My baby daughter is a dragon

“Erifreya, be careful, your role in this fight hasn’t changed, let the adults handle it.”

The voice in Eri’s head was Peony’s, she knew it, she had been hearing it all night telling her what to do. It was comforting, when she was scared, knowing someone had a plan was reassuring, even if it was essentially a magical horse. The voice was sweet, sounding like a young woman, but it used the tone of Lady Queen. She had explained many things that Eri only understood a little bit, one of the things she didn’t understand was the spear. Where had it come from? Why was it hidden inside her? And most importantly, how do you use a spear? Dad had only trained her with the sword, the stances didn’t seem effective with such a weapon.

“Don’t worry, dragon princess, use it only to protect yourself.”

Could Peony hear her thoughts?

“Peony,” she said, her voice a weak thread due to fear, “what’s going to happen?”

The unicorn’s voice didn’t sound in Eri’s head again. As they spiraled along an invisible path through the sky of Pellegrin, she could see the fire continuing to spread. She heard one or two explosions, in several places lights that could only come from magic were followed by powerful roars of agony. Mom and her master were fighting.

She also heard the voices of the dragons, she understood, some begged for their lives, others made threats, none wanted to fight, none wanted to die.

But it was too late, too much damage had already been done.

Eri began to feel hungry, she was approaching where the real fight was happening, glowing like a star, she knew she would attract attention.

A colossal red dragon dominated the sky, its slender figure did not detract from its imposing presence. It moved in a very particular way, so much so that Eri recognized it as Queen Clessa. She saw her flying swiftly in circles, engaged in a duel with a dragon that looked like Lady Mera, but even bigger. They were biting and lashing at each other, steaming blood flowing from long wounds on both.

Lady Mera and Dad were teaming up against a monstrous chubby green dragon that moved slowly, but its fire seemed to be everywhere. No matter how much they tried to surprise or distract it, they couldn’t reach it. Eri pulled Peony’s reins to indicate she wanted to go there. Dad and Jumper were flying frantically avoiding the flames, without Mom’s shields they were in danger. Dad hadn’t even been able to put on his armor because he went out to look for her at night, a small nail of guilt pierced her heart when Mom told her.

Eri inhaled deeply and spurred her mount as gently as she could, they ran straight towards the green dragon. When it saw them, the monster directed its fire at them, inadvertently allowing Eri to consume it, while the master in her dragon form took advantage of the distraction to latch onto the prince’s neck with a terrible bite.

Eri was unharmed, she had been able to consume the blaze, but couldn’t get close enough to affect the inner fire. Peony stubbornly refused to take her closer.

“Eri!” Dad’s voice didn’t sound surprised. “Your orange fire! Your master needs strength!” He approached riding Jumper, flying right beside her.

“I can’t get closer, Daddy!” she said before blowing her strengthening flames over him.

“That spear, hold it by the base, use the unicorn stance if you need to defend yourself, come behind me, we’ll try to get you close.” Dad was being too reckless, but Peony seemed to agree.

Lady Mera clung to the prince’s neck without being able to really hurt him; he was too large a beast, too strong even for the master’s powerful jaws. But she was managing to divert his gaze from the riders and at the same time deflect his powerful flames. She wouldn’t hold out much longer. The Green Prince slashed her sides with his claws at every opportunity, opening deep wounds from which boiling blood gushed. If they were going to take advantage of it, they had to do it now.

Jumper flapped his wings and neighed as powerfully as a dragon’s roar. The pegasus was going to risk it all with his rider. He flew straight at the enormous head of the dragon prince, followed by the small Peony. The unicorn was as fast as the pegasus, even though she ran through the sky instead of flying. Even her hooves sounded as if they were striking stone or crystal. In the blink of an eye, they were close enough to be within reach of his claws and wings. Eri understood; she had practiced this with her almost-brother several times. Dad went to the left, rising in front of the monster’s eye. Eri had to go to the right, downwards, and get as close as she could. The maneuver was about one of them attacking while the other distracted, but you never knew whom he would follow.

With a muffled roar, the dragon prince shook his head when his hard scales finally succumbed to the strong bites of the black dragon. He tried to fill the sky with fire in desperation, but Eri consumed it as soon as it came near, and Dad was already behind his head, trying in vain to reach one of his eyes with the enchanted steel broadsword. The metal clanged against the hard scales of the head or against the horns and spikes.

