Chapter 18: The Dragon Wakes

The Stone drank her blood and went white.

The light shot up through the floor in a column that reached the gallery roof.

Sorrel felt it go through her hand and up her arm and into her chest.

Everything inside her ran toward the Stone.

She could not breathe, and she did not let go.

Ronan reached her and dropped to his knees and wrapped both arms around her from behind.

"Let go," he said into her hair. "Sorrel, let go."

"No."

"You'll die."

"Then hold on to me," she said, and her voice came out in pieces. "Hold on, Ronan. Call it."

He made a sound she had never heard from a man.

The gold ran up his arms.

The grey scales on his left side split open from the shoulder down and showed fire beneath.

His wing unfolded with a crack that rang across the hall.

He rose.

She felt a great weight of heat lift off her back, and the pull in her chest did not take everything.

It took a little, and then it gave something back.

It poured into her palm as quickly as it had gone out, warm and steady, and her legs held.

She looked up.

The dragon of Caerlund filled the white hall from end to end.

His scales were dark iron with deep gold beneath, and his wings knocked the banners off their poles.

His head came down until one great eye was level with her face.

It was Ronan's eye.

The lords had fallen on their faces along the benches.

A lamp tray went rolling across the floor, and Edmund was screaming somewhere near the dais.

The dragon breathed out.

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