Dragon Keeper's Academy: Hidden Worlds, #2

By Michelle Wilson

Welcome to the Dragon Keeper's Academy: a school full of humans, witches, warlocks, fae, and werewolves, where only the best and brightest get chosen to become a Dragon Keeper. 

Dive into stories filled with magic, betrayal, and danger alongside students and professors as you spend a year at the academy. Discover ancient secrets, experience untapped power, and race through the air with dragons. 

Dragon Keeper's Academy is an anthology of interconnected short stories brought to you by authors K.D. Reid, Lindsey S. Frantz, and Michelle Wilson.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tulip Poplar Publications
• Release date: Feb 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393155294

Book preview

Dragon Keeper’s AcademyTitle Page

Dragon Keeper’s Academy

A Hidden Worlds Anthology

K. D. Reid Lindsey S. Frantz Michelle Wilson

Tulip Poplar Publisher

Dragon Keeper’s Academy: A Hidden Worlds Anthology is an anthology of stories written by multiple authors. This volume is copyright © 2020 by Tulip Poplar Publications. The authors herein retain the individual copyright to their works. Published 2020 by Tulip Poplar Publications. Cover design is copyright © 2020 by Sleepy Fox Studios.

This anthology is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, folklore, mythology, people, or places are used fictitiously. All other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any similarities to actual events, locations, or persons, living or dead, are entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the authors, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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Contents

The Fate of Mother Nature’s Children

To Care for Dragons

Opal and June

Deep Secrets

The Gladiaera

Ghost Stories

A Dragon, a Wolf, and a Rose

Stolen

Writing on the Wall

A Love Story

Sins of the Father

More from Hidden Worlds

About Lindsey S. Frantz

About K.D. Reid

About Michelle Wilson

Hidden Worlds Book Club

Leave a Review

The Fate of Mother Nature’s Children

K.D. Reid

Gaia’s favorite place to sleep was next to the stream in The Forests of Ere where the softest moss made a luxurious bed. She woke when the birds scattered from the canopy with panicked squawks. The ancient dragon huffed.

Gaia lifted her body from the ground with four strong legs as big as some of the younger tree trunks of the forest. Instead of scales, vines roped around her body to form her skin and cover her muscles. Arced horns on top of her head resembled the bark of the trees. She filled her lungs with the peaty scent of her woodlands. Her tail unfurled from her body as she opened her wings to stretch. Gaia was an Ancient One made from the very earth itself, one of the oldest of her kind. And she smelled smoke in her forests.

When the forest settled, she focused on the returning sounds of the flora and fauna. Birds still fluttered in the distance as bats resumed their nighttime feeding. A fox popped its head back out of its den, and a giant, far to the south where he remained unperturbed by the nearby castle, rolled over, still sleeping.

Quakes were common enough, rippling through the Dragonlands once every few centuries and frightening the wildlife. But Gaia was aware of another disturbance in the forest. Not a quake or rustle of nature. The trees whispered of a foreign presence.

A tribe of centaurs in the east hunted for food, but they weren’t foreign to the forest. They were an inevitable interruption to the life cycle of some poor creature, yes, but not the trouble of the trees. Nixies resumed play in the stream at her side. Pixies fluttered through the underbrush and bushes.

Triton, Gaia called. We must investigate a disruption.

The water in the stream rose up into a small pillar, then fell away from the form of a blue dragon. The nixies scattered but returned to their splashing once Triton emerged. His horns were straight and pointed back toward his shoulders, his nose was round. The scales along his body were cerulean and rippled like water when he moved.

Triton was a quiet companion. He found his way into Gaia’s forest after he lost his Keeper. A terrible incident of which he was reluctant to speak. The Bonded, dragons who bonded to a human with magical abilities, shared a deep connection with their Keeper. Once their Keeper departed, they held an emptiness inside of them.

What manner of disruption? he asked. He was a blue star in the dark of a forest’s night.

Gaia smelled the air again. Beyond the heavy, wet scent of dirt and earth was heat. Smoke. She made a contemplative noise low in her throat. Ignis. He visits the nest, but he frightens the trees.

