Rise of the Dragons Read online

  From the sidelines, Kaan watched the last two members of his family plummet toward the ground and became overwhelmed with great hiccuping sobs of self-pity. His hair was singed to a frazzle, and however much he screamed for Valkea to stop fighting, she took no notice. He was terrified of Bellacrux and even more terrified of Valkea. It was a total nightmare and he just wanted to go home. But Kaan knew that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. Valkea would do exactly what she wanted and he dreaded what it would be. He hung on to Valkea’s spiky crest and shut his eyes tight. He felt Valkea tip forward, he felt her wings go back as, with an earsplitting screech, she launched into a vertiginous dive. Where she was going, Kaan had no idea. He didn’t care and he didn’t want to know.

  Valkea was going after Lysander.

  Bellacrux saw at once what Valkea was doing. She too dropped into a dive, heading after Valkea as she flew like an arrow of doom towards Lysander and Bellacrux’s precious Lock. But Valkea was young and fast and Bellacrux was old and slow. As Valkea closed in on her target, Bellacrux knew she could not catch her, and the old Lennix Grand sent out a scream of warning to her Lock.

  “Lysander!” Allie yelled. “Watch out!”

  Lysander tried to flip out of the way, but with two riders and a hatchling he was slow. In a moment, Valkea was within firing distance; she let loose a burst of flame, aiming to torch his riders, but just in time Lysander put up his wings so they acted as a fire shield. The flames rolled off his wingtips like water from a duck, but Valkea was not discouraged. She saw how encumbered Lysander was, and she knew her quarry was no longer the quicksilver he had been. Now was her chance to get him.

  Joss and Allie saw her coming in above them, back legs down, talons extended, ready to snatch them from Lysander’s back and send them hurtling down to the forest below. They knew that Lysander was not going fast enough to escape. Lysander knew it too. He went rolling backwards away from the terrible talons, while Allie and Joss clung onto his neck and the hatchling dug its claws in.

  Bellacrux was watching in horror when she saw a blindingly brilliant flash of silver light and then, suddenly, Lysander and his riders were gone. Bellacrux stared at the empty space in confusion for a moment and then she understood. A great roar of relief and triumph went echoing up into the night sky.

  Far below, Bellacrux saw Valkea pull out from her dive, then stop and look up in confusion at the space where Lysander should have been. Bellacrux sent down a warning burst of fire and at that Kaan’s shrieking began once more. The old Lennix Grand smiled to herself as she watched a despondent Valkea slowly head off after the defeated remnants of clan Lennix, her rider’s piercing screams jangling her delicate ears.

  As Valkea and Kaan flew away into the night, peace returned to the moonlit skies. Bellacrux hovered beside the empty space where her Lock had vanished. She would wait beside the Portal for her last and best Lock to return, and she would guard it with her life.

  Somewhere in the space between two worlds, Lysander, Joss, Allie, and the hatchling plunged through the Portal’s tunnel of light, twisting and turning at a terrifying speed. Allie thought she was in her death dive. “No!” she screamed out. “No. Please, no!”

  No … please, no, Sirin murmured to herself. Please, this can’t be true. It can’t. But Sirin knew that no amount of pleading could change anything. She had been ushered silently into Intensive Care and from then on she had felt as though she were in a dream—walking along the shiny floor, her shoes squeaking, dim red lights reflected in the glass, the weird hush and feeling scared because everyone was so very quiet. And then seeing Mum in the bed, with all the tubes gone, so still and pale, looking like she was asleep but she wasn’t because Mum wasn’t there anymore.

  Sirin was outside the hospital with Mandy, waiting for their taxi, and it was two in the morning, much later than Mum would ever have allowed her to be out. Sirin stared up at the moon, checking that it was still there. It rode high in the sky, small and bright and perfectly round. The moon was still there but Mum was gone. How could that happen? Mum and the moon were forever, weren’t they? Sirin began to shiver and Mandy put her own jacket around Sirin’s shoulders.

