Page 9 of Thauglor
We’ve razed halfthe countryside in retribution for the lost hatchlings. The shadow dragons on this continent have been driven to the point of extinction. The level of destruction we cause will not go unpunished. I circle high above the blue dragon nest. My wings slice through the frosty night air with sharp, cutting sounds. The wind whistles past my ear holes like a mournful song. I spew acid onto everything below, watching the greenish liquid spray in wide arcs.
The icy wind bites at my scales like thousands of tiny teeth. A stench of rotting eggs and burning metal drifts upward, making my nostrils burn. Buildings and creatures disintegrate under the corrosive spray with wet, sizzling sounds. My stomach churns with sick satisfaction. Yet something about this attack feels off—a subtle dread lingers in the back of my mind like an itch I cannot scratch.
I roar and signal Klauth to strike. The sound tears from my throat and echoes across the valley below. He folds his wings and dives with predatory grace. He unleashes his fire in a torrent of orange and red flame. The surrounding air ignites and scorchesthe ground as he pulls up. Heat waves shimmer upward, distorting my vision. Then a force slams into him and me. It feels like a thousand electrified ropes lashing around my body. They twist, burn, and bind me in a searing grip that makes my scales smoke and crack.
Below, voices shout in unison. Their harsh syllables echo upward, vibrating through the night air and into my bones. Sparks of brilliant gold and violet energy whip across the sky like scattered embers. The lights burn my retinas even from this distance. Desperate, I hurl my breath weapon downward. Acid streams from my maw in thick, viscous ropes. I sense their defenses falter under the intense chemical assault. When their power wavers, I tear free with a sound like ripping canvas. My heart hammers against my ribs so hard I taste copper in my mouth.
Klauth and I bolt away. We skim along the rugged coastline with wings beating frantically. The salt wind stings my nostrils, and I taste brine on my forked tongue. The metallic flavor mixes with the lingering acid residue in my mouth. Staying close to the water cloaks us in darkness. Waves rise like towering black walls. They slap our chests and bellies, forcing us to fight for balance. Frigid water soaks through my scales to the sensitive skin beneath. My wings ache with every desperate beat. Cold sea spray blinds me with its sting, making my eyes water and blur.
The dim glow of sunrise creeps over the horizon like spilled blood. Klauth’s compound emerges from the darkness ahead. Anxiety clenches my gut like a fist. I stay silent, not wanting to attract attention with even the softest wingbeat. Near the half-finished construction site and the central tower, nothing stirs. The oppressive stillness claws at my mind like skeletal fingers. I circle once, scanning the area with predatory focus. He motionsto me to return to my nest. His gesture looks tired, defeated. I hesitate for several moments, hovering in place with my wings creating small dust devils below. Finally, I turn and head north toward my territory.
I hear Klauth roar behind me. The sound is strangled, wrong—he’s trapped in his human form. Panic shoots through my chest like lightning. I land in a field not far away and attempt to shift. My bones refuse to crack and reshape. Shit, I’m trapped too, and we’re being hunted. The realization hits me like a physical blow. Before I can take off, figures emerge from the tree line. More of those binding forces wrap around me like living chains. They chant in a harsh, grating language that sounds like stones grinding together. The syllables scrape against my eardrums.
My limbs seize without warning. Every tendon screams as unseen forces bind me. Thick ribbons of shimmering energy coil around my legs, wings, and neck like serpents made of light. A tightening band cinches my jaws, forcing them shut with enough pressure to crack teeth. I thrash wildly, my massive body gouging deep furrows in the earth. My heart pounds as if it might burst through my chest. The more I struggle, the tighter the bands become. They cut into my scales, drawing thin lines of blood. My lungs heave against the constriction. Every desperate breath burns, and fear spikes through my veins like molten metal.
