Azylan had settled into Eryndor's rhythm faster than anyone expected.
Within the first week he had organized the kitchen storage by category, labeled everything, and started three different fermentation projects running simultaneously in sealed jars lined up along the south wall of the storehouse.
He explained what each one was doing when Nalvik asked, walking him through the process with the patient thoroughness of someone who genuinely loved the subject.
Eryndor smelled different in the mornings now. Better.
Then the ground moved.
Not an earthquake. Something directional, coming from the forest to the northwest, the trees shaking in sequence like something large was moving through them without caring what was in the way.
I was already outside when the second tremor came.
I rose up without thinking about it, floating above the roofline to get a clear sightline over the walls. Frostina appeared beside me a moment later, shifting upward in her human form before the question had finished forming.
We saw it at the same time.
A dragon. Young, by the proportion of it, moving through the forest at speed but not with any kind of coordination. Rampaging was the word.
The kind of movement that came from panic rather than aggression, everything in its path going down because stopping wasn't an option it was currently able to consider.
It was heading toward Eryndor's walls.
"If you value your kind," I said, without looking at Frostina, "stop it before it reaches us."
Frostina went pale.
She had seen what I hadn't said out loud. The dragon was young. It was already weak. The way it was moving, the ragged quality of its flight, it wasn't going to survive much more of whatever had already happened to it.
She shifted into her dragon form and went.
She reached the young dragon and smacked it on the head before it could register she was there. It went down hard, shook itself, and looked up.
When it saw Frostina it started wailing.
Not roaring. Not posturing. Wailing, in the way something young and exhausted and terrified does when it finally encounters something familiar.
The story came out in broken pieces. Hunted. Captured. Owned. The slave collar around its neck had been there long enough that the skin beneath it was raw and damaged. It had run when it found an opening and the collar had punished it for every step of the distance.
Frostina's fury was quiet, which was worse than if she had been loud about it.
From the northwest came the sound of hooves. Many of them.
I left Frostina to it and floated toward her, landing on her back without asking. She wanted to say something about that and chose not to.
Below us, the knights had spotted the young dragon and were reorganizing their formation, moving to surround it. They saw Frostina and stopped.
An ancient dragon. The frost dragon that hadn't been seen in years. Every one of them knew the name, even if they'd never expected to see her.
Then they saw her as a prize.
They raised their spears.
The spears bounced off her scales and clattered to the ground. Every single one.
Frostina exhaled frost breath across the formation in a single, even sweep. The knights froze where they stood, fully and completely, the ice catching the afternoon light.
I looked at the young dragon.
"All of them." I said. "Every one."
The young dragon looked at the frozen formation and something shifted in its eyes from fear to something older and more satisfying. It stomped. Enthusiastically. Repeatedly. The shattering sound echoed off the mountain walls and the ground shook again, though differently this time.
I shook my head.
Another one I was going to have to manage.
The young dragon turned to the collar next and grabbed at it. The collar tightened immediately in response, the punishment mechanism triggering. It yelped and let go.
"Lower." I said.
Frostina grumbled something about transportation and began descending.
"Were you complaining?" I said.
"No." She said immediately, with a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Obeying. Happily."
We came level with the young dragon. Frostina shifted back to her human form without warning, apparently deciding this was an opportunity.
I was already floating.
She stared at me.
"You're banned from the rum." I said. "Any of it. Until I say otherwise."
Frostina's face went through several stages very quickly.
"That was barely even a prank-"
"All of it. Including the barrel you've hidden behind the tarantula enclosure."
"I don't...that's not.... I was saving that for a special..." She stopped. Her shoulders dropped. "I'm sorry." She said quietly.
I didn't answer and moved to the collar.
I pressed my palm flat against it. The enchantment running through the metal pushed back against my mana for about two seconds before it understood the situation and gave up. The collar unlocked and fell. I crushed it to dust before it hit the ground.
