This chapter is offered as a free sample. The full story can be found Amazon Kindle and is available to patrons Dragon tier and above

Since the outburst at the party a few days ago, Aeris had been confined to her room. No one was to let her out except to go to relieve herself at certain times of the day and never at night. Instead of her favorite meals, she received meat scraps and bread. Being cooped up in her room day after day was maddening, but she knew better than to complain.

She couldn’t stop thinking about that night. Everything was going so well, then it all unraveled instantly. She felt so proud of how she reacted, and it disgusted her. Even more worrying was not understanding why she reacted the way she did. She had been insulted before, called far worse things than mutt or half-breed. Once, a drunken noble referred to her as “a flying gecko that talked back.” Everyone in the room heard him and laughed, and she spent the rest of that night in the corner hiding her face behind her wing. Another time a noblewoman yelled at Master Aaron because he brought his “stinking, filthy beast” into her home, and Aeris was forced to spend the rest of the evening outside in the rain.

What the Everfields had done wasn’t much worse, but then what was it that pushed her over the edge? Even thinking about the conversation, a low growl escaped her.

I would do it again, she thought. Someone needed to tell those pompous--

She shook her head and blinked, surprised at her behavior then stuck her nose back in the book lying in front of her. A good dragon didn’t react that way. A good dragon didn’t lash out and bite like some rabid beast. And she was a good dragon.

The soft creaking of the door snapped Aeris out of her thoughts. She looked up to see Charles entering the room. The old human looking down his pointed nose at her, impossible to determine if due to his station as the head butler, his disappointment in her, or his immaculate posture. His skin was stretched over his cheekbones and jaw, giving his face a sharp appearance as if carved from glass. It helped his intimidating stare. But what bothered her most about him were the piercing green orbs that made her feel exposed, vulnerable as if he could read her thoughts.

Aeris immediately placed herself in front of the book, sitting up straight as her etiquette lessons had taught her. “Hello, Charles.” Her stomach tightened seeing the small pile of books sitting on the table nearby. Not only was she not supposed to have them, but no one except Maggie knew she could read.

“I see you haven’t forgotten your lessons,” Charles said as he closed the door behind him. He remained near the exit, hands behind his back. “So tell me why is it you forgot those rules during that party the other day?”

“I-I don’t know.”

“So during your time here, you haven’t been reflecting on that? That is the purpose of your punishment.”

“I have,” she said barely above a whisper. “But I don’t have an answer. I can’t explain why I reacted the way I did.”

There was a long silence before Charles spoke again. “You do realize as Lord Strauss’s pet, your actions affect how others will view him?”

She tucked her head further. “I know.”

“Lift your head and look someone in the eye when they speak to you.”

She did as she was told. Her stomach tightened even further. It was hard enough to look at him and his intimidating face, but seeing the books just a few feet away made it worse. All he had to do was turn around.

At the moment, his gaze was locked onto hers. “This family took you in out of the kindness of their hearts, raised you like one of their own, and spent a great deal of time, effort, and money on ensuring you do not behave like the rest of your kind. People expect you to behave like a wild beast. It is your duty to prove them wrong.”

“I know that, but—”

“No excuses!” Charles said harshly, causing Aeris to flinch. “I don’t care what they said or did, you are to hold your tongue. It is impolite to cause a scene like that. What on earth were you thinking?”

Aeris said nothing. There was no excuse for her actions and he didn’t want one. The torture was getting to her. His focus was on her, but all he had to do was turn his head and she would be in even bigger trouble.

The door opened and Aeris risked lifting her head to find Maggie standing in the doorway. “What’s going on here?” Maggie asked.

“Nothing that concerns you,” Charles said stiffly.

“Well, excuse me, but I was not speaking to you,” Maggie shot back in the same hard tone. Turning to Aeris, she asked. “Are you all right?”

Aeris quickly nodded, knowing better than to say otherwise in his presence. The last thing she wanted was for her master to hear she had been disobedient.

