This is the first part of a dragon transformation story that follows the journey of young Mirabelle as she pursues an amulet called the Heart of Fury. The amulet will grant her immense power, but at what cost?

As always, feedback and criticism are welcome.

Enjoy!

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The tap of footsteps rang about the granite walls and shadows from torchlight pirouetted like ballerinas. An unnatural energy thickened the air to the point that Mirabelle could taste it. She knew something was wrong about this place. All the warnings her grandmother had given her after she realized Mirabelle had taken an interest in the Heart of Fury were likely true.

“Forged in the fire of hated and blood, it is said the Heart of Fury bestows unimaginable power to the one who finds it,” her grandmother had said many years ago as she sat in a decorated wooden chair across a hearth. “It is said that the screams of those who were sacrificed at the altar still echo in the amulet and haunt the mind of the one who wears it for all eternity.” She had grabbed Mirabelle’s arm and her eyes and lips had trembled. “Mirabelle, do not pursue such an artifact! Yes, you’re right. Our family has known where it’s been hidden for generations, but everyone who’s gone beneath Stonehenge has never returned! Not even…my husband…”

As she descended down these weathered steps, scratched and nicked by the passing of millennia, it became clearer that the secret dungeon beneath Stonehenge must’ve been cursed. Like her grandmother had said, it was a fool’s errand to pursue such an artifact.

But like her grandfather, Mirabelle was a fool.

The promise of power was too tempting to ignore. In tomes innumerable, the legends told the wearer of the Heart of Fury could breathe fire hotter than the sun and had skin harder than stone. With that kind of power, she could overthrow the corrupt aristocrats over-levying the peasants to maintain their luxurious lifestyle. She could change the decline of England into an age of prosperity, and if the amulet’s origins and cost were as awful as her grandmother had claimed, it would be a necessary burden to bear.

The two-handed longsword strapped to her back bobbed up and down and the ornamental chains along its hilt jingled with each of Mirabelle’s steps. The stone spiral staircase ended and a long hall stretched outward. Carvings of mighty dragons eating stick figures holding stick spears were etched on each side of the wall. One carving depicting red blood spewing out of a stick figure broken in half, each half hanging out one side of the dragon’s maw. Mirabelle shivered when she realized the blood was too real. It looked as if the picture used real blood, dried after thousands of years of clinging to the stone.

She looked down the hallway, the shadow from her torch warping the wall’s images into new monstrosities. The shadows turned a dragon on the left wall into a twenty-tentacled kraken, wrapping its charcoal appendages around the helpless stick figures before popping them into its mouth.

With an exhale and a furrow of the brow, Mirabelle stepped forward with determination. As she finished her first step, she heard the sound of stone moving against stone and her foot lowered more than it should’ve. A switch, she thought. Instinctively, she leapt forward, torch still in hand, falling against the cold stone with a thud. Dozens of arrows zipped over her head, bouncing off the steps behind her. Some arrows ricocheted onto her back, but they fell limply, having lost too much velocity after the initial shot.

She closed her eyes, sighed in relief, and returned to her feet, brushing off a sheet of dust gripping her jerkin.

“That was close,” she said aloud to no one in particular.

She bent down and picked up one of the arrows and inspected it. As she suspected, the tip was green. It must’ve been some poison that’s now dried up.

She tossed the arrow aside and pressed on down the hallway. A massive square box filled with holes soon met Mirabelle, the edges of the holes caked with splatters of green. Impressed with the intricacies of this trap for such an old civilization, she grinned, ducked under it, and proceeded farther down the hall.

For a fair distance, she marched undisturbed by any traps, but the pictures on the walls became more ominous. Stick figures offered babies to a feathered serpentine dragon that dwarfed each previous dragon and splattered blood became a common sight.

After about fifteen minutes, the torch revealed five huge rusted axes swinging from side to side, silent as a snake poised to strike. She paused, memorized the axe’s timing, and danced past them as graceful as a swan skirting the virgin waters of a spring.