Eri had an idea.

“Peony, let’s make him see us, then run away.”

The unicorn nodded and rose until she reached the onyx eyes, which fixed on her instantly. She shone like a star in the night sky. He immediately wanted to attack her, not with fire, as he understood he was giving his power to Eri, but with a sudden bite that didn’t reach the unicorn, who was now moving away.

Eri’s silver spear struck just behind the monster’s neck. She had jumped from Peony at the last moment under the cover of darkness and flown the short distance that separated her from that blind spot she had known that day aboard the “Moon Lance.” Evoking that name seemed appropriate as she held her new weapon in that pose of her invention.

Eri’s weapon buried deeper through the scales as if they were mere parchment. Although the colossal beast barely felt it, it provided Eri with the perfect grip from which to consume all the prince’s fire, hoping not to exhaust Lady Mera’s as well. But it seemed too late; she had let go of the prince’s neck and was now falling towards the city, leaving trails of whitish smoke behind her. Eri’s eyes flooded like the waterfalls of Unermia, but she did not abandon her task. She drank the fire as quickly as she could, felt its power, and realized her spear was piercing the flesh more easily. The wound stopped smoking. Soon she no longer heard the metallic sound of steel against the horn but the sound of flesh tearing. Dad was finally winning. The prince’s voice echoed in a roar of agony. He called for his brother and uttered terrible curses that Eri would have preferred not to understand. He was not defeated yet; he flailed his wings and claws where his flames did not reach, but it was useless. Jumper was fast, and Dad knew where to go to avoid the attacks. Always so amazing.

Suddenly, the Green Prince struck horse and rider with the tip of his claw in a frantic, fleeting movement. Eri could see the wounds on their sides bleeding despite the distance, like a red mantle spreading over Jumper’s coat. The Pegasus seemed to falter in the air but did not fall; instead, he began to descend slowly, in a spiral. Eri didn’t think twice.

Her silver spear disappeared into the air, leaving behind tiny sparks of light, like the little bugs Mom said were fairies, leaving Eri with nothing to hold onto. She let herself fall while the Green Prince, free of threats, headed towards Queen Clessa and the Black Prince.

The little girl fell with her wings closed to reach Jumper and Dad. When she was just a bit above them, she spread her wings to try to reach them, shouting with all her might.

“Daddy! I’m coming!” She was very scared; Dad’s Pegasus was red up to his hindquarters and flying clumsily. She managed to stay in the air long enough for them to see her. Both she and Jumper flapped their wings with effort to try to meet. When she got close, she bathed them with her blue fire, letting their cursed wounds close. At that moment, she felt exhausted and could no longer fly, falling into Dad’s tired and bloody arms, which were as safe as ever.

“My poor girl,” he said in a feverish whisper, “I’m so proud of you, but don’t think for a second that you’re not in trouble for sneaking out tonight.” Jumper hurried downward, apparently towards the ruins of what had been the palace, towards the huge bridge that connected the two halves over the river.

Eri closed her eyes for a moment, just after seeing, in the distance, the glow of her unicorn, returning to reunite with her.

Freydelhart felt that Eri might be hurt; he always worried about others first. He carried his daughter in his arms, dirty with blood and on the verge of unconsciousness, panting from exhaustion. The wound Frey had was the result of his recklessness; until that moment, they had avoided all his attacks. Overconfidence had led him to disaster. Maybe, with luck, he would be fine, but he couldn’t keep fighting. He hoped Runa would be at the bridge; they had agreed it would be the meeting point, as well as the refuge where their apprentices would take the inhabitants.

When Jumper finally landed heavily on the bridge, Runa, Master Genwill, Oregdor, Bestenar, and unexpectedly, even Valderant, were waiting for them.

“Frey, are you okay?” Runa’s voice had no trace of pretended dignity or restraint. The blood had shocked her, and she hurried to heal him while lowering him from the mount and laying him on the ground. “Eri closed this, was it a dragon? I have almost no magical power left…” A whitish light enveloped Runa, allowing her to finish her healing spell.

“It’s what was left of mine,” said Master Genwill, sober for a change, with a hand on his shoulder. “Maybe you didn’t need to waste it; if that’s not one of my delusions, the unicorn could help them heal.”

The small glowing mare descended from the sky at full gallop. Now she did have a horn, although Frey remembered she didn’t have it when he saw her during the fight. She approached Frey and Jumper, and in a few minutes, they felt better.

