An Extraordinary Bond, Lorian Lilsiel [best romance books of all time .TXT] 📗

Kara Woodensly sighed as she pushed her scrambled eggs around her plate. It was the 22nd of Tarch, the day of the Jinbruary-Tarch summoning ceremony. Where kids who turned 16 in the latter half of Jinbruary and the beginning half of Tarch would go to their town’s temple and see if they were worthy to summon a dragon. 

Kara’s birthday was the 17th of Tarch, so she would be attending the ceremony, same as the four siblings that came before her. Like the four before her, she didn’t expect anything to happen. Her family hadn’t summoned a dragon in generations, not since her great-great-great-great-great aunt. That didn’t mean that she wasn’t worried out of her mind. 

If she summoned a dragon, she would have to go to training at Colinwood, the home of the Rising Dragons: an organization of dragon riders dedicated to protecting the country of Sarea. 

Most people dream of summoning a dragon from the time they’re little. A life of adventure with the Rising Dragons is something few people can have. However, the thought terrified Kara. She wasn’t heroic. She wasn’t an adventure seeker. She couldn’t fight and didn’t want to. All she wanted was to live a happy, peaceful life with her family. Settle down. Get married. Have kids. There wasn’t any room in her life plan for being a dragon rider. 

Her mother, who was busy in the kitchen cleaning up after breakfast, noticed that something seemed to be off. “What’s wrong, Kara honey?” She came over to the table and sat next to Kara. 

“It’s nothing Mom.” Kara stopped messing with her food and started eating it, but something still told Mrs. Woodensly that something wasn’t right. 

“Is this about the summoning? I’m sure you’ll do great! I bet you’ll summon a red and everything!”

Kara laughed a little inside. The thought of anyone in her family summoning the highest rank of lower dragon was so unlikely, it was downright laughable.

“Don’t give her false hope Laura. Kara,” Kara’s father was in the family room off of the kitchen, “even though you deserve a red, it doesn’t mean that a dragon will choose you. Certain families are said to have a kind of bad luck around them that dragons tend to avoid. Ours is one of them, that’s just how it is.”

“Thanks, Dad.” Kara was calmed a little by what her father said, even though that wasn’t his intention. She didn’t need to be afraid of summoning a dragon, because the dragons were more afraid of her family's “bad luck” than she was of summoning them.

Kara finished her breakfast and put on her best clothes, though that didn’t mean much. Her family was in the trade of farming and baking, and with seven children, they didn’t have much extra money to spend on fancy clothes. For Kara, that meant a simple, green dress that reached to her ankles with sleeves going just over her elbows. 

She examined herself in the mirror. “It’ll have to work.” She went downstairs to where her two younger siblings and two of her older siblings were waiting to wish her good luck. Charles, the oldest that was still at home, gave her a big hug. “Knock ‘em dead, kid.”

Gail, the sister that came immediately before her, gave her a hug and a whispered warning, “Only one in every hundred people that do this actually get something. Remember that.”

The twins, Tae and Tyler, hugged her multiple times and didn’t bother wishing her luck.

“You don’t need luck!” Tae gave a smile that could make flowers bloom.

“You’re too awesome for a dragon not to pick you!” Tyler’s eyes almost gave off their own light. Both of the twins were excited for their ceremony, even if it wasn’t for another ten years. They were also very proud of their big sister Kara, who was the only one who would play with them now that the two oldest had struck out on their own. 

“Thanks you two.” Kara ruffled their curly blonde hair before meeting her parents outside to head into town. 

“You ready?” Her dad hugged her and patted her on the shoulder. 

