The Flame Dragon Read Free Page A

more darning sheets. We don’t have to be poor any more!’
    She shook her head, tears welling in her eyes. ‘I care nothing for riches!’
    ‘Well I care nothing for sheets!’ he argued. ‘I can’t stay here forever!’
    His aunt just stared at him through teary eyes. ‘I know that, Nephew,’ she started. ‘But there’s so much you don’t know. So much you don’t understand. I wanted to wait until you were older – I didn’t want to burden you with this yet …’
    ‘What are you talking about?’
    Marta looked like she’d aged twenty years. He’d always known his aunt was old, but she’d never looked it. Not until now. She looked … scared.
    ‘… Now I have no choice.’ She looked up at Quinn, who was already a head taller than her, and sighed. ‘The things you’ve been taught about dragons are wrong.’
    Quinn’s shoulders slumped. ‘Not this again.’
    She was always hinting that the Dragon Knights weren’t so bad, but whenever he asked what she meant, she just shook her head. He loved his aunt, but he just didn’t get it.
    ‘Everyone knows what the Dragon Knights did. They killed the Emperor, one of their dragonblood. They betrayed the kingdom.’
    Marta sank back and shook her head. ‘I wasn’t always a washerwoman, you know. I didn’t always live on Yaross Island.’
    That got Quinn’s attention. He frowned. ‘You didn’t?’ Surely she’d always been here, in this muddy hut, scrubbing away at sheets. But then, his parents hadn’t been from Yaross Island, so maybe Marta wasn’t either.
    ‘I was a high-born lady,’ Marta said.
    ‘You?’ He stared, then blushed, realising how rude he sounded. ‘Sorry.’
    She shook her head. ‘It’s fine. It’s good. You weren’t supposed to know – it was safer that way. I was one of the old Empress Isaria’s ladies-in-waiting.’ She smiled, staring into the fire. ‘I lived in the Imperial Castle in the time of the Dragon Knights. I knew some of them. The Empress was like a sister to me.’
    Quinn’s mouth hung open. ‘You knew them? But … the Dragon Knights were evil .’
    ‘Haven’t I told you not to trust what the Black Guard say, Quinn?’ Marta frowned. ‘Why trust the people who oppress us?’
    Quinn began to feel like the floor was shifting from under him – like things weren’t as certain as he’d once believed.
    ‘But wasn’t it worse before … in the old days with the dragons?’
    Marta plucked a pinch of dust from the floor of the hut, then lifted it to her lips and whispered something. Quinn felt the familiar tingle of magic. Marta tossed the dust into the fire.
    ‘Watch … and learn the truth.’
    The flames reared up in the small fireplace,twisting and splitting apart. Quinn stared at them. Through the magic smoke an image formed of a gigantic castle perched on a low hill. Great sloping stone walls reached high into the sky. Behind them stood a palace with thirteen enormous angular towers, one for each of the main islands and a tall, central tower, for the Imperial Family.
    ‘Is that the Imperial Castle?’ Quinn asked. He’d only ever imagined it. But he hadn’t dreamed it would be so big . You could drop the whole of his village into it and it would be lost in that place.
    His aunt nodded.
    Above the castle, in the flames, vast dragons circled ominously.
    Quinn stared at them, his heart racing. They were even more terrifying than he’d imagined.
    ‘They’re attacking the castle,’ Quinn said. ‘I said they were evil. How can you defend them?’
    ‘Watch,’ his aunt said again.
    The great shapes of the dragons were just below him. If he reached towards the fire, hewould be able to touch them. Brightly coloured scales glittered. Muscles bunched and stretched beneath the skin. Just seeing how powerful they were made Quinn shiver.
    Beneath the dragons stood the Black Guard. He couldn’t even count how many of them there were.
    ‘What’s happening?’ Quinn whispered. He thought the Black Guard were