New Beginning 755

No one in the Seven Villages had ever seen the dragon. They knew it by the quickening of the wind and the sudden purity of the light before its coming, and by the gifts it gave them—fire, death, rain, fertile soil, dragon-children. Their small lives rose and fell through its great one like sparks in a wildfire or tears in the sea.

When the wind warned of its coming most folk ran for the shelter of spring or cave. There were always a few who waited in the open, drinking in the rich colors of ea...