Story of The Dragon: Dragon Oath Book 1
Sometimes no news is good news, not for Artemisia. She is ready for some action after decades of keeping Earth safe
Story of the Dragon –
Another week had passed, and I couldn’t wait to make my report to the dragon who was about to come through the portal. Once every week, he came, and once every week for the last couple of months, I had been able to give him the same news.
Earth was free from the corruption and I, Artemisia, a silver dragon and the only one who knew other planets and other dragons existed, had kept it that way.
Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t the one who had freed Earth and wiped the corruption on the planet out. Scarlet had done that. And all without knowledge of me, but I had kept any more from arriving and getting a foothold.
The only possible transport portal from Earth to other planets in the galaxy was before me. It wasn’t active yet. The opal dragon I reported to was not due for another few minutes, but I was ready and waiting.
At some point, I would ask to be reassigned and give this post to another dragon. Hopefully, my work here was almost done. There were still attacks now and then, but they had dropped to an all-time low over the six months or so Scarlet had been fighting the corruption left on Earth.
The planet didn’t need to be protected by me anymore and perhaps I could give this post to someone else and take my skills and my sphynx elsewhere to help in the war against the corruption. As I thought of Matraphiel, my sphynx, he came running into the portal area, also never late for a meeting with Ranoctil.
I reached down to run my hand along his deep purple fur, making sure to miss the sections where his wings joined the back of his body. They were furled and he was fully relaxed. This was part of our routine, and there was no danger. Not yet.
Still, when the portal activated, I tensed, and so did Matraphiel. Although we’d never been attacked when Ranoctil was due, I lived in fear it would happen sometime, and we would be in a dangerous situation.
Because of that, I always wore my weapons to meet the great dragon, and my armor was never far away. It helped to be prepared.
It took a few seconds for the portal to establish and hold, the magic of it something I could feel. If I’d wanted, I could have drawn enough magic to make a portal to several destinations, but it took a lot of my power and I didn’t like to use so much at once when I needed mine to defend the planet at a moment’s notice.
Even once it was established and no longer flickering we had a tense wait. It took half a minute or so for enemies to come through if the corruption had formed the connection, but it always took Ranoctil even longer.
As the seconds ticked by, I counted them, not relaxing until I got to sixty and started again. When I got to my fourth run through the seconds, the portal rippled, and Ranoctil formed and stepped away from the horizon.
It didn’t close, the opal dragon never staying long enough for it to make sense not to hold it open. I bowed as soon as I saw him.
“Artemisia. How many times do I have to tell you that I don’t appreciate you wearing swords when you meet with me? Weapons are not necessary.”
“At least once more, Sir. I take my job seriously, and they never leave my side. I will always be ready for an attack.”
As I straightened, he frowned, looking down his defined nose at me. A neat, short, black haircut framed his narrow face, and his head sat upon angular shoulders. The cloak he always wore was tied loosely around his neck and hung behind him, the portal light glinting off the shimmering thread.
It was made of a material that didn’t exist on Earth yet, and it somehow shimmered and reflected all sorts of colors, like the scales of an opal dragon. They were a combination of colors, their magic coming from at least four sources of nature.
I was a silver dragon and could only draw on the magic of two colors naturally. Once, I had been orange, but it was so long ago now that I could barely remember it. My father and a tutor had taught me to access the magic of a purple dragon as well, drawing it into me until I had gone through a process that ascended me.
As soon as I had become silver, the dragon court had assembled and assigned me to Ranoctil. For the last hundred years or so, I had been guarding Earth.
“Well, report, Artemisia. I’ve not got all day.”
“Nothing to report, Sir. Earth is exactly as it was a week ago. Corruption free and only one attack, which I averted easily.”
“How many enemies of what type?” the opal dragon asked, the question always the same.
“I killed eleven shadow catchers, two handlers, both the usual kind, and one of the large shadow beasts.”
He nodded. This was the usual force. One I had come to expect and knew how to deal with. I’d killed that exact number of enemies again and again. They didn’t arrive at the same time, but they were frequent enough that I made the same report more often than not.
“Anything else happen that I should be aware of?” he asked, making sure. Although I couldn’t blame him for being thorough, it was exasperating.
“No, Sir.”
“And this dragon in charge on the planet?”
“Same as before. Trying to engage in politics and enjoying her victory.”
“It’s hardly a victory, but as long as she’s not trying to open portals.”
“Scarlet is still unaware it’s possible as far as I can tell,” I replied, hoping I wasn’t wrong and all the intercepted communications I’d been going through gave me the whole picture.
Although Ranoctil wouldn’t confirm it, I suspected this was an entirely new situation for the Dragon Protectorate. They had never cleaned a planet once the corruption had taken root. That Scarlet had managed it and the freedom was holding was amazing in a way I couldn’t put into words.