  “I wish that taxi would get a move on,” Mandy muttered. “Just because we’re south of the river don’t mean we don’t need taxis.”

  Sirin didn’t want to get into a taxi. She didn’t want to zoom away fast in the back of a car full of ads and videos and people talking. She wanted to walk slowly away from Mum and be with the moon. “Why don’t we walk?” she said.

  “Because it’s not nice after midnight, sweetheart,” Mandy told her. “There are gangs and stuff. Best get a taxi.”

  They waited for ten more long minutes and then Sirin said, “I don’t want to be here anymore. Please let’s walk.”

  Mandy sighed. She was cold without her coat: A brisk walk would do them both good, and it seemed to be a quiet night. “Okeydokey,” she said. “We’ll put our best foot forward, shall we?”

  They set off along the wide road that took them away from the hospital. A few cars rushed past, and every time Mandy turned to see if it was a taxi, but it wasn’t. They took the turn down a street of terraced houses, their windows dark as their inhabitants, each cocooned in their safe little world, sleeping the night away. All the time Sirin stared up at the moon, while she clutched the dragonstone for comfort. It felt warm and soothing and it made her feel as though somehow Mum had left the hospital with her and they were walking together toward the moon.

  At the end of the street, Sirin and Mandy had to go down an alleyway between two lines of garages; this was the part that Mandy did not like. She hurried along between the garages, not noticing that Sirin, glad to be free of Mandy’s well-meaning bustle, was lagging behind. Suddenly the moon came out from behind a cloud and a shaft of brilliant moonlight slanted down. Sirin stopped. She took out the dragonstone and held it in her palm, watching it shimmer. “This is for you, Mum,” she whispered. “Just for you.”

  Assuming Sirin was following, Mandy was hurrying ahead. She had just reached the open space beyond the garages where a cluster of trash cans were gathered, when a sudden shout of “No!” made her turn around, and Mandy saw to her horror that Sirin was way back at the end of the alley surrounded by three hooded figures. In the moonlight Mandy saw the flash of a blade. “Sirin!” she yelled, but as she raced back down the alley, another hooded figure stepped out of the shadows and barred her way. “Leave it, missus,” the girl said.

  Mandy looked down and saw the point of a jagged knife pressing into her all too thin cardigan. Mandy’s voice came out in a high-pitched squeak. “But we’re coming back from the hospital, and …”

  “Shut it,” snapped the girl. “The kid’s on our patch. She ain’t in our gang so she’s paying her toll, right?”

  “Troll?” asked Mandy, too scared to make sense of anything.

  “Don’t get funny with me, you old bag,” the girl said. Mandy bristled—she considered that she was far too young to be called an old bag—but the pressure of the knifepoint reminded her to keep quiet. Instead, Mandy kept her eyes steadily on Sirin and prayed she would give the gang whatever they wanted.

  Sirin, however, would not. They wanted the dragonstone and they weren’t getting it. She shoved it back into her pocket but it didn’t stay there for long. One girl put her arm around her neck, half choking her; the other pulled Sirin’s arms behind her back while the third shoved her hand deep into Sirin’s pocket. Sirin felt the girl grab the stone and pull it out. “No!” Sirin yelled. “No, it’s my mum’s! Give it back!”

  “Ooh, Mummy-wummy will be cross with ’oo, will she?” the girl mocked.

  Close to tears, Sirin shook her head.

  The girl let go of her armlock and pulled out a knife, drawing the tip of the blade across Sirin’s stomach. “We know who you are, kid. You and your little friend owe us big-time. Any more fuss and you get this. Right?”

  A movement in the sky caught Sirin’s eye and she loo
ked up. Above the garage roofs she saw … Sirin gasped. No, it was not possible … But it had to be possible, because there it was. Shining brighter than the moon, hovering above the garage roofs, wings outstretched, there was a silver dragon. As Sirin stared, eyes wide with amazement, the dragon’s steady gaze met hers, its brilliant emerald eyes sparkling with green fire.

