“This one's new," Cheng said, and started reading the lines out loud. "A day will come and a day will go, a choice you have to make, otherwise the truth will never be known.” He frowned and looked at it through squinted eyes.
“What does it mean?” I tried my best not to let my voice break.
“I have no idea, but if it's in this book, it's important.”
I took a deep breath and tried to shake it off. Maybe it had nothing to do with me, and the Viden was seeing the foretelling about her next meeting. I had already been on my way out when she said those words.
I closed the book and we moved on to the next exhibit.
It was about Master Longwei. The museum had both his forms on display; the human form as I knew him, and his dragon form. His scales were gold, and he had whiskers sprouting from his nose. If dragons smiled, Master Longwei definitely did the day they made this model. He looked beautiful and majestic, just like Dad had that night. It must be a Metallic thing.
The Renaissance era was boring.
King Alexander, King Louie’s father, ruled Paegeia with the same cruelty toward dragons.
As I walked past another display case,the two axes I’d practiced with a couple of days ago caught my eye.
How is this possible? I found myself in front of the display box as I read what the inscription on the brass plate said. The axes belonged to Queen Catherine and she fought with them in three separate wars. She entered her first war at the age of eighteen, and the crusade was led by King Louie. My eyes scrolled through the boring stuff. The second war she fought in was at the age of twenty-three, and the third war she had fought at King Albert's side for the rights of the Chromatic dragons. The information on the brass plate said that it was the most important battle in the history of Paegeia. The war meant that all the dragons, Chromatic and Metallic, were to be seen as equals.
My favorite exhibition was the one that displayed all the dragons and their signs. The last sign belonged to the Rubicon. It looked complicated and in a league of its own. I tried to memorize the design and decided if I could draw it, I might be able to make a buck or two by printing them on t-shirts.
“His sign is all the dragon signs combined,” Cheng explained.
“Sorry?” I said as he shook me out of my get-rich scheme.
“Blake's sign. It's all the ten species signs combined. Come look here, they break it down for you.” I followed him around the corner. “Here is the Fire-tail. The Copper-horn goes in this way. There's the Fin-tail, and the Swallow annex.” He showed me where everything fit, like a puzzle. Blake carried all of them inside of him, even the Night Villain. I grabbed a leaflet that broke it down beautifully.
“He's really an unbelievable dragon,” I said out loud.
“Just a pity there's a time limit to his claim.”
“Why is that?”
“His dark side. It's too powerful and you need to remember, Blake is only a carrier. Those powers don’t belong to him. Without his Dragonian, it will become too heavy for him to bear.” I frowned. If that was the case, Cheng was right about Lucian not being able to claim Blake. My heart ached. I couldn't believe how emotional I became every time Cheng explained things about Blake I didn't know.
We moved on and found all the different species of the dragons displayed in smaller size models behind glass. Dragon eggs came first and they varied in size. Some looked like egg-shaped rocks that needed to be baked to hot temperatures, like the Sun-Blast and Fire-Tail. Some had little spotted dents that reminded me of a huge egg-shaped golf ball. Then there were eggs with different colors. One was a soft green. Another had a mixture of the rainbow melting into each other. They were all amazing.
Leaving the egg room, a model of a full Snow dragon confronted me. They were the purest white I had ever seen. The tail reminded me of a crocodile's with strong hind legs, and its torso was covered with small, white, triangle-shaped scales. The front legs were not as big as the back legs,and the claws reminded me of an eagle’s. Two wings sprouted from the back, and the neck arched a little with bog scales covering it completely. The face looked like a dinosaur's, with long teeth and a sharp pointy nose.
The Green-Vapor and Sun-Blast I’d met the night Dad died, and I quickly walked by their models.
The Night Villainwas the last dragon. He looked very skeletal and his feet were webbed like the Rubicon’s had been. His face and wings were skinny and the flesh looked like it was pulled tightly over the skeleton-like features. His overall appearance made me shiver right down to my core. It almost looked like he was busy decomposing.
Rounding another corner, the Metallic dragons were simply magnificent. They all carried a posture with puffed up chests and raised heads, and shimmery gold, silver, bronze, copper, and brass scales.