Chương 32: A Dragon Named Aura

"Out of curiosity," I began, studying the enormous dragon standing before me, "can you transform into something smaller?" Aurelion Ashgarde, Lord of the Crystal Peak, Keeper of the Sunken Hoard, and Flame Above Mortal Kings, stared down at me with the kind of insulted expression only a dragon could manage. It was an impressive display of offense, especially from a creature without eyebrows.

"Why?" he demanded.

"For practical reasons," I replied, which was mostly true. A smaller form would make the dragon easier to transport and conceal, while also reducing the chances of him setting fire to my hotel simply by turning around too quickly. The more honest reason had less to do with practicality. I had already begun imagining Vesper's reaction if I returned home with a dragon perched on my shoulder.

That irritating crow was forever watching me through its little beady eyes, judging from rafters and curtain rods like a red-glass tax collector. I had never decided whether it disliked me, respected me, or simply enjoyed making me feel watched within my own establishment. Returning with a dragon would almost certainly unsettle it, and that alone made the idea worth pursuing. Aurelion huffed, releasing smoke from his nostrils.

"I can obviously polymorph. Such a feat is well within my capabilities."

"Obviously." His tone made it clear that Aurelion considered boasting a sacred duty. He straightened with wounded pride.

"Do not mock powers beyond your comprehension, immortal."

"I comprehend that you were just beaten by my children." His mouth snapped shut. Behind me, Celeste made a delighted sound. Golden light flared between Aurelion's scales before he could launch into another grand declaration. It spread across his enormous body in brilliant veins, illuminating the shattered crystals around us until the entire ruined peak glittered beneath the glow. The mountain wind surged without warning.

Dust, ash, and fragments of stone spiraled across the ledge as Aurelion's outline began to distort. His vast wings folded inward, his long neck drew back, and the crushing weight of his body seemed to collapse into itself. White-gold radiance swallowed him completely. For several seconds, nothing stood before us but a towering column of white-gold light, brilliant enough to bleach the mountainside pale. The radiance suddenly contracted, folding inward with a sharp rush of air before vanishing completely.

In the place of the enormous dragon stood a little girl… I could only stare, momentarily robbed of every intelligent thought. Adrian became perfectly still beside me, while Celeste released a startled gasp. The girl appeared no older than twelve or thirteen, though from certain angles she might have passed for even younger. Platinum-blonde hair cascaded nearly to her waist, threaded with pale golden highlights that shimmered whenever they caught the sunlight. Her skin possessed a soft, almost luminous pallor.

It was not the cold, deathless paleness of a vampire, but something warmer and unmistakably draconic, as though a trace of the radiance from her transformation remained beneath the surface. Small golden horns curved gracefully from her head, while a slender tail flicked behind her in open irritation. A white-and-gold dress covered her slight frame, appearing to have been shaped from magic rather than sewn from ordinary fabric.

Scale-like patterns bordered the material, and tiny crystal accents glittered along the sleeves and hem. Only her eyes remained unchanged. They were still the brilliant gold of the dragon she had been moments before, burning with equal measures of pride, fury, and wounded dignity.

"Behold," she declared, crossing her small arms, "the refined humanoid form of Aurelion Ashgarde, Lord of the Crystal Peak, Keeper of the Sunken Hoard, and Flame Above…" Celeste was already moving. Before I could stop her, she rushed forward and wrapped the little dragon girl in a crushing embrace.

"She's adorable!" Aurelion stiffened in absolute horror.

"Unhand me!" Celeste only hugged her tighter.

"Mother, she's so cute." The dragon planted both hands against Celeste's face and began pushing with all her strength.

"Release me, silver pest!" Celeste turned her head just enough to look toward me, her cheeks compressed beneath the dragon's palms.

"Can we keep her?" I looked at Adrian. Adrian looked at Celeste. Then he offered the smallest and most defeated shrug a man could manage. It was the gesture of someone who understood that the situation had already escaped every reasonable method of containment. Aurelion's tail lashed with sudden force, and her foot struck Celeste before anyone could react. Celeste flew nearly thirty feet across the mountainside, struck the ground, and rolled once through the dust.

A moment later, she sprang back to her feet with both arms raised, looking more delighted than injured.

"She's spirited!"

"Don't encourage her," Adrian warned. I ignored both of them and approached the girl. She turned toward me with her chin raised, her pride somehow still intact despite looking more suited to arguing about bedtime than demanding tribute from entire towns. I stopped in front of her and studied her carefully.

"How old are you?" Her expression sharpened.

"Why does that matter?"

"Because you look like a child."

"I'm not a child."

"You're wearing a child's face."

