“I never knew you could read,” Flynn commented over breakfast.

  They were sitting in one of the larger courtyards of the palace, where they’d spent the night under the open sky. Flynn was casually leaning against Oscar’s flank, letting the movement of the dragon’s jaw gently massage his back.

  “I find it a handy skill,” the dragon replied.

  “How does that even work?”

  “The same as it does for humans, I suppose.”

  “But, like… do you read dragon-sized books then?”

  “Don't be ridiculous,” Oscar rumbled dryly.

  “Oh, that would make it ridiculous?”

  “Yes. We all read the same size books.”

  Flynn snorted. “So what, you use your massive claws to flip tiny book pages?”

  “I fail to see how my physical impairments are reason for amusement,” the dragon said and tucked in his talons.

  Flynn rolled his eyes. But since Oscar couldn’t see that, he also gently elbowed him in the side.

  “Ouch,” the dragon said indignantly.

  “Oh, come on, you big lizard. As if you even felt that.”

  Oscar stopped chewing.

  “I find that term mildly offensive.”

  Flynn snorted. “Yeah, well, I find being sent to the funny house offensive.”

  “You should work on your choice of wording,” the dragon countered.

  “Don’t lecture me, Mr I-Just-Burned-An-Entire-City.”

  Oscar murmured something along the lines of half a city and continued to eat his pumpkins. Naturally, he was a vegetarian.

  “With that attitude, it might do you some good to seek out a therapy center, you know?” the dragon mused in between bites.

  “We’ll see about that,” Flynn muttered, and stuffed the last piece of bread into his mouth. They had a long journey ahead of them.

  He sighed theatrically and let his gaze drift to the sky.

  “If only we could just fly there.”

  “You know I don’t like heights.”

  “I’m sorry, but out of all your quirks, that might be the weirdest one.”

  “Why?” Oscar asked innocently.

  “You are a dragon, for heaven’s sake. You are meant to take to the skies.”

  “It’s cold up there.”

  “How would you even know?”

  “I’ve tried.”

  Flynn snorted and crossed his arms.

  “Oh yeah? When? Must’ve missed that.”

  Oscar shifted his weight and pulled his head around. His amber eyes were the size of wagon wheels.

  “You remember that tree in front of our old house?” he said with his gravelly voice, and the scales along his neck trembled.

  “I’m not sure if I’d call that a tree …”

  “I climbed it when I was still small.”

  Flynn snorted. “You were never small. Even back then, you were half the size of that twig.”

  The dragon huffed and turned away.

  “Besides,” Flynn continued, “where on earth are you going with that story? Are you going to tell me that climbing a tree is the same as flying through clouds?”

  Oscar’s neck muscles tensed. “I am a dragon. Some things I just know.”

  They fell silent for a moment, and Flynn watched as the sun slowly climbed over the courtyard walls.

  “At the Mythical Ward,” the dragon said after a while, “we will learn to listen to each other.”

  “Did you read about that, too?”

  Oscar considered the question for a moment, as if to decide whether it deserved a response.

  “As a matter of fact, I did.”

  A gentle breeze brushed against them, rich with the scent of pine and resin.

  “Nature’s calling,” Flynn commented, and slowly pushed himself up.

  He walked around the pile of azure scales that was Oscar until he stood in front of the large dragon.

  “I’m sorry, okay?”

  The dragon nodded.

  “Me, too.”

  Shaking the ground, Oscar rose to his impressive height, his massive thighs flexing one after the other until he stood on all four legs. When he rolled his head, the large dragon jerked.

  Bending forward, he opened his massive mouth and exposed an armory of sharp fangs. They were as long as Flynn’s arm and as thick as his torso. And somewhere in there, Flynn spotted a large piece of pumpkin that was wedged between two of Oscar’s frontal teeth.

  “Ca—you—ge—tha?” the dragon mouthed.

  “Ten bucks say that thing is going to eat you,” a guard shouted from across the courtyard.