Past the final axe, she stepped on another switch and fire sprung out of the side of the wall. She leapt forward again, dropping her torch as the fire singed the tips of her chestnut hair. In a panic, she rolled along the ground setting off switch after switch. Streams of fire cooked the air above her, heat kissing Mirabelle’s face. Once the clicking of the switches ceased, she rolled to a stop. Mirabelle felt all over her body for any burns and found none. Her hands ran down her hair. It was half as long as it should’ve been and the ends crumbled in her hands like ash.

She laughed. “If that’s all that got burned, I consider myself lucky.”

She traced the floor for her torched and touched another switch. A loud slam rang out from a part of the hall she hadn’t explored yet and she looked up to see the floor folding up and smashing together like a sandwich. The two halves of the floor slowly receded and she saw the glimmer of tiny metal spikes colored in a hushed hue from the distant torchlight.

She playfully pressed the switch over and over, watching as the floor slammed together again and again. An idea sprung into her head and she returned to her feet and grabbed her torch.

The floor surrounding the contraption was covered in spikes. With a grunt, Mirabelle held the torch in her mouth, drew her two-handed longsword and stepped on the switch again. When the floors smashed together, she jumped and stuck at an empty space between the spikes with her sword. She used the sword to vault past the spikes, her feet landing against the collided floor panels. Abandoning her sword, she hurriedly climbed the bare edge of one side of the floor panels before it returned to its original spike-exposing flat position. With a great leap, Mirabelle flew past the second half of the spike pit, crashing against hard, but safe, stone floor.

Exhilarated, she sprung to her feet, took the torch out of her mouth and whooped. The sound of her celebration resonated through the hall, but it was short-lived. A colossal thud boomed somewhere far behind her, where she had come from, followed by the consistent chug of something rolling.

“Damn it all!”

She ran. Carvings flew past in a blur and shadows mocked her as she blazed down the now slanted hall. The chug grew louder. She dared not look back, knowing what was behind her. She huffed and puffed as her legs pumped faster than they ever had and in a frustrated rage, she screamed. Faster. Faster. Faster. Faster. FASTER!

A bright light peeked through the dark hall. As she drew closer, the light gobbled up more of the darkness embedded in the walls, floor, and ceiling until there was no floor left. With a shriek, Mirabelle fell, not even realizing the floor had ended. She reached out to grab at something…anything. An outstretched red arm with ebony claws caught her.

She looked down and her face became as white and lifeless as a cadaver. A gigantic pool of lava bubbled beneath her, trying to lick at her boots dangling just out of reach.

A crash blasted above and showered her with dust. Her sword fell into the lava with an agonizing sizzle. She looked up and saw a boulder squeezed against a doorway too narrow for it to fit through.

A deep rumble of a laugh shook the room and a voice from above called, “Careful, little one. That was too close.”

Too shaken to process the voice, Mirabelle trembled as the mysterious red arm lifted her safety onto a stone pillar. Her eyes grew big as two globes when she saw the owner of the arm. In front of her was a red-scaled dragon with a cream-colored underbelly standing on two legs. Two vast red wings connected with a dark forest-green membrane twitched up and down. A thick, long tail with a line of ivory spikes from base to tip swished along the floor with enough force to accidentally knock a man on his rump.

His feet were large as well, digitigrade, and ornated with a set of black claws that gleamed like onyx. His neck was longer than a humans’, graced with the same cream-colored scales and horizontal line pattern as the rest of his belly. A bronze chain ending in an alluring heart-shaped ruby that flared like the sun dangled from his neck. The ruby was encased in a pair of bronze studded angel wings that complemented the gem’s radiance.

The dragon’s face seemed…familiar…a smile that was engraved in her memory from long ago. He scrunched his long, white mustache sitting atop his muzzle and his hazel, almost human eyes gazed at Mirabelle friendly.

“It’s been a long time, Mirabelle.”

Her heart stopped in her chest for a moment as she pieced the familiarities together.

“G-Grandpa?”