"It's a compact, battle-neutral form."

"That means child." She huffed.

"I'm eighty-seven years old." My eyes widened before I could prevent it. Eighty-seven... I kept repeating that number in my head. The dragon that had terrorized towns, demanded gold, called herself the Flame Above Mortal Kings, and behaved like an ancient tyrant was younger than Celeste had been the first time she called me Mother.

"What?" Aurelion snapped.

"Dragons mature slowly. Our lifespans far exceed those of humans."

"I'm not human, and I don't age either." She stared at me. Her brows slowly furrowed.

"Well, then, are you not stranger than I am?" she asked.

"I'm simply a youngster at eighty-seven." A youngster… I had threatened, humiliated, and possibly recruited a juvenile dragon, which was almost certainly morally complicated. Fortunately, I had never cared much for moral complications unless they threatened to interfere with business. Celeste soon returned to my side, brushing dust from her dress and smiling as though being kicked across a mountain by a dragon child had somehow improved her day.

"She called herself a youngster," Celeste whispered.

"I heard her."

"She really is a baby." Aurelion pointed furiously at her.

"I'm not a baby!" Celeste pressed one hand to her chest.

"A baby with titles."

"I will bite you."

"Mother, she threatened me. It was precious." I rubbed the bridge of my nose as Adrian's mouth twitched at the edge of my vision. He clearly found the situation amusing yet made no effort to intervene in Celeste's antics. I returned my attention to the dragon.

"Why did you give yourself such a grand name?" Her posture stiffened.

"It's a name worthy of me."

"Your current appearance does not match it."

"I'm a dragon. My true form matches it perfectly." This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"You look like a child who stole a theater script." Celeste turned away, but the broad smile she failed to hide made her amusement obvious. A faint golden flush spread across Aurelion's cheeks.

"What concern is it of yours what I call myself?" I studied her again. Aurelion Ashgarde. The name was ridiculous, grandiose, and far too long. It had suited the enormous dragon looming over Crystal Peak, but it felt strangely mismatched now that she stood before me like an offended little princess with horns and a tail.

"Nope, this won't do." Her eyes narrowed.

"What?"

"From now on, your name is Aura." The moment the name left my lips, something shifted between us. The mountain remained unchanged, yet a sudden pressure bloomed within my chest and reached toward hers, drawing tight like an invisible thread. For one startled moment, the sensation resembled the creation of another child, but the resemblance ended almost as quickly as it began. This bond carried no hunger.

It didn't sink into my marrow or settle behind my ribs like the connections I shared with Adrian, Celeste, Malcolm, and Vera. No thirst accompanied it, and I felt no second life becoming tangled with my death. Instead, the magic closed around my presence with the weight of something ancient recognizing a command. It was a pact formed through defeat, a claim sealed through submission, and a name accepted by one who had already accepted their fate.

Aura froze as the bond took hold, and I found myself unable to move with her. Her golden eyes widened. Violet began to spread through them in thin veins, consuming the gold until her irises transformed completely. When the change finished, she stared up at me with eyes the exact shade of my own, deep amethyst and unmistakably bound to my power. Celeste's amusement vanished. Then the bond settled into place, and understanding followed.

Dragons were governed by instincts far older than their pride or the titles they chose to carry. Defeat demanded recognition, but willing submission carried a deeper power. When a dragon accepted a true name from one it acknowledged as superior, that name became more than a word. It became a bond. Aura had been defeated by my children, but they had fought at my command. When she lowered her head afterward, it was my authority she had accepted and my strength she had acknowledged.

By giving her a new name, I had unknowingly completed that submission. Something within Aura recognized me as the one who had conquered her, not through a single battle but through the power, loyalty, and unity of those who stood beneath me. In the language of dragons, that recognition carried its own meaning. I was her master now, bound to her through an ancient claim neither of us had expected. Somehow, without intending to, I had claimed a dragon. That was new. Aura blinked up at me through newly violet eyes.

The irritation had not vanished from Aura's expression, but the newly formed bond had changed something fundamental beneath it. Her rigid posture eased, and the arrogance that had once placed her above everyone else began to bend around a single new certainty. Her pride was still there. It had simply chosen someone else to stand above it. Aura took a cautious step toward me, her violet eyes fixed upon my face.

The movement was slow enough to make me suspicious, and I braced myself for whatever strange instinct the bond had awakened in her. She might bite me, breathe fire at point-blank range, or unleash enough dragon magic to remove what remained of the mountainside. A furious tantrum also seemed entirely possible. Instead, Aura suddenly closed the distance and threw both arms around my waist.