Maggie turned to Charles. “Thank you, but we won’t be requiring your services today.”

“I don’t take orders from you, Margret.”

“And Aeris doesn’t take orders from you. Last I checked, I was in charge of her.”

“You have done a very poor job. If you cannot maintain the tasks set before you, perhaps I should recommend Lord Strauss find someone more suitable.”

“What?!” Aeris cried. “But it wasn’t Maggie’s fault!”

Maggie quickly crossed the room and patted the side of Aeris’s neck. “It’s all right, Aeris, I’m not going anywhere.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that. How long do you think Lord Strauss is going to put up with your defiance?”

“As long as he needs to if he wants Aeris to be happy. Or would you rather take on the task of looking after her?”

Aeris cringed at the suggestion.

His already cold gaze turned even icier. “Teach that dragon some manners. Lord Strauss has informed me he won’t have another incident like that spat with the Everfields.” With that, he left the room.

Maggie waited a few moments before turning to her. “Don’t listen to him. I assure you Lord Strauss would not dare fire me. He knows how important I am to you.”

Aeris nodded again, but it still felt like too dangerous a risk. It wasn’t the first time she had been threatened with Maggie’s release should she fail to get her act together. That was not something she wanted to happen. She couldn’t let it happen.

Maggie straightened her clothes although they were already neat. “Since that unpleasant business is out of the way, is there anything you want to talk about?”

Aeris tilted her head. “What do you mean?”

“You know, anything that may or may not be bothering you,” Maggie said, nonchalantly. She walked over to the shelf and picked things up and put them down immediately as if fearing to break them. Eventually, she threw her hands in the air and said, “Oh, I can’t do this. I noticed you’ve been quiet ever since you came back from that party.” Aeris started to protest, but Maggie waggled a finger at her. “And don’t you dare say nothing is wrong. You and Lord Strauss have been in a foul mood ever since you came back. And that old goat has been hovering over you more than usual.”

She curled into a ball and shuddered at the thought of how much she enjoyed telling them off. “I don’t know what happened. I…I just couldn’t take it anymore. The words started pouring out of me, and I couldn’t stop.”

Maggie joined her on the mattress. “I think I know what happened. You were already in a foul mood from being cooped up in your room all day, forced to take two baths so close together, and you were hungry on top of it. For a human that’s enough to make them more than a little irritable. I doubt a dragon would feel any better.” She gently stroked the back of Aeris’s head. “But Aeris, you don’t need to keep all of your feelings bottled up like that. If something bothers you, don’t be afraid to say so.”

“But I don’t want Master Aaron worrying—”

“That is no excuse to shut yourself off from everyone else. I know you want to try and make things easier for Lord Strauss, but hiding things from him is only going to make it worse. Now if you’re set on keeping things quiet, you can always tell me, okay?”

Aeris smiled and nodded then brought out her book, confident she could focus on its contents.

“Aeris, where did you get that book?”

“Oh, uh, you mean this one? I…took it from Master Aaron’s study.”

Maggie folded her arms across her chest and gave Aeris a scolding glare. “Aren’t you forbidden to leave your room?”

“Please don’t tell! I didn’t want to, but I was bored and I ran out of books to read.”

To her surprise, Maggie laughed.“I would never tell on you, Aeris. So how did you get inside the house without anyone noticing?”

“That’s easy,” Aeris said proudly. “There’s a secret passage in the side of the house. I just sneak in through there.”

Maggie sighed heavily. “You silly dragon, Scarlet has been driving us all crazy claiming there’s a rat living in the walls. We’ve been setting traps for months and wondering why we haven’t caught anything.”

Aeris began laughing but quickly stopped when she saw the serious look on Maggie’s face.

“Now what’s this about a secret passage? How did you even find it? And why is this the first time I’m hearing of it?”