“As ready as I’ll ever be.” Kara took a deep breath. “Let’s go.”

~~~

It was a chilly spring day with quite a bit of wind. Kara and her parents walked down the shop-lined cobbled street heading towards the town of Tealer’s dragon temple. After coming around a corner and out of the shelter of the buildings, the wind picked up and Kara had to keep pulling copper strands of hair out of her face. 

It took about twenty minutes to walk from the Woodensly household to the center of town where the temple was located. By that time, Kara was starting to shiver from the cold. It was a great relief when the dragon temple came into view. The huge building stood at the center of town, a mostly circular building of pure white stone with a dragon carved to curl around the single spire of the roof. Huge stained glass windows depicting the seven legendary dragons circled the building, making it sparkle as if covered by jewels. 

The double oak doors leading into the building’s rectangular antechamber were open wide, and parents and their 16-year-olds streamed in. Children and parents would come out at regular intervals. Most of the parents were comforting their disappointed children who hadn’t summoned dragons.

As Kara and her parents approached, there was a bout of clapping as a boy walked out of the temple with his parents. A small red dragon perched on his shoulder. Both Kara and her parents joined in the clapping. Only one percent of people end up summoning a dragon, but only about one percent of those people summon reds. The kid was blushing his head off and looking at the ground. It must have been nerve-racking to have all eyes on him in such a crowded place. 

The Woodenslys were soon let into the building, where they got in another line to see the board posted with the names of all the children due for summoning. Once they got to board, they found Kara’s name near the end at number 173.

Kara listened to the numbers being called out, and if she heard right it meant that she was only 12th in line. She took deep breaths to calm herself and thought about how low the chances were, especially with her family history. The family took their spot in the line leading up to the doors to enter the summoning chamber. 

The process for summoning was fairly simple, and the line moved at a decent speed. Kara’s stomach was in knots during the relatively long time it took for the person in front of her to get done with his ceremony. When he finally came out with his father, he smiled at Kara. “Guess I didn’t get anything. Good luck to you though!” 

He walked away and Kara waited for them to call her number, “173!” Called an older man wearing robes and holding a tablet, opening the door and inviting Kara and her parents in. 

The main chamber of the dragon temple was considered as beautiful on the inside as the outside, though Kara thought it was even better. Sunlight streamed in through the seven windows depicting the great dragons, and glinted off of the highly polished floor. Everything glowed with the multicolored light cast by the window containing the rainbow dragon, Opal. In the center of the room, there was an altar with an orb of glowing dark blue crystal on a raised dais. 

“Kara Woodensly?” The man with the tablet read off of his paper.  

“Yes.”

“This ceremony is very simple. All you need to do it walk to the altar and pray to your patron, whoever that may be. Then lay your hand on the crystal. If you are to summon a dragon, it will happen after a few seconds of having your hand on the crystal. Do you have any questions?” He gave her a kind smile. 

“No, I understand.”

“Then I will leave you to it.” He took a step back along with Mr. and Mrs. Woodensly. 

Kara took a deep breath and set her sights on the altar. She walked to it, and stared at the orb for a few seconds before closing her eyes and making her prayer to her patron goddess Tara. Tara, goddess of magic and life, please hear my prayer. I trust that whatever happens next, it won’t be anything more than I can handle as one of your servants. 

After opening her eyes and taking another breath, she carefully placed her hand on the deep blue crystal sitting in the center of the altar. The gem pulsed brightly under her hand, growing slightly warm, but nothing else happened.

“Thank you Ms. Woodensly, that should do it. You may remove your hand now.” The man with the tablet started writing down her results. 

Kara let out the breath she didn’t realize she had been holding as she took her hand off the crystal. As soon as her hand completely left its surface, there was a cracking sound, a flash of heat, and a stunningly white light. Kara was blinded by the light, and when she heard a gasp from her parents, she turned only to trip and fall off the dais and to the floor. Her head made contact with the stone, and everything plunged into complete darkness. 

~~~

“Kara… Kara… Kara!” Kara awoke to the sound of her mother’s voice as she tried to shake her awake. 

Kara groaned to try and signal that she was awake and could hear them, then tried to roll onto her side. This was a mistake. As soon as she moved she felt a stabbing pain in the left side of her head. She carefully reached over and touched her left temple lightly. It felt slightly sticky, and so did her fingers when they came away. And I’m bleeding. Great.

She slowly tried sitting up, wincing as pain shot through her head. Her mom helped her up and she waited until her head cleared before she opened her eyes to see the stunned expressions on everyone’s faces. They were still in the summoning chamber but were now by the wall. 

“What happened? What was that light?” Kara looked to the center of the room where the altar stood and would have fallen down if she hadn’t already been sitting. The altar was completely cracked in half, gem and all. The most peculiar thing however, was what was wrapped around the base of the altar. “A dragon?” It was somewhere between a statement and a question. 

The way the light from the stained glass illuminated the room made the dragon look like it was covered in a hundred different shades and colors, all of them seeming to glow. The dragon’s head was laid on the ground but was facing Kara with its eyes open. It seemed to notice that Kara had woken up, because it lifted its head before getting up and slowly walking towards her. 

As the dragon came closer to her, Kara started to notice something. While some of the colors came from the windows, many of them didn’t move and didn’t match what was shining on the floor. The colors were the dragon’s scales on their own. 

Kara sat up and inched herself closer to the dragon as it advanced towards her, only stopping when their noses were inches away from touching. Kara stared into the dragon’s silver eyes, and it stared back into her green ones. A name echoed in her head: “Opal.”

Opal. The rainbow dragon, the queen of all the dragons. The one that had died two thousand years ago in a battle to save the country from the black dragon, Nag. Kara was stunned, surely it was a dream. It wasn’t possible to summon one of the living legendary dragons, let alone one of the four that had