"Master!" I stared down at the dragon clinging to my waist while Celeste gasped behind me and Adrian slowly closed his eyes, as though refusing to witness the situation might somehow make it disappear. With no better source of guidance available, I looked toward the sky for answers. The sky, being entirely useless, offered nothing but clouds.

"What in the world?" I exclaimed. Aura clung to me even more, pressing her cheek against my stomach while her tail swished behind her.

"Master," she repeated, as though testing the word and finding that she liked the sound of it.

"I heard you the first time. There is no need to keep saying it." Aura responded by tightening her arms around my waist. I remained completely still while attempting to understand how a dragon's personality could shift so dramatically through the power of a single name. Moments ago, Aura had been threatening cities and announcing herself with enough titles to exhaust a royal herald. Now she was clinging to me as though she had always belonged there.

This was becoming a pattern, and not one I found particularly reassuring. Behind her, Celeste's expression shifted from surprise to disbelief before settling into something far more dangerous: pure, wounded betrayal.

"Oh," Celeste murmured. I knew that tone well enough to recognize the accusation already forming behind it.

"No."

"You let her hug you."

"I didn't let her do anything. She attacked my waist."

"You also didn't throw her away."

"She's a dragon." The excuse meant absolutely nothing, but it was the first defense that came to mind.

"I'm your daughter."

"And she is still a dragon." Celeste's eyes narrowed.

"So if I become a dragon, I may hug you whenever I please?"

"You already hug me whenever you please."

"That's not the point." Before I could ask what the point was, Celeste rushed forward and wrapped herself around my other side. Naturally, she would do something like this. I now had a juvenile dragon wrapped around my front and Celeste clinging to my side like a silver-haired parasite with abandonment issues. Aura immediately glared at her.

"She's mine." Celeste froze, and then slowly looked down at the little dragon.

"Excuse me?" Aura's violet eyes flashed.

"Master is mine." Celeste smiled. It wasn't a pleasant smile.

"No, little lizard. Mother was mine first."

"I'm a dragon."

"And I'm older."

"I'm stronger."

"Not yet." Aura's tail snapped through the air.

"Master named me."

"I declared myself her daughter before you were even hatched."

"I was not hatched!" Celeste glanced toward me.

"Was she hatched?" Aura released an indignant cry far too powerful for such a small body, and I fixed my gaze straight ahead as though refusing to acknowledge the situation might somehow undo it. Surely this wasn't happening. I had survived nearly two centuries of fire, witches, curses, wars, collapsing kingdoms, and every variety of monster the world had placed in my path. I had faced armies, endured betrayal, and brought a dragon to submission upon the ruins of its own mountain.

Yet this, apparently, would be the end of me. I would be smothered between a clingy elemental sage and a possessive juvenile dragon while they argued over ownership of my person. In desperation, I turned toward Adrian. He stood several paces away with his arms crossed, observing the scene through an expression so deliberately neutral that it crossed the line from caution into treason.

"A little help?" I stared daggers at him. He raised both hands.

"Sorry." My eyes narrowed.

"Sorry?"

"This is beyond my authority."

"Coward."

"Experienced," he corrected. Celeste tried to pry Aura loose with one hand while keeping her other arm firmly wrapped around my waist. Rather than release me, Aura climbed higher and hooked both arms around mine, leaving the rest of her small body hanging from it. She then planted both feet against Celeste's side and pushed with all the stubborn determination of a dragon defending its hoard.

"Release Master!"

"You release Mother!"

"She is Master!"

"She is Mother!"

"I'm standing directly between you." Neither of them listened. I attempted to step backward, but both of them moved with me. Aura growled. Celeste gasped in outrage.

"Did you just growl at me?"

"You're touching Master."

"I have been touching Mother for one hundred and fifty years."

"Then you have had enough." Celeste looked personally attacked. I slowly raised both hands and placed one palm against Celeste's forehead and the other against Aura's.

"Enough." They both froze beneath the weight of my voice, proving that at least some portion of my authority remained functional. I looked down at Aura first.

"You're not to attack Celeste unless I permit it." Aura frowned.

"But she is in my way."

"Celeste is often in everyone's way. We tolerate it."

"Mother," Celeste protested. I turned toward her.

"You're also forbidden from antagonizing the dragon child I have apparently acquired."

"She started it."

"You're nearly two centuries old."

"She called you hers."

"You call me Mother every twelve minutes."

"That's different."

"How?" Celeste opened her mouth but then quickly closed it. She opened it once more, apparently found no answer worth offering, and instead tightened her embrace.

"I do not like this development." Celeste complained.