The oldest figure approaches with measured steps. Moonlight glints off his silver blade as he raises it high. The metal catches the pale light like captured star fire. He slices a scale from my leg with surgical precision. Searing pain shoots through me like a bolt of lightning. The agony travels up my leg and explodes in my brain. My roar is choked by the wide band over my maw. Itaste copper as blood wells from the wound. He holds the bloody scale like a trophy, crimson droplets falling to the dark earth.
“I bind you, Thauglor, to a prison of my choosing,” he intones. His voice reverberates with a cold power that makes my bones ache. Sparks of violet energy crackle along his fingertips like tiny lightning. “Never to kiss the sky again. I curse you, Thauglor, to be trapped in an egg until the world ends.” The words hit me like physical blows. Despair washes over me in crushing waves, heavier than the deepest ocean.
I watch in horror as the torn scale multiplies and warps before my eyes. Each shard twists into a jagged piece spinning in midair. They move with unnatural precision, defying everything I know about the natural world. The fragments knit together, forming a small dragon’s egg that pulses with an eerie, sickly glow. The shell looks wrong—too smooth, too perfect, with veins of dark energy running beneath its surface.
“I curse you, Thauglor, to remain a prisoner of your own nature,” the figure continues. His eyes reflect an unholy light that makes my scales crawl. “Your freedom is denied until a rare female from rival bloodlines comes for you. Your pride will be your undoing. A mate like that will never be born.” His words cut deeper than any blade, slicing through my hopes and dreams like they’re made of paper.
The implications crash over me like a tidal wave of ice water. A female from rival bloodlines? In this world torn apart by ancient feuds and territorial wars? The very idea seems impossible. Blue dragons hate reds with a passion that burns hotter than their own fire. Crystal dragons view acid-breathers as abominations. The shadowed ones we’ve been hunting would sooner die than mate outside their own kind. Even if such a female existed,why would she ever seek out a cursed egg? Why would she risk everything for a dragon she’s never met?
My thoughts spiral to darker possibilities. If they bound me, what happened to Klauth? Did he escape, or does another egg somewhere contain my oldest friend? The not-knowing gnaws at me like acid eating through stone. And my progeny—sweet, fierce Velara with her silver laugh, proud Korrath with his obsidian scales, young Drakmor who still calls me “father” in his messages. Are these figures hunting my bloodline even now? Will they track down every dragon who carries my blood and bind them all to cursed shells?
The terror of it makes my stomach clench until I taste bile. Seventeen young scattered across the continent, most still learning to defend themselves. They have no idea what’s coming. They don’t know their father has brought this doom upon them. The guilt crushes down on me heavier than the egg’s confining walls.
Bile rises in my throat, burning and acidic. My fear twists into crushing dread that settles in my chest like a lead weight. The air tightens around me, crushing my lungs until each breath becomes a monumental effort. My body feels like it’s unraveling—bones compress with sounds like breaking branches, muscles shrink and twist, and every fiber cramps in agony. The pain shoots through me in waves. My vision blurs as tears of pain leak from my eyes. Swirling fragments of glowing scales dance around me in a macabre whirl. They glow with a sickly light that hurts to look at directly.
I try to roar, but the sound comes out strangled and weak. The figure’s laughter fills my ears like grinding glass. “I hope you enjoyed your last flight,” he sneers. His voice drips with malicious satisfaction. “History will say you went mad, lost toyour dragon’s nature, and became a danger to all. No one will ever claim your egg, even if it responds to them.” His words echo in my ears long after he speaks them.
The spinning shards converge on me like hungry predators. They close in until all I see is their blinding brilliance. The light burns my retinas and sears into my brain. A final circle of radiance vanishes with a soft click that sounds like the closing of a tomb. I’m plunged into total darkness so complete it feels solid. The restraints melt away, and I can move again—but there’s nowhere to go. My talons scrape against the smooth interior walls. The sound is a sickening screech that sets my teeth on edge and makes my scales prickle.