Aeris curled into a ball, her pride quickly draining. “I was playing in the garden one day and just happened to find it. I didn’t say anything because I’m not allowed to play in the garden and didn’t want to get in trouble.”

“I understand, but you can’t go sneaking around like that. Lord Strauss would be furious if he found out. Promise me the next time you need a book, you’ll ask me to get it for you.”

“I’m sorry, Maggie. I just wanted something to do.”

“It’s fine but from now on, no more sneaking into the study. Now if anyone asks, tell them I gave you the book. We weren’t told not to bring you things to do, so it should be fine. What are you reading anyway?”

Aeris moved a paw over the book and looked everywhere except Maggie’s eyes. “N-Nothing interesting. Just a story about dragons.”

The look on the woman’s face showed she wasn’t buying it. “You hate stories about dragons. You don’t like how the dragons are always stealing things and killing people.”

“It’s not fair!” Aeris whined. “They always make dragons sound like monsters and everyone cheers when someone kills them and—” she snapped her muzzle shut realizing she was proving Maggie’s point.

The woman chuckled. “You silly dragon. You are a terrible liar.”

Aeris’s mouth dropped open in mock outrage. “I certainly am not!”

“Aeris, you really shouldn’t take advice on lying from the stories you read. They want you to know the character is lying.”

“Oh. Right.”

Her stomach tightened as Maggie looked at the small pile of books on the table. Aeris was so happy to be rescued by Maggie, she had forgotten them.

Maggie picked up the book at the top of the pile and looked at the cover. Then her mouth fell open. “Calculus? Aeris, how did… Where did… You can understand this?”

Aeris shrank away, trying to sink into the mattress. “Yes? At first, I didn’t get much of it, but it mentioned this thing called al-gee-bra, so I read a book about that. Afterward, the book made a lot more sense.”

Maggie’s eyes widened even more. “You mean algebra? Aeris, how long have you been reading these types of books?”

“I-I don’t really know—”

“How long!?”

“A few months,” Aeris said quickly, shrinking away further.

“A few months—oh heavens.” Maggie paced around the room, mumbling things under her breath. Aeris couldn’t make out what she was saying and was too frightened to ask. She was too frightened to move. She had never seen Maggie react this way.

Maggie eventually turned to her again. “Okay, Aeris, I need you to be honest with me—it’s very important. How many of these books have you read?”

“I don’t know, I never counted them. I think that is the last one.”

“Nothing to do about that I suppose.” She quickly scooped the books on the table into her arms, snatched up the one Aeris was reading, and then rushed towards the door. “I’m going to put these away. You stay here and don’t talk to anyone.”

Aeris stared at the door, unmoving. She was too scared to even breathe. Her mind swam with theories about why Maggie would be so upset about her reading.

The books she had read until recently contained stories full of drama, suspense, and intrigue, but these books contained no stories at all. There were no characters, no plot, no beginning, and no end, yet the complicated explanations and various diagrams fascinated her. On a few occasions, she attempted to replicate what she saw in the books, but she had no idea how to write and the scratches she made in the dirt floor resembled just that. She looked down at her latest attempt to draw something the book described as a square. It was described as a shape with four sides of equal length, but the lines she drew were uneven and crooked. Aeris used her tail to brush away the crude drawings.

Eventually, Maggie returned, looking once over her shoulder before closing the door. She began straightening her clothes and red hair which were already neat. Aeris sat up straight, waiting for Maggie to speak. The silence was worrying. It usually meant she was trying to calm herself down enough to speak without yelling.

Finally, Aeris couldn’t take the silence any longer. “Maggie?”

“Aeris, I’m sorry I yelled at you. I didn’t mean to scare you,” Maggie said, her calmness reflected in her voice and posture. “But we discussed this before: some people would be very upset to see a dragon reading. They would be even more upset to see a dragon learning things such as physics or calculus. People aren’t used to seeing that kind of thing. It’s not really considered normal for a dragon to want to learn about those things.”

“But what’s wrong with learning those things?” Aeris asked cautiously.