They picked their way down a path which led south. The greater dragon moved effortlessly through her forest. She knew the location and intentions of each searching vine and every aerial root. With Triton’s company, the forest blossomed with life other than just plants. He called rains for thirsty forest creatures when their lands were in drought. Triton helped Gaia temper the earth with warmer or colder waters, dependent upon the season, and helped her keep the woodlands lush even during harsh winters. Triton followed alongside her, splashing in the stream as they made their way toward the scent of fire.

The heat of summer still hung heavy in the night air. Cicadas and crickets made their music, and owls hooted in the distance.

Ahead of the dragons, laying overtop Triton’s stream, the troll continued its heavy slumber. To any other passerby, he would appear as a hill covered in grass and stone. The hill rolled, the ground shook, and the troll snored, which tugged at the leaves overhead. Triton snorted, his feet splashing an agitated gallop in his waters.

Gaia tipped her head to the side and mulled over the situation. Trolls were creatures with which diplomacy accomplished little, and physical strength even less. The troll’s stony gray toes and feet lay at one side of the stream, his snoring bulbous nose and viny hair at the other.

An Ancient One could move a troll, and if she were alone, she may. Though if she were alone, she would just go around the sleeping mass. Triton’s stream was a precious thing to him, a place of comfort and joy.

Moving the troll would prove a mistake. Though he could not harm Gaia, Triton would be in danger if the troll was angry when it woke. And trolls always wake angry.

Better to have him wake to something faraway, then.

Gaia used her magic to search her lands. She found a pebble in the distance. At her command, the tiny stone slipped. When it did, a raucous landslide sent more birds into the sky. A boulder rolled down the mountainside. Deer and fox leapt out of the way with ease. Branches snapped from trees, and Gaia hid a wince.

As the troll stirred into a grumpy waking, Triton and Gaia faded away into the water and forest. The troll growled like a small dragonling scorned and stomped away toward the noise that woke him. The leaves rustled overhead with the jostle of his step, and Triton and Gaia continued on their way. With each step, Gaia’s mood soured. This time of year was difficult, a transition she dreaded.

Then there was another cry in the forest. This time, it was not the nerves of the trees, but the bleat of a frightened fawn. It broke across Triton’s stream, and the sound of horses’ hooves followed the young deer.

The centaur tribe has left its boundaries, Gaia informed Triton.

Triton nodded.

He followed Gaia as she approached the sound of stampeding centaurs. Upon seeing the forest’s mother, the band of centaurs stopped. Mortal beings saw the Ancient Ones as their minds could conceive them. It was Gaia’s understanding, from her communications with vagabond dragons, that all who laid eyes on her and her siblings saw the ancient dragons almost as a mirage. They appeared as fractals of color and light, phantasmal pulsations of energy.

Gaia’s intent was to herd the centaurs back toward their own land, away from her sacred clearing in the west. Until she saw the reason for the fawn’s distress was not just that they were pursuing him. One centaur, at the back of the ranks, carried a limp doe over his haunches.

The trees groaned and arced their branches toward the encroaching tribe as Gaia’s eyes found the unjust game. She willed a path to make itself known through the underbrush. A pathway which began at a den and ended near the centaur settlement.

A piercing howl cut through the night. The sound of direwolves who caught the scent of a meal. The centaurs turned from the ancient dragon and fled through the forest. Should the direwolves find their tribe before they arrived back at their settlement, well, Gaia would consider it fair cost. There was a pain in her chest for the lost doe. A deeper pain for the orphaned fawn.

It isn’t your fault, Triton said as they found the stream again.

Gaia kept her voice low. I should have intervened sooner. When I felt them begin their hunt.

You could not have known they would pursue such vulnerable prey.

She let his words be the last on the subject. Injustices were infrequent in her forests. Still, they were her forests. Her injustices.

At last, their path veered westward, away from the stream toward a small clearing in the trees. There, the eggs rested safely, far away from the castle, trolls, and tribes of centaurs. Gaia knew what she would see even before she ducked her head through an opening in the trees.