The opal dragon in front of me didn’t appear to be impressed, however. He acted as if it was nothing special and at any moment, the corruption would pop back up somewhere because Scarlet or I weren’t being careful enough. It said a lot about his opinion of me that he questioned it every week.
Surprisingly, this time, he didn’t ask me to show him any videos of what happened or use any other technology to replay events for him. It was all business and no more curiosity this week.
Shame. I’d found a new, really good video of Scarlet fighting the demon who had been imprisoned on Earth. At least, that was what Scarlet and the other dragons called it. It hadn’t really been a demon, only a dragon that had fallen to the corruption. It wasn’t something that happened very often. Not anymore.
Once, it had been a problem everywhere, if the stories were to be believed.
Either way, Scarlet had beaten it spectacularly. And rediscovered long-lost artifacts meant to stay hidden for another time and place. I had watched from afar, cheering her on from my guard post and hoping one day, I would be able to tell Ranoctil everything I had reported now. That Earth was corruption free.
“Okay. If Scarlet is still in charge and hasn’t worked out anything else of importance, I will consider the planet safe for another week. I will return at the same time next week for another update. The planet is your responsibility until then. You know your duty.”
I only had time to nod before he turned, swishing his cloak behind him and almost hitting me with it. He’d done that before, and I’d soon learned to stand farther away from him. Something about him was like that and always had been.
To some degree, I understood it. He was an opal dragon and had ascended to that level by working hard. He had some right to be proud of himself. I just didn’t understand it.
Before I could think of anything else, he was gone. The portal shimmered and rippled out from where he had disturbed the event horizon, then stabilized again. Finally, it closed, leaving me standing in the middle of the portal room and wondering what to do next.
I didn’t move at first, considering everything and wondering how well he could feel the corruption on the planet. I knew none existed within several miles of here. I was trained to detect the corruption at an early age, and I knew it was even easier for opal dragons to sense the corruption over even greater distances. But the entire planet was different from a few miles.
At no point had Ranoctil been impressed, and he always left in a hurry. It made me wonder if I would ever get promoted to a more dangerous post or see the corruption fought back long-term. I had trained my whole life for this. I’d been fighting for this planet, keeping it safe and my actions a secret from everyone here.
In a lot of ways, I envied Scarlet. She had grown up in the human world and almost immediately became a public figure. She had friends and family. She had the limelight. And she had been able to do more and more until she finished the job. I wanted to be able to do that, too.
When I had volunteered to join the Protectorate and fight the corruption, I hadn’t envisioned being stuck on the same planet decade after decade, holding the fort.
While I was thinking this and trying to get myself moving, my attention was stolen by something else. Matraphiel rubbed up against my leg and nuzzled my hand with his snout. He was slightly bigger than the average fox, purple in color, and his wings were soft and downy. I ran my hands slowly over him, finding all the spots I knew he liked to have scratched and making sure he was okay.
Matraphiel fought with me in battle. His abilities were invaluable, but he was so much more than a fighter. Without him, I would have been truly alone. And that made me grateful for his presence. However, Matraphiel didn’t like Ranoctil, and Ranoctil didn’t like Matraphiel. The great opal dragon thought it weak of me to need a pet.
It didn’t matter that Matraphiel took out several of the shadow catchers every time we were attacked or created illusions to confuse them and give me the advantage needed to beat the handlers. One time, he had even made the portal look as if it had shut down so my enemy didn’t attempt to flee.
There was no doubt about it. Matraphiel was the second most important part of the defense team for this entire planet. It wouldn’t matter how hard I fought at times; without him, it wouldn’t have been enough. Not to mention how crazy I might have gone being here all by myself.
“What do you think about going and getting some supplies? I can get some of those crackers you like. And I think I’ll get some fudge. I’ve not had that in a while.”
He let out a little barking sound that was a cross between a laugh and a bark transformed his appearance into a slightly larger dog. It wasn’t for my benefit but for the humans of the world. Now, he looked as if he belonged here. Like he came from Earth.
Without hesitation, I began the preparations to leave, setting the alarm system to buzz the watch on my wrist if another portal activated. It had taken me some time to get that set up and communicate with another type of opal dragon to make the artifacts and human technology work together, but eventually, we cracked it.
Before that, I’d had to leave Matraphiel behind to keep watch every time I went for food. Or pay somebody to bring it to me. And that never worked as well. People got curious. People remembered me too much if they came to my place.
When you were already almost a hundred years old, and everyone who had lived around you when you first started your job was long dead, it led to a lot of questions. This way, I could appear to move locations when I picked up food every decade or so and pretend to be someone entirely new.
This way, no one in the human community suspected I was anything but one of them.
It seems like Artemisia is ready for more. She and her team are keeping Earth safe. Find out if the world has more in store for her on December 7th when Story of The Dragon: Dragon Oath Book 1 is released. Until then head over to Amazon and pre-order today.