“There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s just that kind of knowledge is considered a very powerful thing, and dragons are already powerful enough.”

Aeris’s anger rose as the conversation with the Everfields entered her mind. “So everyone’s happy as long as dragons remain dumb beasts?”

Maggie walked over to the mattress and sat down next to Aeris. “No, no. I’m not saying that. I’m saying with that kind of knowledge, you can do very dangerous things.”

It sort of made sense. Dragons were already capable of terrible things, and those books allowed them to do even more. But humans were also capable of horrific acts; she knew that much from the history books and stories she read. She chose to keep her questions about why humans could learn but not dragons to herself. Maggie already seemed uncomfortable with the situation.

The two sat in silence for several minutes, avoiding each other’s gaze. The longer Aeris sat there, the more she thought about what Maggie said. Dragons didn’t read; it was considered normal. Normal. The very word irritated her. There was nothing normal about her, yet she was supposed to act the way everyone expected her to. Mrs. Everfield’s words echoed in her mind: “It’s in their nature to be rude, dear. You can’t expect too much from them.” The mixed feeling of anger and regret she felt that night began to resurface.

Maggie broke the silence and Aeris’s concentration. “Aeris, I noticed you took another book called The History of Dragons. May I ask why?”

Aeris ducked her head under her wing to hide her sudden embarrassment. She had forgotten that book was among the others. “I don’t know what I am,” she mumbled.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“I don’t know what I am,” she repeated louder.

“Aeris, honey, you’re a dragon, what else could you be?” Maggie said, chuckling.

The feelings Aeris had been forcing down shot through her defenses. She couldn’t help it when Maggie talked about something that mattered to her as if it weren’t a big deal. She felt the same way she did back at the party: As if someone had taken over her body and all she could do was watch as they manipulated her.

“That’s not what I meant,” Aeris said, angrily jumping to her feet. “I know I’m a dragon, but that’s all. I don’t know where I came from or what species I am or what happened to my parents. I don’t know anything about myself. Why am I so different from them? Why am I a different color than other dragons? Why can’t I breathe fire like they can?” She began pacing around the room. It was as if she was an open window and nothing could close it. Held open by her anger and confusion. She didn’t care who heard her or what they thought of it; she was going to get this off her mind and dammit they were going to listen. “I’m sick of it! I’m sick of not having an answer when asked ‘what are you?’ and I’m sick of people looking at me strangely or calling me a half-breed because I don’t know where I came from! Even Master Aaron has been lying to me! Why doesn’t anyone want me to know what I am?” Her rant over, she stood in the middle of the room breathing heavily. Letting it all out didn’t make her feel better as the stories suggested. She felt restless and drained at the same time.

Maggie sat there staring as if she had just seen Aeris for the first time. She silently adjusted her clothes and stood up, not once taking her eyes off her.

Her rage became replaced with fear.

Maggie slowly crossed the room to where Aeris stood. Without warning, she fell to her knees and wrapped her arms around Aeris’s neck in such a tight embrace it became difficult to breathe.

“I’m so sorry, Aeris,” Maggie said, her voice muffled from being buried in Aeris’ scales though it was clear she was crying. “I don’t have any answers for you. I don’t know why you’re so different, and I can’t tell you where you came from because I honestly don’t know. But you know what”—she broke away to look her in the eye, revealing her tear-soaked face—“I can’t answer your questions but I can help you find them. Wait right here. I’m going to get some more books from the study and see if we can’t figure this out.”

“But what if someone sees you?”

“You let me worry about that.”

Aeris slowly stood and followed. She wasn’t supposed to, but she felt almost compelled to follow Maggie. This was her chance to find the answers she had been looking for.

Aeris quickly went around to the southeast corner of the estate where Master Aaron’s study was, making sure to hug the wall and keep low to the ground so no one would see her through the windows. She peeked through the window to the study and saw it empty. Rather than wait for Maggie to arrive, she decided to let herself in.