Over the nest of eggs stood another dragon. Equal to her size, this dragon burned as he stood. Flames leapt along his spine, a line of living spikes that trailed the length of his neck down to his tail. His eyes glowed like magma at the heart of the earth, and smoke curled steadily from his nostrils.

Ignis, Gaia said. Is it time already for your visit? Or have you come here just to frighten my trees?

Do you lose track of the years hidden away in this forest? It is my turn to transport the Wildlings, Ignis replied.

Each year a different sibling helped to transport the eggs to the Bonding Ceremony or to join Ignis and the Wildlings. Last year, it was Fulgur’s job to care for the Wildlings. This year, he would assist with the Bonded, and Ignis would take the others.

Triton hovered near the break in the trees, his tail lashing at the air in an agitated arc. The fiery Ancient One peered around the Forest Dragon to leer at him.

Another of your projects? Ignis’s voice was the roar of a fire, low, hissing, and warm.

No concern of yours, brother. Gaia approached the nest and curled her tail around it.

I’m right here. Triton said with a derisive snort.

Gaia ignored him. Seven have chosen to join the Wildlings this year.

Ignis’s gaze shifted to the two dozen eggs. They were snuggled into a bed of leaves and moss which was encircled by a low wall of smooth river rock. That’s five fewer than last year.

I can count. Gaia nudged a blue egg toward a pink one. The two liked to be near one another.

I wonder, dear sister, if you’ve influenced their opinions of me.

While Ignis visited The Forests of Ere, he remained as good as still. To the Ancient Ones, conflict and carelessness were wasted time. Setting flame to Gaia’s forest would benefit no one. Though the siblings rivaled one another and debated philosophy often, it was where the confrontation between the Ancient Ones ended.

They choose their paths, and I do not interfere. Nature must develop in its own way. Gaia’s casual goading drew Triton closer to the nest. He checked the rock wall to be sure none would topple and cause a sleeping dragonling to startle as they slept in their eggs. Gaia continued, They understand better every year the meaning of being bonded, the companionship it can offer.

Can it really be better than a life with the Wildlings? Ignis asked. We have no worries over trivial human concerns like war or gemstones.

Triton’s work brought him around to Gaia’s feet where he was brave enough to say, Why shouldn’t you be concerned about the gemstones? They control magic all over the world.

And I am not magic. I am elemental. Ignis answered Triton but stared at Gaia.

Our children have magic, Gaia said.

And what if they didn’t?

I like my magic, Triton piped up again. The surroundings were quiet. Ignis’s presence unnerved all the creatures of the forest.

Then they would be as they were before magic began, Gaia said. Triton hopped into the nest and checked on the eggs. Beasts of sorts. Prehistoric.

More like the Wildlings, you mean. Ignis shifted his wings closer to his body, careful of a low-hanging limb.

You’re scorching that one there. Behind you. Move closer to the eggs. Your warmth will make them happy, Gaia said. No, they would not be like the Wildlings. Wildlngs still use magic. Our children without their magic would be feral. Always hungry, yearning, hunting.

That is just your opinion, Ignis snorted, and a cloud of smoke encircled his snout. He hovered closer to the nest, and a sense of comfort fell over the eggs as his warmth emanated into the bedding.

It is what the earth tells me. Gaia helped Triton move the seven eggs who wished to be born to the Wildlings into a smaller cluster.

Bittersweet sadness melted into the seventeen eggs remaining with Gaia. They looked forward to the Bonding Ceremony, a few short weeks away. However, they would miss their siblings who went with Ignis. Over the last few months, Gaia spoke with them and helped them reach their own conclusions about their nascent lives.

At first, the Bonded became bitter toward the Wildlings. One feisty red egg had told her, How selfish of them, to want to abandon the humans!

No, Gaia told the unborn fire dragon. Not selfish. They simply wish to pursue a path of self-exploration, to see where they can take themselves.

The Wildlings became imperious toward the Bonded. How foolish to marry themselves to another, to bind their potential! a yellow egg had said to her.

