A Shard of Sun Read Online Free PDF Page A

chamber.
    “I am Midragur!” he cried, his wild laughter echoing around and around the chamber like bird calls. The loud, overwhelming sound of joy smoothed a balm over Shard’s heart. “I am the dragon made of stars!”
    When the echoes of laughter faded, Shard’s ears twitched back and forth at a strange sound. No, not a sound. A lack of sound. He angled his head to peer out of the crystal walls. He still saw the dark, stalking shadows of the wyrms, but they were silent.
    Chilled, Shard wondered if they’d fallen silent to hear Hikaru’s laughter. Shard watched him playing, coiling around his own eggshell as Midragur, then “hatching” the egg as Shard had done, and rolling away into oblivion at the end of the world.
    Amaratsu had hoped that somehow her son would help to form peace with her wrathful cousins in the Winderost. If they fell silent in the face of his laughter, perhaps that could be a start.
    “The Nameless shall know themselves,” Shard whispered, watching Hikaru turn his eggshell around to hatch it again. “And the Voiceless will once again speak…”
    The boom and crack of a wyrm’s roar split the dark. Shard flinched, the ground shuddered and tiny bits of eggshell skipped across the chamber. Hikaru fell still, then cast a petulant glare upward, his luminous eyes narrowed to slits.
    We have to escape, Shard thought, bleakly following the black dragonet’s gaze.
    Hikaru reared up on his hind legs, flaring his narrow wings to their full length, and bellowed at the shadows outside.
    “I AM MIDRAGUR!”
    A shock thrilled down Shard’s spine. He could only stand, amazed.
    “I am the mountain born, son of the earth, son-of-Amaratsu of the Sunland! I stand with the Summer King, the mighty Shard of Sun, and I don’t fear you!”
    Hope and worry curled in Shard’s chest. Somehow, Hikaru was learning courage, if only from the songs they sang. The mighty Shard of Sun. Amaratsu had told Shard he seemed like a shard of sunlight in the cave, when he couldn’t remember his own name. He’d told Hikaru all of it. All that had passed. How large and powerful Shard must seem to him now. How small and pathetic he would seem, soon, when they faced the large world outside.
    To Shard’s surprise, the roars fell silent for a few heartbeats again, perhaps in shock that any sound came from the crystal at all.
    A rumble shook the cavern, but it was not wyrms.
    “Earthquake!” Hikaru cried, and laughed as if thrilled, perhaps thinking he’d caused it.
    Shard looked at the ground as the tremor grew, shaking the crystal chamber so that the seam where it met the ground rattled, but it didn’t move from its place. He feared what the quakes might mean, since the Horn of Midragur had once been a volcano.
    The ground stilled. Then, as if fueled by the knowledge that Hikaru was growing strong within, the wyrms shrieked and fell upon the chamber, smashing claws and horns against it, biting, ramming, to no avail.
    Shard sat slowly, eyeing the walls, and the shallow groove he’d dug. Hikaru crouched a moment more, wings wide, jaws open in a low hiss. Another wyrm smashed its body against the chamber. Hikaru winced and fell back, folded his wings and slunk over to Shard, twining up to coil around him and perch on his shoulders as he’d done when he was smaller.
    Shard braced against his weight even though he was lighter than he looked, like a bird or gryfon, his bones light as any flying creature. Shard didn’t discourage him, wanting the dragon to feel safe as long as he could.
    “I am the star dragon,” Hikaru said again, his coils loose and gentle around Shard’s wings and chest, his delicate claws nervously combing the feathers of Shard’s neck. Shard closed his eyes, letting Hikaru’s voice soothe out all others in his memory, the dragon coiled warm around Shard like the stars around the earth.
    “I am Midragur,” whispered Hikaru. “And Shard, you are the world.”

     
    A nightmare.
    Shard knew it wasn’t