  “It wouldn’t be the first time,” Flynn muttered when he emerged from the dragon’s open mouth. Oscar shot him an apologetic look. Another accident, way back when.

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  “And he’s not a thing.”

  The journey to the Valley of Nessar took several days of strenuous hiking, and a fair share of arguing with angry farmers whenever Oscar would eat an entire field worth of crops for lunch. Most of them could only be persuaded after bringing them in talon’s reach of the large dragon. To keep up appearance’s, Oscar was forbidden from speaking during these brief encounters. Fortunately, most farmers mistook the red-flushing scales for a sign of imminent danger, and since none of them wanted to end up as a post-lunch desert, they usually could be reasoned with relatively quickly.

  At night, they slept under the stars. The dragon didn’t fit in any building known to mankind, and over the years, they’d gotten used to it. Oscar’s wings served as a leathery blanket, his radiating body as a space heater, and his thunderous heartbeat had turned into a soothing melody.

  There was a time when they hadn’t traveled the world. Flynn had owned a house at the outskirts of a small town once, with fields for Oscar to roam. But as his dragon companion grew into the impressive specimen he was today, the villagers had started to become distant, and eventually hostile. A single city was not enough to feed a dragon, and his towering body a presence not everyone saw as a visual enrichment to their cityscape.

  Flynn shook off the memories and focused on the road ahead.

  As per usual, he had to walk, even though he’d much preferred to travel on horseback. But, alas, Oscar was squeamish around horses, and so Flynn had accepted his fate as a foot soldier. His sword dangled loosely off to one side, his backpack casually tossed over his right shoulder.

  “Are we there yet?” Oscar asked on the fifth day, as they strolled down a spacious path flanked by lush forest.

  “You’ve already asked that today,” Flynn replied without sharpness.

  “We’ve moved since then.”

  Flynn chuckled. “Well, yes, about five miles.”

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “Are we there yet?”

  He shook his head and looked up at the dragon. A bird was sitting on his one horn, unfazed by the constant up and down of heavy footsteps.

  “No.”

  “I see,” the dragon said with a low rumble, and fell silent.

  But only for about five seconds.

  “My feet hurt.”

  “You are not serious, are you?” Flynn asked in bewilderment.

  “I am usually serious.”

  He considered the remark for a moment. Oscar was right — dragons were indeed rather serious. Which was not to say they weren’t funny, even if it wasn’t always of their own choosing.

  “For every step you take, I have to take ten,” Flynn argued. “So if anything, my feet should be sore.”

  “But you only have two feet.”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “I have four feet that hurt.”

  Flynn scoffed. “And? I have two feet that hurt a lot more than yours.”

  “You can’t know that.”

  “I fail to see the point of this conversation,” Flynn declared.

  In truth, he was enjoying it. Or at least, he didn’t mind it.

  “I would like it if we were there soon,” Oscar grumbled over the steady beat of his steps.

  “As you’ve expressed, yes.”

  “I just thought you should know.”

  “Noted.”

  After another two days, they reached the Valley of Nessar.

  Deciduous trees in orange garments followed a burbling creek down the sole of a wide valley, and snow-covered peaks reached for the clouds on either side. A sweet scent wafted through the air on a gentle breeze, ruffling rust-colored leaves and stroking patches of crimson grass. A few smooth boulders dotted the landscape, as if a giant had carelessly tossed them in a great volley, and a narrow stone bridge crossed the gurgling stream in a steep arch.

  It would’ve been a perfectly picturesque view, beautiful in its peacefulness - but then there was the Mythical Ward, and Flynn’s jaw struggled to keep his mouth closed as he gazed upon the unreal complex.

  “What the hell?” he managed to say.

  “I can’t say that’s what I expected, either,” Oscar admitted, and started fidgeting with his wings.

  “I thought you read about this place.”

  The dragon shifted uneasily. “There were no pictures.”

  “How is that even possible?” Flynn asked in disbelief, not expecting an answer.