“We have to go back there; Queen Clessa is fighting alone, she won’t be able to hold out much longer,” Frey spoke convincingly, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to stand up soon, even with Peony’s magical healing. He had a million questions but kept them to himself.

“I’ll go if Jumper is in condition,” Runa said, pressing on the wound, as if to prevent him from standing up.

Valderant stepped forward. “Are you an idiot? What are you going to do without your magic? Scold the dragons to death with boredom, or do you think your baby insults will be enough? I can take Frey’s place.”

Runa’s face resembled Queen Clessa’s scales when she looked at Valderant. “The pegasus won’t obey you; you’ve never ridden one. Besides, you have those magic potions, give them to me, they can restore some of my power.”

“Those potions are risky,” said Master Genwill, “but they are less so for an elf or half-elf than for a human. I can make better use of them, Runa; you need thousands of years to reach my efficiency.”

“Dragons are immune to magic anyway,” Valderant replied, “and I don’t think your winged horse is in condition anyway. Look at him, he’s lost a lot of blood, and I can see he has a broken rib.”

“I can take the least cowardly among you,” the harsh and very feminine voice made everyone turn in the direction where, until a few minutes ago, a badly wounded Meracina had been resting. “My dragon body will hold if my lady closes my wounds.” Meraxes had returned to her human form upon falling to the ground; the elves’ magical healing hadn’t worked well on her.

“So it was true,” Valderant looked at her with greater disdain than he showed Runa. “You’re a dragon, I suppose that up there really was the queen. What a dragon slayer I am, allying with you.”

“Shut up, mediocre ferryman, insulting my lady,” Eri’s master’s eyes looked like a dragon’s even in her human form. “If the queen falls, we’re all dead. If you can really kill dragons, I can take you and the drunk elf.”

“Master,” Eri interrupted, standing up. She looked determined, dangerous, with her coat stained with blood and her hair disheveled from the fall. “I will follow you with Peony. The Green Prince no longer has fire, but the Black one is very strong. I have to help.”

Frey looked at Runa, waiting for her to say something, but she couldn’t object either. With a heart in knots and a plea on her face, they both reluctantly nodded towards Meraxes, approving the plan.

“Bestenar,” said Frey, looking at his pupil, “how is the city?” He trusted that his natural leadership had emerged in that terrible situation.

“Frankly, bad. Oregdor and I managed to organize the apprentices who were in the tavern when the attack started, but we could only bring a fraction of the population we wanted to the bridge,” the young man spoke without emotion in his voice, trying to appear martial, controlled. “The allied and enemy dragons are evenly matched thanks to your efforts, master, but the total destruction of the city is a fact if we don’t stop this soon.”

“That’s what I feared. Runa, are our horses okay? We’re going to have to…”

“With all due respect, General,” Bestenar interrupted, “you should stay under cover for now, you’re not in condition to…”

“They’re not for us, squire,” Frey emphasized the word with all the authority he had left. “Your stupid palfrey is too slow compared to Canvas. You two will take our horses and bring all the refugees you can, and you’d better not bring me a count still at zero if you encounter dragons.” He took his broadsword from the ground with one hand and offered it to his pupil.

“We… we’re not…” the boy with the pink ponytail tried to object.

“That doesn’t matter, and one more thing, come back alive. Your father wouldn’t forgive me, even if you can’t believe it.”

The imposing dragon Meraxes was also a woman; she had accepted it. She had a part that at least wished to truly be human. Those feelings were not typical of a dragon; she no longer cared where they came from, but what they drove her to do. She would protect her little lady, her student, not because she was subjected to her as a dragon, but because she loved her as humans did.

She pronounced the oath once more in the space they had cleared for her on the palace bridge and became free again. Her body smoked from dozens of cursed wounds from the Green Prince’s claws, but Eri’s fire immediately closed them, and a second blaze flooded her with vitality. The strength a dragon received from orange fire was incomparable to what humans acquired. If she were healthy, her power might equal that of the White Prince, although he had been the youngest and smallest after Eri herself.

She lowered her head to allow the old elf and the infamous dragon slayer to mount her neck. She saw little Eri mount that mysterious unicorn and roared to indicate she was ready. Both rose into the sky. That night, whatever happened, it would be decided who would take the place of the dragon king.