I lean against her neck. “Just let me down, Sunniva. You can take Jacko.”
I push downward with my hands, hoping she’ll understand, but she’s focused on staying up, struggling to flap her wings, unaware that the dragon is getting closer with each breath. Then a black cloud blocks the sun. I look up to see the underside of the dragon overhead.
Sunniva lets out a frightened whinny and flaps harder, going nowhere.
“Down, Sunniva! Please. Just—”
The dragon drops, her talons out. Sunniva’s entire body jerks. Her wings give a tremendous flap, and we’re flying across the sky, zooming easily out of the dragon’s reach. Sunniva keeps going with strong flaps of her wings that tell me she’d been faking the weak ones. Doing what I’d done in the cave—pretending to be small and weak and helpless. Now she’s sailing straight for the trees. The dragon roars behind us, but we’re already between tall trees, through paths too narrow for the dragon to follow.
Once we’re safely in the denser forest, Sunniva glides down. Her hooves hit harder than usual, the only sign that she’s carrying extra weight. I slide off. Jacko leaps onto my shoulders and starts chattering happily.
“Good girl,” I say as I stroke Sunniva’s nose. “Good, strong girl. I don’t know how you found me, but you deserve all the apples.”
She’s trembling. Exertion? Excitement? Or actual fear? With Sunniva, it’s easy to say it must be the first two. Yet I know too well the difference between being fearless and acting like it, and when I put my arm tentatively over her neck, offering a hug, she buries her nose against my shoulder, and I embrace her.
“You did so well,” I whisper. “I’m so proud of you. Standing up to a dragon!” I shake my head. Then I take the scale from my waistband and hold it up. “You deserve this. I’ll make a hair clip from it for you.”
She sniffs the scale and then takes two steps and tosses her pretty mane as if to say, “I did very well, didn’t I?”
“You did.”
I hug her again, and Jacko rubs against her leg. She lowers her head to nuzzle him, and I’m about to speak when a voice shouts.
“Rowan!” It’s Wilmot. “Sunniva!” Then, “I saw the filly go down somewhere nearby.”
“Over here!” I shout.
We run toward his voice, coming out beside a river, where Doscach is swimming alongside the group, leading them as they walk. The ceffyl-dwr must have brought Sunniva to the mountain to fetch me when I came out of the tunnel. Instead, she’d heard me scream and come to my rescue.
“You’re all right?” Wilmot asks as he strides to meet us.
“I’m fine, but did you see…?” I point at the sky, unable to finish. “You did see it, right?”
“The huge black dragon?” Alianor says. “Nope. Clearly a figment of your imagination.” She hugs me. “Yes, we saw. We saw you on a pegasus, flying away from a dragon big enough to devour Sunniva in one bite.” She glances at the filly. “Well, maybe two.”
Doscach leaps from the water to nuzzle Sunniva, and for once, she actually lets him. Then he comes over to me and drops his head.
I smile and scratch behind his ears. “You didn’t mean to send me into a dragon’s den. I know that.”
“Dragons?” Alianor says. “Multiple?”
“She has young. Two of them.”
“Do you think they’re responsible for the migration?” Dain walks over, Dez on his chest.
“I…I’m not sure. We need to talk about that. Preferably farther away from her den.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
We get into the woods, in a spot as dense as it can be while still fitting Doscach and Sunniva. The others begin dragging over logs as I feed Jacko and nibble meat strips myself.
“So I guess Geraint was right,” Trysten says. “There is a dragon in Mount Gaetal.”
I look over sharply. “What?” My cheeks heat. I’d been pleased, thinking I was the one who’d discovered the dragons. But people do pass nearby. They couldn’t miss the sight of a dragon flying overhead. “How long have people been seeing it?” I ask.
“Hard to say. Geraint says travelers have reported spotting one since they moved into the settlement. Maybe five years?”
“Five years? And we hadn’t heard anything?”
Wilmot and Dain join us, Alianor bringing up the rear as she eats a handful of fall berries.
“Dad heard a report,” Alianor says. “Just one, though. He said they happen all the time, and it’s always wyverns.”
Wilmot nodded. “There have always been reports of dragons and, as Alianor says, they always turn out to be wyverns. Or gryphons. Or manticores. Even pegasi.”
“It wasn’t many reports,” Trysten says. “Geraint was the one who thought there was something to them. Then, about a year ago, reports stopped, only to start again six months afterwards.”
“When the monsters started migrating,” Dain says. “That proves it’s the dragon.”
I don’t answer, lost in thought.
“Why don’t you tell us what happened, Rowan,” Trysten says. “From the beginning.”
When I finish, everyone is staring at me. Everyone except Dain, who’s glowering at Doscach, where he sits nibbling on a fish.
“It’s not his fault,” I say.
“For what?” Dain says. “Taking you away in the night? Scaring you half to death by diving into a deep pool of water? Or prodding you into a dragon’s den?”
“He wanted to show me the cavern,” I say. “I think those bones belonged to someone in his herd, maybe even a parent. I think he lived here when he was young, and he wanted me to see what happened.”
“What did happen?” Alianor asks.
“I’d like to talk to your sister about that. It was obvious that the cavern was once a huge reservoir of water that fed into the Michty River. It emptied relatively quickly, I think, which is why fish were trapped and died. I think the pool is what’s left of the river. It must be fed by other springs. Then there’s the tunnel I walked down, where the walls were worn