My mind reels with claustrophobic terror. The walls press in from all sides like a living thing. The egg’s curved surfaces vibrate with each ragged breath I take. They mock me in this tight, unforgiving prison that smells of my fear and desperation. Questions torment me more than the physical confinement. Will this trap break when the mage dies? His magic might be tied to his life force, but what if it isn’t? What if he’s woven the curse into something more permanent, something that will outlast his mortal span?
How long do these figures live? A century if they’re human? Two centuries if they’re something else entirely? And what if they’ve found ways to extend their lives, to ensure the curse outlasts even their extended years? The thought of being trapped for millennia makes my throat close with panic.
Even if the curse breaks when he dies, will I emerge into a world that still remembers my name? Will my progeny still be alive to greet me, or will I wake to find centuries have passed and everyone I’ve ever loved has turned to dust? The imageof emerging from this shell only to discover myself completely alone in the world cuts through me like a physical wound.
And that condition—a female from rival bloodlines coming for me. In a world where dragons tear each other apart over territory and old grudges, where bloodlines guard their power jealously and view mixing as contamination, such a union seems as impossible as catching starlight in a net. The mage chose his words carefully. He didn’t curse me to wait for rescue—he cursed me to wait for something that will never come.
But what if the world changes? What if, centuries from now, the old hatreds fade and dragons learn to look beyond bloodline and territory? The hope feels fragile as spun glass, but I cling to it, anyway. Maybe somewhere in the distant future, a female will be born who sees past the ancient rivalries. Maybe she’ll be curious enough, brave enough, or desperate enough to seek out a cursed egg.
The thought of Klauth haunts me most of all. Did he escape when I fell? Is he out there now, planning a rescue that will never come? Or did they bind him too, leaving him trapped in his own nightmare while his grief for Syrax and his lost progeny eats him alive? The not-knowing might drive me mad before any rescue comes.
Resignation weighs on me like a tombstone pressing down on my chest. There is no escape from this nightmare. I don’t know how long I will remain sealed away from the world. My heart thuds dully in the darkness, fear crawling beneath my scales like living insects. Exhaustion seeps into every fiber of my being.
I close my eyes, though it makes no difference in this absolute darkness. There’s nothing else to do but wait and worry. Sleep beckons, luring me from this crushing reality with promises ofdreams where I can still fly. But even in sleep, I know the nightmares will come. Visions of my progeny being hunted down one by one. Images of Klauth trapped in his own cursed shell, driven mad by grief and isolation. Dreams of a world that moves on without me, forgetting that Thauglor the Black ever existed.
Will Korrath remember his father’s teachings when the hunters come for him? Will Velara’s quick wit save her from whatever fate awaits my bloodline? And young Drakmor—barely past his first century, still so trusting, so eager to please. The thought of him facing these figures alone makes my heart crack like stone under pressure.
In the darkness, I drift between consciousness and oblivion. I cling to the hope that someday the curse will break and I will feel the sky beneath my wings once more. But with each passing moment, that hope grows dimmer, like a candle flame guttering in an endless wind. The questions multiply like breeding shadows: How long is “until the world ends”? What constitutes rival bloodlines in a world where every dragon clan considers the other’s enemies? And most terrifying of all—what if the mage spoke true, and no such female will ever be born?
The silence presses against my eardrums like deep water. In this void, every fear becomes magnified, every doubt a screaming certainty. I’ve doomed not just myself, but potentially everyone who shares my blood. The weight of that knowledge settles over me like a shroud, heavier than the egg’s confining walls, more binding than any curse.
Yet deep in my core, a spark of defiance refuses to die. If I must wait centuries, I will wait. If the world must change for my salvation to be possible, then perhaps my imprisonment serves a purpose. Maybe in the distant future, when the old hatreds have crumbled to dust, when dragons learn to see beyond ancientgrudges, a female will indeed come. She’ll be curious about the legends, brave enough to seek truth, and strong enough to break a curse that was never meant to be broken.