  Time slowed for Sirin. Nothing seemed real anymore. Mum was dead. There was a gang of girls with knives. And now, there was a silver dragon. But amid the unreality Sirin was suddenly sure of one thing: that this was the most important moment of her life. A tremendous feeling of power ran through her. With a kick on her captor’s shins, she wrenched herself free. She swung around and snatched back the dragonstone and then she was off, racing down the alleyway, hurtling past Mandy, running for her life and for her whole wonderful future: No one was going to mess her around anymore. She ran faster than she ever had and behind her came the gang in full cry, their blades out, glinting in the moonlight.

  Lysander was hovering above the garages. He didn’t know why he’d flown down to this place, but what he did know was that there was someone in trouble who needed him. Hey, Joss, we should help her, he sent.

  Joss agreed. “They’re as bad as Tamra and Mirra,” he said, watching the gang hurtle after the girl, their knives flashing in the moonlight. “Come on, Lysander, let’s get her out of there.”

  Lysander dropped down into a dark open space that smelled of rotting food. He settled lightly on the ground, balancing on the tips of his talons, ready to fly upward at a moment’s notice. Seconds later the girl came racing out of the alleyway.

  “Hey!” Allie yelled. “Over here.”

  Sirin needed no telling where to go. The silver dragon was all she could see, all she could think about. And as Sirin ran toward the dragon, she knew that somehow Mum had sent him to her. It was Mum’s way of saying that she would be all right and that Mum was looking out for her, just as she had promised she would. And then Sirin was scrambling up the dragon’s smooth silver scales, pulled upward by welcoming hands and squashing herself into a tiny space between two kids. Sirin saw the gang halt, openmouthed, at the end of the alley. Sirin felt the power of the dragon’s wings as they came down, and a moment later she was in the air, looking down at the gang and at Mandy. She watched them stare, dumbfounded as she flew away. On a silver dragon.

  Far below, Mandy watched in a daze as her very first emergency placement rose up into the sky astride a dragon. Suddenly the realization came to her that her career as a foster parent was over before it had begun. Shocked into action, she hurtled out of the alley screaming, “Sirin! Get down off that thing at once. Get down!”

  Mandy did not stand a chance. Helplessly, she stood and watched the dragon rise up, its wingbeats sending the old bags of chips and candy wrappers tumbleweeding across the tarmac. Dimly, Mandy became aware that the gang had joined her. One of them took hold of her arm as if they were suddenly best friends. “What is that?” the girl whispered, pointing up to the sky.

  Mandy felt a wave of exasperation sweep over her. It had been a very trying evening and she had not a scrap of patience left. Irritably, she shook the girl’s hand off her arm. “It’s a silver dragon,” she said. “Obviously.”

  “Is it yours?” asked the girl, in awe of Mandy’s coolness.

  Mandy did not like to lie. but just this once she decided to make an exception. “Yes, it is,” she said snappily, and in her agitated mind the dragon and the taxi-that-never-came merged into one. “I called it ages ago. I really don’t know what’s taken it so long.”

  “Bleedin’ Nora,” the girl said. “You’re effing crazy, you are.”

  Silently they all watched the silver dragon rise slowly but steadily above the rooftops. They watched as the shimmering silver shape grew ever smaller until a cloud drifted across the moon and they could see it no more.

  Another world away, there was someone else who was not having much luck with transportation either: Tamra. Tamra had just been dumped by Declan on a cold and windy hilltop just above the ancient stone circle and was watching her brother fly away with Ramon, to where she did not know, except that it would not be Fortress Lennix. Tears streamed down Tamra’s face, but not because her brother was leaving her. The tears were because too late, Tamra had realized that she loved Ramon more than anything or anyone she ever had in her whole life. She wished with all her heart that she had Locked with him when she could have, instead of holding out for the powerful but cold Valkea. And now, as the beautiful speck of blue disappeared into the gray predawn sky, Tamra understood that love made you feel happier than power. She sat down on the dew-laden grass and one by one, she watched the stars disappear.

