Red-orange glowing clots of lava were dropping from the hole above. As the molten rock splatted into the scree of the cave, it sizzled, and the fish carcasses and dung released choking black smoke.

The dragon had chosen a place near the volcano—perhaps even at its base—for her nest, so heat couldn’t be harmful to her eggs—maybe it was even good for them. But the lava would surely kill them; it had to be why Farthing had nudged the eggs toward me. And why had the little lizard wanted to rescue her enemy’s eggs? She had wanted to rescue me too, and I supposed that didn’t make sense either. Maybe the lizard and the dragon were connected, like the birds that pecked lice from the tortoises’ necks. There wasn’t time to consider it. I needed to escape; the lava was now pouring into the cave in continuous lumps like milk curds.

The volcano had erupted.

I watched from the entrance of the tunnel, crouched, still clutching a dragon egg, warm against my chest. Avoiding the smoking pool of lava now in the center of the cavern, the dragon turned to the ledge so she was almost facing my hiding place, but she didn’t seem interested in me. She tried to take an egg in her mouth, but her jaws were too huge, her teeth too sharp, and she nudged it right off the ledge and into the bones below. She nosed at it again, her massive claws tensing, crunching the scree beneath them. I inhaled sharply, then coughed in the smoke, then froze. Had the giant beast heard me? Farthing sprang from around my neck, but I caught hold of the base of her tail and hauled her back as the dragon roared, spurting two streams of fire from her nostrils up into the cavern above. She had to be the most powerful creature on earth, but she couldn’t save her eggs. I should be running for my life … but my heart was squeezed tight by her anguish.

I’d known that feeling. I’d known that feeling in the times I’d tried to forget, when Da had writhed in fever and cried for Ma, and there was nothing I could do to stop him joining her. I’d felt like shrieking up at the heavens too.

When the dragon unfurled her wings, an almighty dollop of lava engulfed her. She tried to shake free, and in a spray of burning droplets her head and body emerged. She didn’t seem to have been burned by it, though goodness knows, the heat must have been more than a blacksmith’s forge. I couldn’t make out what she was doing—snapping and clawing at the lava …

One outstretched wing was now pinned by the weight of the molten rock.

The dragon was trapped.

I watched in horror as she struggled to release herself and screeched, sending more plumes of fire into the air. Farthing darted free of my grip and scampered up the curved wall and onto the ledge.