"Maybe I'm the only one left," she whispered to herself. "If I am, I will live like this, wild and free and solitary like a saber-toothed cat. But I will never stop searching. I will seek the fabled escarpment in the north, and if more dragons fly there, I will find them."

She yawned again, closed her eyes, and slept.

When night fell again, she flew.

For three days and nights she traveled, sleeping in the sunlight, flying the darkness, until at dawn on the fourth day she saw it ahead.

The escarpment.

It rose across the land, stretching into the horizon, a great shelf of rock and soil thick with birches, oaks, and maples. Waterfalls—thin white slivers from here—cascaded down its cliffs, disappearing into the forest before emerging as streams to feed a rushing river. It was as if half the world had sunk, dropping the height of a mountain, leaving the northern landscapes to roll on to a misty horizon, unscathed. Countless birds filled the sky, fleeing from the sight of her—a golden dragon large enough to swallow them whole. Mist floated in valleys, and boulders rose gray and thin from the forest like the fingers of dead stone giants.

"It's real," Laira whispered upon the wind, not even caring that she flew in daylight. Tears filled her eyes. "The place where rocs dare not fly, the place even Zerra fears. A place of dragons."

Geese and doves fleeing before her, the golden dragon glided on the wind. Soon she flew along the escarpment. The highlands rose to her left, the cliffs plunged down beneath her, and the landscape rolled low to her right. Every movement in the sky sent her heart racing, but it was always a hawk, seagull, or other bird. The escarpment stretched into the horizon. If others lived here, others like her, did they hide as humans?

She flew for a long time.

"Dragons!" she called out and blasted fire, a beacon for her kind. "Answer my call! I seek dragons."

Only birds answered, calling in fright and fleeing the trees.

Laira flew as the afternoon cast long shadows, as clouds gathered, and as rain fell. A few marks ahead, the escarpment sloped down into the land. She had traversed it all and found nothing.

A lump in her throat, Laira turned around and retraced her flight, moving back west, surveying the escarpment a second time.

"Dragons!" she cried out. Maybe she had missed them. Maybe they had been out hunting and were now returning home. "I seek dragons!"

The sun dipped into the forest, and orange and indigo spread across the sky. The rain intensified and soon hail pattered against Laira's scales and wings. A gust of wind nearly knocked her into a spin. Yet still she flew, calling out, hoping, dreaming.

There.

Warmth leaped inside her. Her eyes moistened. She blasted fire.

"Another dragon."