  Oscar let out a low rumble.

  “Why must it be this … elevated?” the dragon grumbled. “I don’t like that.”

  “That’s your only concern?”

  “Actually, I have many concerns. I can tell you all about them if—”

  “What twisted magic could even do something like that?” Flynn blurted out.

  The dragon’s disappointment surfaced in the form of a pitiful puff.

  The Mythical Ward had the shape of a monumental, upside-down pine cone, hovering roughly fifty feet above the valley’s sole. At its highest point, it must’ve been half a mile in diameter, while its lower end was merely a pointy excess the size of a townhouse. Its marble body was dotted with upside-down spires and towers, outcroppings and balconies that almost fluoresced in the harsh sunlight. Golden rooftops and tall windows dotted the hunk of white, and large archways wrapped around the massive building on multiple levels.

  And there it stood — or hovered — as if someone had pinned it to the air itself. There was no connection to the surface, no pillars or support. Just some invisible force that allowed the building to tower above the surrounding mountains, scratching a few lonely clouds with its tallest towers.

  At the very least, Flynn thought, they would have a great view.

  They followed the creek downstream, and the massive structure soon loomed above them, blocking out the sky and casting a dark shadow over the lower end of the valley. It seemed to emit a faint, intelligent hum.

  When they reached the narrow bridge, they noticed a metal sign framing the passage. It read Mythical Ward in curly letters.

  “You think we’re in the right place?” Flynn asked facetiously.

  “I can check the instructions again, if you want me to,” the dragon said defensively.

  Dragons didn’t do well with sarcasm, Flynn had noticed — and he still couldn’t get used to it. Their species was among the smartest living beings to ever roam the face of the world, and still, it felt like talking to a child at times.

  Flynn shook his head and started climbing up the steep arch of the bridge. At its highest point, he turned around and found Oscar standing exactly where he’d left him.

  “What?” Flynn asked.

  “That bridge is too narrow for me,” the dragon said, his feet twice the size of the walkway.

  “Obviously,” Flynn agreed impatiently. “Just walk through the creek.”

  He gestured at the stream, which was roughly ten feet in diameter.

  Oscar pulled a face.

  “Who says that’s even where we have to go?” he stalled for time.

  Flynn raised his eyebrows. “It literally had a sign. And the origin of that … thing … is right over there.”

  He pointed at the lower end of the floating structure, which was uncomfortably close now.

  Oscar muttered a not-so-quiet curse.

  “May I remind you that this was your idea?”

  “It was the king’s idea,” the dragon grumbled. “But I agree it was a good one.”

  He slowly walked over to the edge of the stream and dipped one of his talons in the crystal-clear water.

  “It’s cold.”

  Flynn rolled his eyes. “Your talons don’t even have nerves.”

  “It looks cold.”

  “Could we please get this over with?”

  Oscar’s azure-blue scales started trembling as he carefully lowered his right front foot into the water. He flinched but kept his footing.

  “How come dragons are fireproof but not resistant to cold?” Flynn commented from above as Oscar tried — and failed — to tiptoe across the creek.

  The dragon managed to reach the other side in a mix of hopping and dashing, moving as ungracefully as a lame donkey.

  “We don’t produce ice, we produce fire,” Oscar murmured once his panic had settled down.

  His scales were still reddened, his serpent neck tucked between his table-sized shoulder blades.

  They reached the origin of the cone building without further incidents. Standing right underneath the massive structure felt awfully terrifying, as if the Mythical Ward was just going to drill into them the very next moment, or simply stop levitating. Maybe someone would cut the puppeteer's string that tied it to the sky, Flynn mused.

  But none of that happened.

  Instead, there was a brief purple flash of light, accompanied by a rather mundane plop.

  Oscar shrieked and stumbled backwards when he noticed a short woman in their midst.

  “Hi there,” the woman chimed through the dragon’s panting, “My name is Mirabella, but you can call me Mira. Welcome to the Mythical Ward!”