I am Dragon (Dragon Fires Rising Book 2) Marc Secchia (most read books .TXT) 📖

of hearts, Dragon knew there could only be one winner. Rising for a brief, enlivening breath, he dipped his muzzle and swam deeper.

This was it.

A resounding bellow rippled through the water, sending the bright tropical fish flitting for cover. ≈Sirensong.≈

No, that pathetic effort was not at all what Wavewhisperer had taught him.

≈Sirensong!≈

Better. Good resonance, but he still had not achieved the tonal quality she had been capable of. Surely, such a sound would not travel – well, he had no idea how far it needed to travel. Yet, the ocean knew, because … ocean always rises. Gathering himself, he sang:

≈SIRENSONG!!≈

Shiver his wings and tickle his talons, that was a production worthy of the name! The sound shot away from him in invisible waves that quivered his body and senses in ways he could not fathom.

Dragon lurked, and waited.

He took another breath, and waited.

Yawn.

He practised his backstroke and wandered down to take a closer look at the deep reef. The colours appeared less vibrant than the shallower ones; more blues, greys and greens than the silver sparkles and luminous yellows higher up, and he saw larger fish cruising where the waters became more deeply shadowed – indeed, Ignis’ crimson blaze filtering through the waters like flame, was fading fast now toward the night.

He tried to do a few sums in his head. Sound travelled just over four times faster through water than through air, he had learned – a fact that had always stuck with him. 767 miles per hour in the air, Dragon scientists had calculated. That made sound’s speed through water somewhere decently north of 3,000 miles per hour. Wavewhisperer had implied that Sea Dragons could communicate at inordinate distances underwater, which meant … well, if they were far away, he had better practice the patience that was coming so badly to him at this moment. Such conversation must be weird. Speak, get a reply ten minutes later. Or more. A great deal more.

Night fell. Clonk, he said to himself. Chuckle. Poking his head out of the seawater, he saw that he had been slowly swept southward by the current. Back to the point, Dragon. He must wait faithfully for a reply if one was in the offing.

When the change came, he found himself utterly unprepared. A sudden tingling in his tail made him imagine a jellyfish sting must have penetrated his scales. Head down. Checking his surrounds, when the weirdest tingle rushed up his spine and spat out through his wingtips, before seeming to gather and implode deep in the centre of his chest.

Music! A song of inexpressible wonder washed around his being, reverberating from the shoreline in wave upon wave that ascended to an impossible crescendo.

≈WELCOME!!≈

Like wavelets, individual voices began to resound at different pitches and intensities, ≈Welcome.≈ ≈Welcome.≈ ≈Welcome.≈ ≈Welcome.≈

He spun beneath the water, overwhelmed.

≈MY WAVE IS SIRENSONG!!≈

Freeze.

Shiver! No way! The interrogative was clear, even in the Dragoness’ presentation of her personal melody. The Dragoness wanted to know who it was that called her name from afar. How long … he shook his muzzle dazedly. Over an hour. Perhaps an hour and a half. He should have thought to note the time – by his sire’s egg, they must be distant indeed! Another hasty calculation suggested, if he took the time the sound required to reach them and then return, that the Sea Dragons must be in the region of two and a half thousand miles away!

The mind boggled at such distances.

His body buzzed as if it had been set alight. Could this truly be his dam’s song? Never had he dared to imagine this moment. Joy fizzed like starlight in his veins, lighting the dark ocean all around him. The music played in diminuendo about his body, causing his wing membranes to quiver uncontrollably. How did they do that?

He must reply. What could he even say in Dragoceanic?

≈I AM DRAGON!! SIRENSONG … EGG!! WAVE … DRAGON!!≈

That would confuse the life out of them. A Dragon who called himself Dragon. With his current linguistic ability, however, channelled into this form of long-range communication, his options were limited in the extreme.

One hour and thirty-five minutes later, by his best reckoning, the tingling arrived again and this time – despite mental preparations – the music was a tsunami that pummelled him against the shoreline. Not all was welcoming. The immensity of voices wanted to know who the unknown voice was who summoned Sirensong from afar; how could an egg even speak? Who was this imposter who did not undulate with the pod of Sea Dragons? Who had tarried behind upon the currents? For they had made tabulation and none were missing.

That was as best he could make translation of their speech inside his head.

What he did understand was the demand to wait where he was for his kin to arrive. They were two weeks away. Two weeks! How fast and far did they fly underwater?

At last, that softer, feminine voice queried, ≈My wave is Sirensong. How old is this egg?≈

The music faded.

≈Sirensong, I am … four paws of talons old. I am … wave!≈ Assuming they had paws like his. His supposed racial memory refused to serve up the word for ‘twenty’ as yet.

Toward midnight, the reply came in gruff, belligerent male tones, ≈Dragon, do you truly claim to be the wave of Sirensong?≈

≈I am Sirensong wave.≈

No reply arrived after that.

Chapter 37: To the Point

IN THE MORNING, DRAGON found the four Sea Serpents resting in the shallows off the pristine beach. He ambushed them and killed two before they began to respond – sluggishly, it seemed to him. Thereafter, he fought a hard but ultimately satisfying battle to destroy the remaining pair. He left them for the scavengers.

After waiting all day for word, in the early evening,