The Dragons of the Mist: Legends of Cirena, #6

By Stephanie Flint

Trapped in a hidden realm of dragons...

 

Zynia would do anything for her god, a patron of travel. But she never expected his latest request would bring her to the lost home of the dragons—

 

Real dragons.

 

The kind who breathe fire and mist, have wings, and can shapeshift into human form at will.

 

When she gets tossed into their realm by a dragon intent on diversifying his daughter's clan, at least she knows her missing traveler is somewhere in the mists and the rolling moors.

 

But even if she finds the traveler, can she reason with the dragons to let them return?

 

Explore the rolling mists of the Immortal Realm... read The Dragons of the Mist today!

 

 

~ Each of these Legends of Cirena stories can be read stand-alone: ~

 

* The Wind Mage of Maijev (Livena)
* The Gryphon and the Mountain Bear (Nuaka)
* The Restless Sands of Neel (Ro'nor)
* The Cursed Halls of Kalecen (Hahven)
* The Scars of Her Past (Alia)
* The Dragons of the Mist (Zynia)

 

~ Crossovers (It will help to have read the previous stories involving the featured characters): ~

 

* The Wind Mage and the Wolf - Features Livena (The Wind Mage of Maijev) and Nuaka (The Gryphon and the Mountain Bear)
* The Trial of Bells and Blood - Features Hahven (The Cursed Halls of Kalecen) and Alia (The Scars of Her Past)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Infinitas Publishing
• Release date: Jul 17, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393307242

Stephanie Flint

Stephanie Flint (formerly Stephanie Bibb) graduated from the University of Central Missouri with a Bachelor of Science in photography and a minor in creative writing. She merged the two interests into book cover design and photographic illustration, but she particularly enjoys writing speculative fiction. Stephanie lives with her husband, Isaac. Together they plot stories in the form of tabletop role-play games, and they enjoy the occasional cosplay. Online, Stephanie often goes by the nickname of SBibb.

Book preview

The Dragons of the Mist

A Novella from the Legends of Cirena

by Stephanie Flint

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2020 by Stephanie Flint

Formatting and cover design by Stephanie Flint

Daz assets used in the cover design

All rights reserved. Published by Infinitas Publishing.

infinitaspublishing.com

Table of Contents

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Acknowledgements

Newsletter

About the Author

Glossary

Also by the Author

ONE

Timbers creaked as the ship rocked in constant motion. Zynia groaned and huddled deeper under her blanket, trying to push away thoughts of the endless sea surrounding her. The stones and sand of solid earth were far beneath her, well out of reach of her magic. Nothing to keep her grounded.

Nothing to convince her stomach that she wasn’t on a nauseating construction of wood in more water than she cared to think about. She groaned. With Harethn’s blessing, the Darden Isles would be in sight by nightfall, and then she’d be rid of this Ishis-cursed sea sickness. Normally she would use her ribbons of healing magic to keep herself in high spirits, but this current bout of seasickness was affecting her ribbons, too.

A hollow knock sounded at the door to her small cabin. She lifted her head, not bothering to move. If she did, she might lose what meager breakfast she’d dared to eat. The door was locked, but she had ways around that. Her portal ribbons, flighty, staggered to her fingertips at her mental command. She started to nudge them toward the door, and then frowned. Given she was on a rocking boat, and that her ribbons were as seasick as she was, chances were high that she’d end up opening a portal halfway through the wall.

She’d have to get up.

Groaning, her stomach in a somersault of knots, she forced herself to her feet and stumbled to the door, flipped the knob, and then collapsed in her bed again. She dragged the covers back over her shoulders. This whole boat, this whole trip, was cold.

A young man with tan skin and curly brown hair stuck his head through the door’s gap. Priestess Zynia?

She raised her arm and weakly beckoned for him to enter.

While this boat was chilled with the dampness of sea and she could barely keep warm under the covers, the sailor was bare to the waist. Curling green tattoos wrapped around his torso and up his arm like wisps of smoke. His dark blue, satin pants billowed around his legs before clenching at his ankles and bare feet. Aside from his penchant for a cold day, the only thing suggesting his immortal heritage was the dark brown claws on his fingers and toes, currently retracted like a cat’s.

Dragon-blooded.

The boat lurched. She grimaced as bile rose in her throat. A quick swallow, and the sailor was saved from having to find a mop. She clamped her fingers tight in the wool blanket she’d brought for the journey, and she continued staring at the wooden floor between his clawed feet.

For the most part, those in the Darden Isles didn’t have any visible reminder of their ancestral heritage. But a few, like this young seaman, still displayed the more unusual traits.

We’re an hour out from the Isles. He eyed her bundled in the bed. "Is there anything I can get for you, vaem?"

The good news is enough. She smiled weakly.

Only an hour left of this cursed sickness, thank Harethn, and then she could have land beneath her feet again.

The sailor’s lips quirked with amusement. Forgive me if I heard wrong, but are you not a priestess for a god of travelers? And you still get seasick?

"Land travel, she clarified. Ishis is the goddess of sea travel."

Apparently, she ought to provide that goddess a few favors on her return trip to see if her next ride could be more smooth.

Ah. Well, you’ve an hour until we reach land. The sailor rapped his knuckles on the wooden wall before closing the door behind him. The boat lurched again, followed by her stomach. She groaned. Queasy, she buried herself into her covers.

Perhaps a few prayers to Harethn might distract her mind, at least until they finally reached port.

Zynia rested her elbows on the inn’s window ledge and pressed her forehead to the cool glass. Once they’d arrived at port, she had slept for the remainder of the evening. Sometime at midnight, when she arose for a drink of water, she noticed she’d finally gotten her land legs back. Now morning approached, and a pale disc of light hung in the eastern sky, the early morning sun obscured by a gray veil of mist. Despite the mist, a vestige of cold light clung to the edges of the city’s rounded roofs. Fog hung at knee-level in the street in a kind of chilly morning that would have most of the Anethians she knew second-guessing going out for at least another hour.

Too many chances that immortals would be about.

But here? The streets already had travelers. A woman in a sleeveless tunic with curly hair pinned at the nape of her neck walked alongside the road, raising her arms and bowing her head at each street lamp, dimming the light in the enchanted crystals as she went about her morning ritual. Children ran along the center of the street, kicking a leather ball before the roads got busy. A young man with a thick grass mat on his back claimed the corner of a crossroad, laying down the mat before setting out baskets of flowers and vegetables. Another man, this one older with graying hair and a hunched back, wandered along, earning polite bows as he passed. Though his torso was bare—like most of the men here—he wore a woven grass necklace that fanned across his shoulders and led into a cloak consisting entirely of a cross-hatched pattern of gray shells and red flowers.

Zynia let out a breath. He must have been one of their priests—such a cloak would take time