"Human form." I said to the young dragon.
It looked at me with large, evaluating eyes. Deciding.
Then it shifted.
The form that emerged was small. Smaller than any of us had expected. Child-sized, barely reaching my chest, with singed hair falling over its face and bruising visible along the neck where the collar had been.
Frostina studied it.
"He's barely started morphing." She said. "He's very young, Leigh."
"Name." I said to the child.
He shook his head.
I looked at him. Red-toned hair. Fire dragon, clearly. Bright eyes underneath all the damage, once you looked past it.
"Flame." I said.
His eyes went wide. Then bright. He launched himself at me before I had finished the word and I caught him reflexively, arms coming up to cradle him against my chest, his own arms locking around my neck with the grip of something that had decided it was safe and intended to stay there.
I looked at Frostina.
She was trying not to look pleased about it and failing.
We walked back to Eryndor.
The gates opened and the settlement came forward to meet us. Then they saw what I was carrying and Celina was already moving, reaching out, her instinct to take care of something hurt and small operating faster than anything else.
Flame saw her coming and pressed himself harder against my shoulder.
"It's fine." I said to him. "She won't hurt you."
He didn't move.
Celina stopped and gave him space, understanding immediately.
"LEIGH."
I turned.
Torra was standing three feet away with his arms raised and his expression doing something complicated. He was looking at Flame. Then at my arms. Then at me. Then at Flame again.
"Up." He said.
I looked at the child already occupying both arms.
I exhaled.
I shifted Flame to one side and picked Torra up with the other.
Now they were both looking at each other from approximately six inches apart with identical expressions of territorial suspicion.
Flame's mouth opened slightly, showing something sharp.
I glanced at him.
"Behave." I said flatly. "He's human."
Flame closed his mouth.
Elder Elka appeared at my elbow.
"Is he not?" She asked, looking at Flame carefully.
"Fire dragon." I said. "Still a child."
Torra's expression changed completely when he heard that. He reached out and touched the bruising along Flame's neck with two fingers, very gently, and looked up at me with something direct and certain in his face.
"Heal him." He said.
"My hands are full." I said.
Torra looked at the situation. Then he wiggled down from my arm and stood on the ground and pointed at Flame.
"Heal the ouchy." He said. "Both hands. Go."
I set Flame down.
He didn't want to let go of my neck. He held on until I looked at him with an expression that communicated clearly that I was still there and wasn't going anywhere, and then he let go and stood on the ground beside Torra, watching me with those bright, careful eyes.
I pressed both palms against him and let the mana run through. The bruising along his neck faded. The damage under where the collar had been closed cleanly. The other marks, older and smaller, resolved one by one.
Flame looked at his own hands when I was done. Then at his neck, touching where the worst of it had been.
Celina moved to the kitchen without making an announcement. She came back with a Glowfruit scramble, the ice crusher earning its place as she worked, and held it out toward Flame from a respectful distance.
He looked at it.
He looked at Leigh.
"No one here will hurt you." I said.
He took the scramble.
Azylan appeared shortly after with a small dessert plate and set it near Flame without getting too close, then stepped back and gave him the room to decide when he was ready.
Slowly, by degrees, Flame let the settlement get closer.
When Celina finally asked, softly, if she could clean him up, Flame looked at me one more time.
I nodded.
He let her pick him up.
Jenna and Nico trailed behind them toward the house, curious and quiet, watching the new arrival with the careful fascination of children encountering something they hadn't seen before.
Some time later Flame came back out.
Hair cut short and out of his eyes. New clothes from Oliver's supply. Clean. The small, battered thing that had come out of the forest looked like a child now, because that was what he was.
Eryndor had another dragon.
Back in the forest....
None of them noticed the faint signal still pulsing from the destroyed collar's remains, scattered in the dirt of the forest floor. Sending coordinates back through the connection, steady and quiet, to whoever was waiting at the other end.