"That much is obvious," I sighed. Aura looked up at me, and the possessive defiance in her expression faded into something unexpectedly vulnerable.

"Do you dislike me, Master?" The question came, without any trace of her earlier arrogance. The uncertainty beneath it caught me off guard and made the sharp response forming on my tongue considerably harder to deliver. I studied the young dragon standing before me. Platinum hair framed her small face, golden horns curved from her head, and her newly violet eyes searched mine while her restless tail shifted behind her.

Only a short time ago, Aura had been demanding tribute and terrorizing the nearby towns because someone had convinced her that this was how a proper dragon should behave. By the standards of her species, however, she was still young and appeared to be imitating the fearsome creature she believed the world expected her to become. Now she was bound to me and waiting to learn whether I would reject her. Wonderful…

"No, I don't dislike you." Aura brightened immediately. Celeste looked betrayed once more.

"I didn't say that I liked her more than you." Celeste brightened as well. Adrian muttered something beneath his breath that sounded suspiciously like "impossible household." I chose to ignore it for his safety. Aura finally released my waist, though she remained close to my side with the alert posture of a guard dog trapped inside the body of a child and carrying the soul of a dragon. Celeste, naturally, made no attempt to release me. The shattered peak glittered around us in ruin.

Behind Aura, the cavern still overflowed with treasure, much of it scattered by the violence of our earlier battle. Thin trails of smoke drifted from cracks in the stone, while far below, several towns waited to discover whether their fiery tyrant would ever return. I turned my attention back to Aura.

"We will discuss your habit of demanding tribute later." She tilted her head.

"Was I doing it incorrectly?" Celeste gave an amused snort. A faint smile touched my lips.

"Terribly." Aura's brows drew together with genuine concern.

"I was told that dragons are supposed to demand treasure."

"Who told you that?" Her gaze immediately shifted away. What does that mean? That answer, or rather the lack of one, carried the unmistakable scent of a future problem. For the moment, however, I had acquired a juvenile dragon named Aura, complete with violet eyes, platinum hair, and an alarming attachment problem. When I glanced toward Adrian, he offered me another helpless shrug.

"Do not shrug at me."

"I have no solution."

"You're supposed to be useful." He was usually a man with a plan.

"I'm useful against enemies. This is family." That was a horrifyingly valid distinction. Celeste continued clinging to my arm with a satisfied smile, while Aura stood at my other side and glared at her as though carefully considering whether a small bite would technically violate my command. I closed my eyes for a moment and felt the weight of the future settle more firmly upon me. Aura's bond did not carry the same burden as those I shared with my blood-born children.

Her life didn't appear to be tied directly to my death, and the connection lacked the hunger and pressure that accompanied venom and blood. It still carried responsibility. Somehow, the universe had mistaken me for a nurturing person. Unacceptable… When I opened my eyes, I turned toward Aura's treasure-filled cavern.

"We will sort through your hoard first. Then, we will deal with the towns and find out who convinced you that burning the people who supplied your tribute was intelligent." Aura nodded eagerly, her violet eyes brightening.

"Yes, Master." Celeste tightened her grip around my arm, apparently unwilling to allow Aura even a moment of uncontested attention. I drew a slow breath through my nose and looked down at the young dragon.

"We will also need to arrange a room for you at the hotel. You will not be staying with me in mine." Aura's violet eyes widened.

"But I wish to sleep beside Master."

"Not happening." Celeste immediately leaned closer.

"Could I sleep in your room instead?"

"You have Adrian." She blinked. Then realization crossed her face.

"Oh. That is right." A few steps away, Adrian visibly recoiled. The faint hurt in his expression suggested that being momentarily forgotten by his own wife had wounded him more deeply than anything Aurelion had managed during their battle. For once, I couldn't contain myself. A laugh escaped me before I could smother it. Celeste turned toward Adrian with an apologetic smile.

"You know I love you." His expression remained painfully composed.

"I'm relieved you remembered." Aura looked between them before tightening her hold on my other arm.

"Then Master has no one."

"I have solitude," I corrected.

"Or at least I did before today." Aura appeared unconvinced. Celeste looked delighted. Adrian, apparently recognizing the danger of remaining within reach, turned and began walking toward the cavern.

"Where are you going?" I called after him.

"To inspect the hoard," he answered without looking back.

"The treasure seems less likely to forget I exist." That only made me laugh harder. Celeste released my arm long enough to hurry after her wounded husband, while Aura remained attached to my side and watched them with open suspicion. I had left the hotel expecting to collect tribute from a dragon. Instead, I had acquired the dragon, inherited another family dispute, and somehow become the most reasonable person on the mountain. A truly disastrous outcome.