Piscalo counted to three and then leapt to his feet, running across to the cavern's gaping mouth. He slowed as he neared the outer lip, careful not to trip over where Gresset’s mighty talons had rent the ground when launching into flight. After finding a safe spot, Piscalo looked down, seeing his brood lord buoyed through the air on massive wings each twice as wide as the creature’s lengthy body. Gresset rarely flew anymore, claiming that his eyes and joints were no longer made for it, and yet the great green cut through the air as deftly as any dragon in their prime, bringing a smile to Piscalo’s lips.

Despite his joy in seeing his brood lord fly, Piscalo’s eyes were drawn to the expansive view of The Crown that lay before him. He stood halfway up one of the six great stone spires, each hundreds of scales high, which formed a near perfect circle around a large, rocky valley, all of which was beautiful to look at from his perch. Torn by competing sites but not wanting to miss anything, Piscalo found Gresset again, watching his brood lord skim over the houses, gardens, and goat pens that spread out from the base of the green dragon’s spire, and then the great wurm angled to the left, heading south, toward the springs and Syldrae.

Piscalo imagined Gresset pumping his enormous wings and shooting further up into the sky like in the stories older dasha told around bulb fire. Their green brood lord didn’t love the hunt like reds or exploring like yellows, but when Gresset was younger he was said to have had a singular passion when it came to chasing the stars. Using his great wings—which even in his youth had been larger than most other dragon’s—he had climbed so far into the sky he was said to have reached the ceiling of the world and so had been called Star Touched.

That had been a long time ago though, well before Piscalo was born, and now Gresset was known more for his and Syldrae’s great love that had nearly united the gray and green spires, and their equally great falling out, as well as his role in fighting off the northern wyvern tribes, and many other things in the multiple centuries the great dragon had lived. But the story about the stars was always Piscalo’s favorite. Partially, because he too loved staring up at the twinkling night sky, but even more because his brood lord had done something that no one else had, before or since. It made Piscalo glad to be green.

Gresset didn’t flap his wings or fly higher as Piscalo eagerly watched. Instead, the massive dragon let the air currents carry him as he soared effortlessly in-between the green and blue spires, leaving The Crown. The departure of a brood lord, of course, sparked reactions. Even from this distance, Piscalo could hear the shaggy goats below bleating in alarm over the close encounter, for they never grew used to the presence of a greater wurm—especially not the reclusive Gresset. The workers too were probably all wondering what had driven their lord to take flight now of all times.

Piscalo pulled his right sleeve up, using none of the care he had before. The wound beneath brought an even larger smile to his lips, and then he laughed, uncontrollably, deliriously. He gave a final hoot, spinning in a circle and stamping his feet on the ground.

It had worked!

Piscalo glanced again at his arm, ridiculously proud. He and Zalc and Jikkol had slaved on it for hours, carefully searing strips of rabbit before attaching them to his skin with gum root sap. Such an imitation would never hold up against careful inspection, but Old Gresset’s sense of smell was no better than his eyes up close.

And now it was here—all the nights of planning and preparing and it was finally happening! Piscalo let his sleeve drop and dashed back into the cavern. The trip to and from the springs should give him plenty of time, especially if Gresset and Syldrae had a drawn-out fight, which, given their history, they probably would. That didn’t mean he was going to dawdle though. No, he wanted to get started as soon as possible to make sure that everything was perfect for when Gresset returned.

Piscalo sped over to a nearby entry tunnel and started traveling down it. He had brought some sacks with him but had left them tucked in a corner, out of view. The passageways were normally lit by clumps of glowing moss spaced at even intervals, however, Piscalo had picked one of the less used tunnels, which had fewer bits of moss, so he could more easily hide the bags. Old Gresset usually didn’t see anyone except during brood gatherings or special summons like today, but Piscalo didn’t want to risk a random passerby stumbling onto his things.

When he got to the right section, he had to rely on his hands to search because the limited moss light didn’t make it all the way to the ground. Even so, he quickly located the sacks and was about to gather them into his arms when a pair of eyes stopped him. They were big, though nowhere near the size of Gresset’s, and they peered at him from the dark recesses of the tunnel. Piscalo heard a noise and turned, seeing another set of orbs behind him, watching.

“I say we eat him,” the initial pair of eyes said.