closer, keeping a respectful ring of distance around the thing itself. Rika leaned in from one angle, then another, wings half-spread for balance as she tried to see it from every side at once. Shai's tail swayed slowly.

"Any idea what it actually is?" Leo asked.

"None," Sam admitted.

"I don't even know what to call it beyond an oval. It's not doing anything. No heat, no sound. It's just floating there." He walked a slow circle around it, hands clasped behind his back like he was examining an exhibit rather than something that might, for all he knew, do anything at all. He didn't touch it. Didn't get closer than an arm's length, no matter how good a look he wanted.

"Can you turn it off?" Torren asked.

"Trying to work that out now." Sam picked the stone back up, turning it over.

"Getting it going was straightforward enough. Push mana in. Getting it to stop, though—" He pressed his palm flat to the disk again, this time trying to pull rather than push, willing the mana back the way it had come. The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Nothing happened. The oval didn't so much as flicker.

"Right." Sam sat back on his heels.

"That's a problem for another day, then. It doesn't seem to be doing any harm just sitting there."

"You hope," Phil said.

"I hope," Sam agreed. Luka barely heard the last of it. His hand was still resting against the egg, and it had started to move. Not the same small roll as before. This time it kept going, a steady rocking that didn't settle back into stillness the way it had every time until now.

"Guys," he said. The group's attention swung over as one. A soft, high sound came from inside the shell, and then, right along one side, a hairline crack appeared. Torren was moving before anyone else had fully registered what they were looking at.

"Everyone back," he said, already herding Rika and Parmo away with an arm out.

"Luka, stay there. The rest of you, out of its sight. The second it opens its eyes, the first thing it sees is the one it'll bond to." Nobody argued. Phil grabbed Sam by the sleeve and pulled him back with the others, all of them retreating behind the treeline at the clearing's edge, out of view but close enough to watch. Shai lingered a second longer than the rest, glanced at Luka, then followed. And then it was just him. Luka stared down at the egg, heart going harder than he'd expected.

Do I have everything sorted? Food, water, somewhere for it to sleep... Is it going to like me? What if it doesn't like me? The crack spread, slow, then all at once, a piece of shell breaking away entirely and dropping into the grass. Underneath was gold. Not the dull gold of the shell itself, but something richer, softer-looking, catching the light in a way the egg never had. Scales, he realized.

The egg itself had scale patterns making up the surface, but these were actual scales, smooth and small, glinting where the sun hit them directly. More of the shell gave way, chipping off in small pieces now, and a shape began working its way free, folded in on itself, struggling against the last of it still clinging on. Luka held perfectly still and watched a dragon crawl out of an egg in front of him. It was tiny, small enough it could have curled up entirely inside one of his palms if he'd offered it.

Its wings were folded tight against its body, more like crumpled paper than anything that would ever hold real weight in the air, and its tail was long relative to the rest of it, already flicking weakly against the blanket as it pushed itself upright on legs that didn't seem to know what they were meant to be doing yet.

A pale white ran along its underbelly, soft against the gold of everything else, and its snout was short and blunt, nothing like the sharp lines Luka had half-expected from every dragon he'd seen here or in media back on Earth. Then its eyes opened. Bright blue, brighter than anything Luka had seen on an animal before, and they found him immediately. Didn't wander. Didn't search the clearing first. Just locked onto him, direct and certain, like it had known exactly where to look before it had even opened them.

Something clicked into place in Luka's mind. He didn't have words for it, but he understood it anyway, the same way he understood how to breathe. A thread, invisible, strung tight between himself and the small golden thing in front of him. Not his. Not exactly. Close enough to it that the difference didn't matter. He wondered if this was a magical version of parental love. He didn't have kids, but he'd had pets he'd loved. This felt more than that.

A chime sounded somewhere at the back of his mind, distant and less important than any other time he'd heard it. He ignored it completely. The dragon began to move. It wasn't graceful. Its legs kept sliding out from under it, wings flaring for balance each time it overcorrected, and it took what felt like an eternity for it to cross the handful of feet between the broken shell and Luka's lap. He didn't reach for it. Didn't dare, not yet, not until it had made the choice itself.

It collapsed the last few inches, more falling into him than climbing, and let out a small, satisfied sound as it curled itself into the space where his legs met.

"Hey," Luka whispered, voice cracking slightly. He didn't dare move his hands yet, hovering just above the small form.

"Hey, little guy." The dragon made another sound, softer this time, something between a coo and a hum, and its eyes slid shut. Within seconds it was asleep, tucked against him like it had always belonged there, small chest rising and falling in quick, shallow breaths. Luka sat frozen for a long moment, not trusting himself to move in case he woke it.

Somewhere behind the treeline he could hear the others waiting, holding whatever conversation they were having in careful whispers, giving him the space Torren had asked for. It was only once his heartbeat had settled back to something normal that he remembered the chime. He noticed and then pulled up the new tab labelled Companion.

[Companion Bonded] Name: Unnamed Sex: Male Age: 0 days Species: Light Dragon Skills: None yet developed [EXPAND] A single line sat beneath the rest, set apart from the clinical detail above it. This one is special. A promise honored, a soul protected. Care for him, and you'll have a friend for life—and perhaps something more. Luka read it twice, then looked back down at the small golden shape sleeping against him.

He didn't need the message to tell him what to do; he already knew he'd protect his new friend with his life.