Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 129584 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 648(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129584 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 648(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
“The sun is definitely up,” Ravi muttered.
“Really?” There was a pause and a rustling of sheets. “Huh. I guess it is, but it’s still too early.”
“Is Alric there with you?”
“Nope.” There was more rustling of the sheets and a happy sigh like the mage was getting settled in bed again rather than getting up. “He said he was joining some kind of dragon calisthenics on the mountain with Baldewin and Warin this morning. I think they were even going to drag Gunter out with them.” Cameron snorted. “Silly dragons. Not gonna catch a mage out on a mountain at this ridiculous hour,” he muttered.
“Cam, I-I’m going on a journey,” Ravi announced.
There was another long silence, but this one was different. The line was completely still. He couldn’t even hear Cameron breathing.
“What did you do?” Cameron demanded softly. His voice sounded calm, but there was a deadly seriousness to it.
“A looooong journey. Don’t look for me. And don’t let Alric watch the BBC news today. Keep Cassie off the internet.”
A harsh laugh erupted from Cameron’s side of the call. “You’ve just asked for the impossible. What’s going on, Ravi? Are you in trouble? Where are you? Should I send Baldewin your way?”
Ravi’s shoulders slumped, and he leaned heavily against a tree. Maybe he could stay here in these woods. Maybe find a cave to hide in for the next few centuries until this all blew over.
“I miiight be in a movie now.”
“You WHAT?” Cameron shrieked, his voice cracking as it jumped toward the ceiling.
“In my dragon form. That…sounded worse than it did in my head.”
“Ravi. I say this as your king’s consort. Get your ass back here, now.”
It had to be bad if Cameron was giving him orders.
Ravi spoke a mile a minute, hands gesturing in every direction as he tried to both explain and apologize to Alric all in one breath.
“—totally well hidden in the fog, I was set to come home without issue, and then I flew into this plane, and it was spiraling, and instinct took over—I guess it was flight instincts or something, maybe herding instincts—do dragons have herding instincts? I just couldn’t let someone crash in front of my eyes, so I lunged for it, caught the plane, and slowed its descent, and it was really, reaaaaaaally foggy, like, so foggy I could barely see my wing in front of my face, so it wasn’t until we were almost to the ground that I saw there was a camera crew and realized it was all a movie set. The pilot wasn’t actually in trouble—actually, I don’t know if he was in trouble or not, I didn’t stop to check, maybe he was? Anyway, I had no choice then, he needed me to get him down as I had complete control of the plane, so I set him down, and of course I couldn’t just bounce back up into the air, so I had to land, which may have been really bad because then they could do closeups. Sorry, I had no choice but to land, and I tried to talk them into not filming anything or sharing it online, but my Jedi mind tricks need some work, it was an utter fail, and they said they were streaming to Instagram already, and I think I screwed the pooch—sorry? Like, really sorry.”
He ended with his hands pressed together in prayer fashion, looking toward the carpet. And maybe peeking up hopefully now and again to see how Alric was taking this.
Alric hadn’t said much since his arrival. Ravi had landed in the courtyard barely ten minutes ago and had run straight to Alric’s office, where the fire dragon was already in a meeting with King Rodrigo Valerii of the Ice Dragon Clan. Cameron was also present. His friend had tried to flash him a reassuring smile, but it did nothing to push aside the worry in his eyes.
Right now, Ravi watched as Alric paced the floor in front of the wall of windows that looked down into the valley and the tiny nearby town of Sonthofen. Cameron was seated on the corner of Alric’s desk while Rodrigo lounged on the leather couch. The ice dragon looked a little rumpled—white hair not combed back as usual, dressed in a track suit and appearing as if he’d come straight from some sort of exercise.
At least the Valerii king didn’t appear to be upset by Ravi’s humungous mistake, which was some small relief. It was bad enough to expose and potentially endanger his own clan, but he didn’t want to add to their problem by creating animosity on the part of the ice dragons.
“I don’t see why you’re so upset,” Rodrigo said, finally breaking the silence. “We were already discussing options for announcing our presence to the human world.”
“And if I remember correctly, flying into the middle of a movie set and allowing a dragon to be blasted across every social media platform and news agency didn’t make our top-ten list of options,” Alric snapped irritably.