Free Dragon Thief by Marc Secchia

Southern Archipelago,” she returned slyly, “I intend to transform, and then set about thoroughly discombobulating, addling and befuddling your dubious wits until you don’t know your Islands from your Cloudlands.”
    If he grinned any wider, Kal thought, his cheeks would crack like aged porcelain.
    Waving his arms, he cried, “Then let us burn the heavens, o Tazithiel, as Dragon and Rider!”
    … as Rider and Dragon! she echoed.
    BOOM! A strange quake struck Kal’s spirit. The deepening suns-set blinked into darkness.
    Why was he falling?
    * * * *
    “Unnh …” Kal stirred. He felt as though his head had been placed on a blacksmith’s anvil and pounded into several new shapes.
    Awake, o sleeper? Tazithiel’s Dragon-voice boomed in his mind.
    Kal flapped his arms unhappily, the more so as the wind cuffed them playfully side to side. Stop shouting, it hurts.
    I’m whispering. Buckle up, Kal. I mean, buckle up more. It’s about to get rough.
    With that, he sensed her Kinetic power release him. Muscles twinged in his lower back as Kal straightened up. The White and Yellow moons behind his shoulders illuminated a cloud-rampart ahead, facing them like a monstrous battlement erected to deny any westward passage. Great Islands! He rubbed his arms, seeking insight into a premonition that made him shiver not only physically, but in ways he did not understand. The storm’s skirts were black; uncompromising shadows far deeper than the moons-lit night. His eyes crawled upward in disbelief, tracing the bulging thunderheads that from his perspective, appeared to swell to the very stars, overshadowing Dragon and Rider. The storm-massif’s headwinds grew chillier by the second.
    “Put on your jacket. What’s the matter, Kal?”
    Bah. Mothered by a Dragoness? Shrugging into his fur-lined leather jacket, so essential for flight at the altitudes even a Dragonship could attain, never mind a Dragon’s untouchable capabilities, Kal rapidly fastened the toggles and snugged the thick collar beneath his chin. He donned a fur-lined, conical Jeradian Dragonship Steersman’s cap and wriggled his fingers into thick sheepskin gloves. Better. Now he was a fully clothed icicle.
    Tazi prodded, “Will you stop being a man and use actual words? I can’t read your mind.”
    “What happened when I blacked out?”
    “Why did you make the Dragon Rider oath?” Her annoyance carried to him as a wave of heat whipped back from her muzzle on the wind.
    “I read it in a scroll, once. It just … it felt good and true. Did I hear right; you echoed me? I didn’t realise oaths had magical power.”
    “You didn’t think an oath–” the Indigo Dragoness modulated her simultaneous vocal and mental roaring as her Rider clapped his hands to his head “–Kal, oaths are dangerous. Especially when you blurt one out without prior consideration.”
    “I meant it.”
    “Says the man who spills ten thousand words for a brass dral?”
    He gritted his teeth. “I stand by every flaming word of my oath, Dragoness. Do you?”
    Tazithiel gnashed her much more impressive set of dental weaponry. “While I’m sure this oath will return to bite me like the clash of an Ancient Dragon’s jaws, I spoke truly–Rider Kal.”
    Oath-bound to a Dragoness? His week was not flying high. No, it was accurately emulating a stricken Dragonship plummeting into the lethal Cloudlands. Bah.
    Kal muttered, “Anything you can do for this headache?”
    “I can’t heal you. I’ve many powers in the Red and Blue Dragon spectrums, but no healing.”
    “Tazi, I didn’t intend to knock us from the sky. Vows in my life have been few; usually unworthy ones.” And they had never shivered Islands …
    “You’ll have to work harder than that to down a Dragoness.”
    A sinking sensation developed in the pit of Kal’s stomach. With her fierce Dragon pride, Tazi was not about to enjoy his next statement. But one must never feed a Dragon milk, as the Isles saying went. He said,