No, she told him. They are not fools. They feel called to a cause, beckoned by a destiny which is different from your own.

Always, when the time came to part ways, all the unborn dragonlings were conflicted. It weighed on Gaia’s heart.

Do they have to go? each group would ask. Couldn’t they stay with us? Gaia would nestle them closer to one another for a final few weeks before they parted.

Triton, Gaia said. There is a shedding pine just over there. Re-bed the nest. They will need extra comfort this evening.

Triton nodded and leapt out of the nest to gather some fallen pine needles.

Ignis watched Triton shuffle in the underbrush for a moment before he said, These orphans you find—

They find me.

These orphans. Why don’t you send them with me?

Gaia adjusted herself to lie on the ground beside the nest. Her head settled next to the seven departing babies. Even once their Keepers have gone, the Bonded find closure near the castle. It reminds them of where they went to school, things they accomplished. They choose to stay here.

Would it not be better for them to leave it behind? To find a new purpose?

They have a purpose. All beings have purpose.

You know my meaning, Gaia. Twice now you have taken these lost children under your wing. Ignis caught her gaze. Already you bear the burden of loss with the eggs. Little sister, let me help you.

Gaia nosed a lavender egg, the smallest of the clutch this year. Triton finds his peace in the forest, Ignis. As did my companion before him. Should they ever wish to leave, I would trust them to your care. She stood, and a slow trail of sap wept from her eye.

Ignis sighed.

Triton returned with a mouthful of pine needles and spat them onto the ground. He and Gaia arranged the needles. When they finished, Triton stood back and admired the nest.

After a stretch of silence, Triton said, What if we helped with the burden? Ignis and Gaia looked to the blue dragon then back at one another as Triton continued his thought. I could help transport the Wildlings, then choose to return to the forest. You would have news of your departed children more often than only when your brothers and sisters come to take them away. Would it not lessen the pain? Triton said to Gaia.

Stillness stole Gaia’s thoughts. To know each year how her children have grown, to remain in some vague contact. She looked to Ignis who tilted his head at her.

Triton, she started.

At the same time, Ignis said, Gaia.

Triton cut between them. We are stuck in a world between. Unable to re-bond with another, unwilling even. Unable to leave this world behind us. Triton’s wings drooped as he said, At least, I am caught in between. And if I am honest, the ceremony is the hardest. To hear every new dragon’s excitement at becoming one of the Bonded. He heaved a sigh and shook his head.

Gaia nodded to him. Each ceremony since Triton’s arrival in her forest, he spent lying in the streams and refused to leave. Even when Gaia lured him to help her settle a diplomatic matter with the dryads or the spriggans.

Her brother spoke then. You can travel with me, and you are welcome to come and go as you please, Triton. It is one benefit of the Wildlings.

The siblings’ gazes met again. Gaia could find no counterpoint. Rather, her arguments were selfish. She was reluctant to wander back into the woods by herself. Especially after the departure of the eggs.

Gaia sighed, her eyes not leaving Ignis’s as she repeated her earlier words. They choose their paths, and I do not interfere. Nature must develop in its own way.

Ignis nodded, and though she knew he meant well, he was smug, and it stung her. Gaia made herself busy arranging the seventeen Bonded in the way they preferred. A blue next to the pink, a speckled green beside a solid green, one black egg which adored a singular pearlescent egg.

Ignis said to Triton, You can arrange a carrier then. It will save me having to fire a bowl.

The eggs typically made their journey with Ignis in a thick earthenware bowl which he created with fire and wet earth. It kept the eggs warm while shielding them from his flames and too much heat.

She looked forward to his years as the Wildings’ transport. His need to create the fired bowl bought her more time.

Triton approached her, timid. Gaia?

Yes?

I am not ungrateful. He sounded sheepish.

I know. Come. Let us find some kudzu. It makes fine baskets.

She left the eggs to the care of her brother and went back into the trees, trusting Triton would follow. A short distance from the clearing, kudzu covered the forest floor and crept up the trees. Remnants from Gaia’s previous companion. A forest dragon whose earthen magic had helped the forest flourish in such a different way compared to Triton’s water magic.