  Sometime later, Tamra saw the rest of her family appear in the sky, flying slowly out of the darkness. She jumped up and waved and saw her mother’s pale, cold face looking down at her. For a moment Tamra thought they were going to leave her to walk home, but suddenly she saw Valkea peel away from the formation and head toward her.

  “Ma said to get you,” Kaan told her. “Dunno why.”

  Tamra did not deign to reply. She climbed up behind Kaan and felt the power beneath her as Valkea lifted up into the sky. Valkea didn’t make her feel happy like Ramon did, but power still felt good. As Tamra rejoined the bedraggled remains of her failed Flight Vengeance she saw that Trixtan was gone too, and her sister was sitting with her father, sobbing. Decimus didn’t sound too good either—he had a revolting, rattling wheeze.

  And so the dismal remains of Flight Vengeance limped homeward. As they drew near the Black Mountains, Tamra made her move. She leaned forward and hissed in Kaan’s ear. “Hey, Kaan. I’ve Locked you out.”

  “Huh?” said Kaan.

  “Valkea’s mine now. Just so you know.”

  Kaan turned around and stared at Tamra. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean we’ve Locked. Me and Valkea.”

  “But you can’t!” Kaan protested. “Valkea’s my Lock.”

  Tamra laughed. “You never Locked with her, Kaan. You just pretended.”

  “That’s not true!”

  “It so is true. You’re a fake, Kaan. You couldn’t Lock with a cockroach if it ran up and bit you.”

  “I could too!”

  “Yeah, well, maybe you could manage a cockroach. If the cockroach was desperate,” Tamra conceded.

  Kaan realized the cockroach argument was not one he wanted to win, and he said no more. He stared at the back of Valkea’s powerful neck, the sharpened crests along its spine glistening a deep red in the moonlight, and he felt the immense power of the dragon beneath him as her body moved forward with each downward thrust of her massive wings, and Kaan realized that underneath the anger at his sister and the shame of losing his dragon, what he really felt was that a weight had been lifted from him.

  And in another world, in another place, Sirin felt as if all Mum’s dragon stories had come true. They were now so high above the city that all the sounds and lights had faded, to be replaced by the silence of the cold, damp cloud that enveloped them in stillness. Deep inside the cloud, with only the gently rhythmic swish-oosh-swish-oosh of the silver dragon’s steadily beating wings, Sirin at last relaxed and allowed herself to stop thinking and just be.

  The boy in front of her turned around and smiled. “Hi, I’m Joss!” he said.

  “I’m Sirin,” Sirin answered. Suddenly something sharp dug into her back and the girl behind her said, “I’m sorry, but it seems to want to sit with you. I’m Allie, by the way.”

  Sirin turned around and saw to her surprise that Allie had in her arms a tiny, wriggling green dragon. “Oh.” Sirin broke into her first real smile for weeks. “Oh, it’s so cute.”

  “And snappy,” Allie told her. “Watch its teeth. They’re sharp. And its claws.” Allie passed the tiny creature to Sirin, who had to let go of Joss in order to take it. She clung on tighter with her knees and hoped for the best. “Oh, she’s so lovely,” Sirin said, as the dragon
settled quietly onto her lap.

  “We don’t know if it’s a boy or girl yet,” Allie told her. “Or what its name might be.”

  “Sammi,” Sirin murmured. “She says she’s called Sammi.” Sirin smiled. She had the strangest feeling that from now on, she and the tiny dragon were going to be together. Forever.

  Angie Sage is the internationally bestselling author of the Magyk series starring Septimus Heap, which was translated into twenty-eight languages and sold more than five million copies worldwide. She lives in the United Kingdom.

  Copyright © 2019 by Scholastic Inc.

  All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC, RISE OF THE DRAGONS, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available

  First edition, March 2019

  Scholastic US: 557 Broadway · New York, NY 10012

  Scholastic Canada: 604 King Street West · Toronto, ON M5V 1E1

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  Cover art by Angelo Rinaldi

  Art direction by Keirsten Geise

  e-ISBN 978-0-545-87079-5