Chapter 1

  Darkness gave way to red light, muted and slowly pulsing, as consciousness stirred. The light intensified as thick, scaly eyelids parted, revealing a view that wasn’t much clearer. Before his eyes, the pulsating red light was fractured and refracted into a myriad of shapes, forming a kaleidoscope of darkness and distortion stained in red. A curved wall of what appeared to be quartz or some other crystal rhythmically backlit in red, filled his view.

  Thought and memory were like oil and water; refusing to mesh or interact more than gliding over one another. There was a strangeness to this forgetting; it wasn’t a solid wall blocking him like the one before him, nor did it feel right to say that they were coming through like the strange red light.

  Rising shakily to his feet and stretching his legs, he reached a large, taloned limb up to press against the crystalline wall. Emerald eyes flicked to the limb and its claws, acknowledgement without surprise as he understood intuitively that he was a dragon. His mind was foggy and roiled as he tried to focus his thoughts. Things he should know were falling into place like old furniture passed to new hands, but memories would have to wait.

  Standing unsteady on three limbs as he braced himself against the crystalline wall, his limbs felt like they hadn’t been used in some time. Craning his neck, he tried to flex his feathered wings and swish his reptilian, but feather-tipped tail, only to encounter obstructions on all sides. He looked back over his shoulder to more crystalline rock, forming a curved wall around him and, to his dismay, above and below him as well. The pulsing red light cast everywhere did little to diminish his night vision, though it did hamper his mood.

  Although egg shaped, this was definitely no egg, he thought to himself wryly. Cramped though it was, it was much too spacious to be an egg, and he was far from being a hatchling. Whomever or whatever had encapsulated him in this strange shell had either made it that way because it was convenient, or for reasons beyond his understanding. As he noticed there was no apparent exit, he began to worry about the air that must surely be running out soon. Rearing up and pressing talons to rock, he pushed hard, testing to see if the wall would give, or if there was a hidden exit that could be pushed out, to no avail.

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  Determined, he craned his head back and rocked back on his hind legs and aimed the single large horn atop his head towards the source of the red light. Several headbutts and a few swipes of his talons earned him a mild headache, and a slight chip in his horn. His reward: a small, dented crack and numerous scratches marring the nearly transparent crystal. A whip of his tail had no effect other than to bruise his tail.

  Panting as his lack of success increased the urgency in his mind, he turned to give the crystalline wall another half-hearted tail whip as his hind legs lined up with his earlier progress, forelimbs crouching slightly as he coiled to strike. With effort, he mule kicked the spot that had begun to crack. Repeated kicks made the cracks spread and deepen, but not nearly enough. Legs ached from the repeated impacts and his breathing came heavy. His mind raced as he struggled to find a way out. The thought that he was running out of air and time, frustrations at being unable to break through, pain radiating through his limbs and tail, and the feeling of claustrophobia that was forming caused him to begin to panic. Whirling back to face the damaged portion of his artificial egg, pain and anger crescendoing together as he let out a scream of primal fury, the roar making the very air shake from its force and the crystals hum in response. The cracks began to spread -from the roar, he thought- but in the span of the mere seconds that he let loose the angry roar time slowed to a crawl.

  What at first began as cracks spreading from the force of the roar rapidly became crackling ice that coated everything in sight. That oil slick feeling brushed against his mind again as seconds drew out into what felt like an eternity. With mouth still open from the roar and unexpected blast of ice, a new and worrisome sensation built up between his fangs and deep in his throat as his roar slowly faded in the dilated time. Time began to move as a much more electric crackle preceded the sudden eruption of a massive bolt of lightning that struck the ice and crystal with the fury of a raging storm. Then the world exploded in a flash of white light.