The orphans were a scant glimpse of her children after they hatched. The Ancient Ones remained secluded, away from the humans and other dragons. Their ancient elemental power tipped the balances of mortal living. Fewer appearances made all their lives less complicated.

I will return, Triton said from behind her. I promise.

Her previous companion had not. After her grief had scarred over, she left to explore the world. She did not become one of the Wildlings; she was not under Ignis’s care. She had just gone away.

Gaia willed the kudzu away from the trees, away from their roots, and wove them into a carrier. It would nestle beneath Triton’s belly. The eggs would stay warm and guarded from any weather they might encounter on the way to Ignis’s mountains.

If you choose not to come back to the forests, I will understand, she said at last. This is a lonely way of living. It is not for everyone.

I think this way, it will be less lonely. Triton wriggled into the harness to test the size. After a pause, he said, I will return before winter can take hold.

Gaia nodded and followed him back to the clearing where Ignis waited. He stood still as stone, though his flames lapped all around him.

Ah, her brother said. A fine way to transport the eggs, indeed. And it will be comfortable for a long flight? It is quite a journey from Gaia’s realm to mine.

Comfortable enough, Triton said.

Very good. It is a lighter clutch this year, afterall, Ignis said with another mischievous glance toward Gaia.

Her heart had no room for his jesting. She remained silent.

Triton tried to catch her eye as he collected and nestled the eggs at his breast, but she kept her gaze averted.

Ignis stared at her while he spoke to Triton. Fly west, and I will be behind you shortly.

Gaia saw Triton nod from the corner of her eye. The blue dragon turned toward her.

I’ll see you soon, he said. I do promise.

A promise seemed a silly thing to make. Promises were agreements to a future. The future forever holds what mortals—even her long-lived children—cannot see. To keep Triton from breaking a promise he intended to keep, Gaia resigned any hope of his return.

Goodbye, Triton. Safe journey.

Triton gave a contrite nod and took flight. Ignis’s snort drove his flames into a small frenzy, and the leaves on the lowest branches of the trees wilted.

Sulking doesn’t become you, sister.

Gaia’s temper flared. You have no right to speak to me that way, she said as she approached Ignis. You, who have no concept of the loss of children but only the gaining of them.

Ignis growled. We both lose our children, only in different ways. I see our dragonlings pass from this world into the next as they age or make mistakes which cannot be unmade. At least you can lose yours to safety. Ignis stood as he spoke to put distance between himself and Gaia.

Safety? They do not go into a world of safety, Ignis! Never that. Be it into your care or to the academy, it is never safe.

They danced in a circle around the nest, but Ignis fixed her with his stare.

Then let it still be of their choosing, sister, he said. To the quick of it, as was Ignis’s way. He chooses to see another way of life. You fear for him, as do I. But let us not forget our own place. Let the choice be his.

I have, she hissed. The truth in his words burned. She hated it. Get out.

With a heaving sigh of smoke, Ignis took flight. Gaia watched as Triton’s blue silhouette faded from sight. Ignis’s flames soon filtered away, and she was alone with her eggs. For a little while at least , she still had these seventeen eggs.

Nature wept with its creator as she lay encircling her nest. The pines dripped sap, and the smell of it filled the forest. As the sun colored the sky, mourning doves cooed their sorrowful songs. The crows followed and cawed Gaia’s anger to the skies. When the moon lifted into the sky and the stars winked into existence one by one, a gentle wind kissed the river rocks of the nest.

The breeze held the scent of lightning, the crackle of power which was the signature of her younger brother, Fulgur. It was time, then.

Take them, Fulgur. Be gentle. Keep their arrangement. Gaia pleaded with her brother even though he was out of sight.

His winds lifted the eggs in a gentle cradle. She gave them a final nuzzle goodbye and watched the cradle expand. The swirling air formed a funnel, then a tail. Fulgur took the dragonlings up through the winds, into the sky, and