Chapter 1

Elizabeth needed to get out.  Her suitors were driving her nuts and her siblings weren’t helping.  She was glad that her mother had insisted on teaching her a few methods of sneaking around unnoticed; otherwise she never would have made it past all those damned suitors.  A few had seen her, because she wasn’t trying to be overly careful, but she knew she could out run them.  

A few miles late she slowed down to a walk, the suitors had given up once they realized the Ranch was no longer in sight.  She looked around and realized that she wasn’t far from where some dragons were nesting.  “Hm, dad told me not to come out here during the spring, in case the dragons have a clutch, but what are the chances of tha-” something landed on her head with a crack, followed by the gooey insides of an egg.  “Ow, that kinda hurt.”  She knew of a stream nearby, so she went to wash the gooeyness off.  As she came up from dunking, she noticed a large piece of eggshell with something dark gray hanging out of it.  She thought nothing of it until she noticed it was moving, so she went closer to investigate.  Once she had grabbed the underside of the eggshell, she noticed that the dark gray thing she had seen was a wing.  For a second she wondered what kind of bird had a translucent grey wing with no feathers, then she remembered the tales.  The tales told of a rare breed of dragon, Gray Spitters, that were born fully fledged.  Elizabeth was dying to remove the remaining shell, but she knew that the hatchling wouldn’t survive if it didn’t fight its own way out of the shell.  As a compromise, she removed the piece of shell hanging over the wing and brought the egg over to a warm rock in the sun to wait.

Two hours later the hatchling still hadn’t made it out, though it was trying valiantly.  “Get me out of this and I’ll stay by your side forever,” the hatchling pleaded.

“How do I know you wont fly away?”

The hatchling sighed, “my wing is punctured and broken, so I won’t ever be able to fly.  And I won’t live if I don’t get out soon.  I’m loosing blood.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” said a musical low tenor voice.

“And why might that be,” Elizabeth and the hatchling replied in unison.

“Because,” he paused, realizing that , in this case, removing the shell was the only way for the hatchling to live.  “Because you might hurt her more.  Here, let me help, I’ve done this sort of thing before.”  He worked in silence, carefully picking apart the hard dragon shell.  A few minutes later he was done, “there, that’s all I can get without hurting her.  If I remove any more shell, I’ll open fresh wounds.  If she doesn’t see a powerful healer within the hour she won’t make it.”

“Why don’t you come with me,” Elizabeth offered, “both my parents are powerful and can be healers when they choose.”  She paused, then added, “and I can tell you want to see her live.”

“Well, I’d love to, but I’ve been sent by Lady Arian to be trained by Lord Rubicante and Lady Cariad Insofar.”

Elizabeth laughed, “those are my parents!  You’re definitely coming with me now.  And don’t bother with any of the formal crap with me,” she said before he could bow, “it’s a real turn-off.  My name’s Elizabeth, what did you say yours was?”  She offered to shake his hand.

“Bier,” he replied as he kissed her hand instead of shaking it, “I don’t have a surname,” he glanced at Elizabeth, to see how she would react to this bit of information, but it didn’t seem to phase her.

“You’ve been trained by either Kain or Edge, haven’t you?” she said in response to having her hand kissed instead of shaken.

“Both, actually,” Bier replied, “is it that obvious?”

“Yeah, it is,” she replied, “though they got that from my father and decided it would work excellently for womanizing.  Though as far as I know, it hasn’t worked out for them.”

“No, it certainly hasn’t,” Bier said, “at least it hadn’t when I trained with them last year.”  He continued telling Elizabeth of all Kain and Edge’s womanizing tricks as they walked back by where the egg had hit her.  “Hold on,” he said as he put out his arm to stop her, “there’s a dragon in that cave who isn’t happy.”  Even as he spoke, a great red dragon flew out and landed in front of them.  “Here, take this,” he said as he handed her a shiny red cloak.  “It’s made of soft dragon scale and can repel fire.  If he looks like he’s going to flame us, hold it up in front of you. Don’t worry about me,” he said in response to her unspoken question, “I’m wearing dragonscale armor.  I’ll be fine.”

“You don’t need to worry,” said the dragon, “I will not flame a child of the stars.  And you,” he said pointedly at Bier, “you are safe because you are my kin.  I guess you’re not going to let that abomination die?” he said in reference to the little dragon, now unconscious, in Elizabeth’s arms.

“No.” she said, “and I don’t have time to lecture you on taking care of your children, all of your children.  Count your blessings, because my entire family can tell you that my lectures make you wish you were deaf.”  With that, she turned and kept walking.

“Kin?” Bier inquired.

“You’ll understand in a few years,” the great red dragon explained, “and come see me when you do.”  And with that, the dragon left to go hunt.