The entrance to the secret passage, hidden behind a rose bush, was near impossible to see even knowing where it was. After finding the secret door, she pushed it open from the bottom and squeezed inside.

It was a bit of a squeeze, but Aeris had gotten used to traversing the narrow passages. The tunnels led to all the rooms in the mansion, and she had explored them all. What she hadn’t gotten used to was the thick and musty and cobweb-lined walls from lack of maintenance.

She often explored the passages on the days she was bored which was mostly rainy days. She also snuck into the servant’s wing on days when Maggie was sick as Kera, the maid who took over Maggie’s duties at those times, only brought Aeris food and refused to interact further. So Aeris would sneak into Maggie’s room and lay beside her bed.

Each room had a secret window, hidden behind a painting or a mirror, allowing her to see inside. Being able to spy on others made her uncomfortable as did the idea that whoever built those passages designed them for that very purpose. The mansion had been in Master Aaron’s family for generations, so she often wondered how many knew about the secret passages, how many had used them, and why no one knew about them now.

Each door was opened by use of a switch which was usually located near the door. It didn’t take long before she found the switch controlling the door to Master Aaron’s study. She checked the window tucked behind a painting of a ship at sea before pulling the switch and entering the room.

Every time Aeris entered her master’s study, it felt as if she were entering for the first time. It was one of the few rooms she was never allowed to enter. Master Aaron said Aeris could break something being inside, but the study was more than spacious enough for her to move about unhindered as long as she kept her tail under control.

So Aeris had always been extremely cautious during her visits, keeping her wings snapped close to her body, and her tail tucked underneath her even though it was uncomfortable.

A large desk took up most of the space in the study. The books in the room sat on the bookshelf which covered an entire wall. The rest of the room was occupied by a smaller table and a few chairs. It was always a bit messy inside, books and papers scattered all over the desk and table. During her last visit a few days ago, the papers were long detailed descriptions of dragon birth rates. At the time, she ignored them. Now the papers were gone and she wished she had read them when she had the chance.

She sat patiently by the bookcase so that anyone coming in wouldn’t immediately see her and waited until Maggie arrived. The woman carefully checked her surroundings then closed the door only to spin around and yelped at the sight of Aeris. “My goodness, Aeris, how did you get in here? Never mind. We only have a few hours before Lord Strauss gets home; we need to go through as many of these books as possible.”

Aeris nodded in agreement. She was grateful to Maggie for wanting to go through all this trouble for her though she didn’t have the heart to tell the woman that she had already read through the books and didn’t find anything. But she still held on to the hope Maggie would see something she didn’t, after all, the woman knew more about these things than she did.

They poured through the various texts until Master Aaron came home, but the search turned up nothing. Aeris snuck out through the secret passages and headed straight to her room. Today’s defeat had left her feeling empty; she didn’t even worry about if anyone saw her or not.

Then she was reminded of her punishment when her master came in just a few minutes later.

“Hello, Aeris. I’ve been meaning to talk to you.” He sat down next to her on the mattress and gently placed a hand on her side. “You understand I only punished you out of necessity, right?”

“Of course, Master. I was wrong for what I did.”

“That’s good to hear. Now, have you been paying attention during your lessons with Charles?”

“I-I’ve been trying, Master. But he seems so angry with me and he yells at me whenever I mess up.”

“He yells at you because he wants you to succeed. We can’t have you overreacting like that. Dragons are famous for their tempers, but you must control yourself, understand? You don’t want people to develop a negative opinion of me, right?”

Aeris nodded in silence. She understood perfectly, but it was harder to put into practice than she expected. Then Charles’ threat of Maggie being fired if she didn’t get her act together entered her mind.

It could happen again. But until she learned of her origins, the risk of being insulted and acting out would loom over her.

Master Aaron patted her on the head one last time before leaving. With a small whine, Aeris curled up on her mattress and awaited dinner.