The Dragon Eggs
The world had forgotten the roar of dragon fire. The seas sang only the sigh of gulls, and the mountains held only the sigh of wind. Yet the gods, ever watchful, saw that balance had tipped. The Age of Men grew proud, and the old wildness was fading. In a whisper that trembled through the roots of Yggdrasil, the Aesir resolved to bring the dragons back.
They forged four eggs, each the weight of a newborn babe, each the size of one. One glowed sapphire blue, another pulsed the hue of a deep forest, a third shone like fresh caught gold, and the fourth blushed the softness of a rose petal. Their shells were smooth as polished stone, yet thick enough to resist the fiercest blow. When a mortal drew near, the eggs softened into a gentle phosphorescence, and specks of shifting color blossomed across their surfaces, as if the very heartbeat of the world were trying to find a language. The gods chose Elsinka, the oldest Volva of the North, to bear the message. She would ride the wind to the hall of King Akbar, where the queen, Egrida, listened with quiet eyes. Their son, Erik, would be tasked with safeguarding the sacred cargo, for no other mortal could be trusted with such a trembling miracle.
“Balance must be restored,” Odin murmured, his voice echoing through the heavens. “The world has forgotten the fire of the sky and the breath of the earth. These dragons shall remind mortals of both.” He turned to Frigg, who whispered a blessing of protection, and to Thor, who clenched his hammer, promising to keep the storms at bay.
The eggs were placed—one by one—into wicker baskets reinforced with thick, dark leather. Each basket bore two sturdy handles, their wood polished by the hands of the smiths, and inside they were lined with soft moss, bear furs, and the down of the great sea eagle, keeping the unborn hearts warm. As the baskets were closed, the shells responded: the sapphire hue deepened, specks of silver appeared like distant stars; the green flickered with amber dots; the gold flared with tiny crimson flecks; the rose blossomed with pale blue splotches. The color shifts were subtle, but anyone who gazed long enough could see the eggs reacting to the presence of living souls.
Erik ran a calloused hand over the leather straps that reinforced the baskets. They were thick, dark, and bound with iron rivets—far stronger than any ordinary cargo hold. He imagined the tales his foster parents had told him—of the world once balanced by dragons, of their disappearance, and of the famine that followed when the balance tipped. The Norse gods had decided that balance could be restored only by bringing the dragons back, and the gods had created four eggs, each a fragment of the ancient power.
Erik turned toward the shore where a small encampment of his men were busy arranging the baskets. The leather straps were being tightened, the moss fluffed, the fur brushed. The eggs themselves remained in their baskets, humming softly, a low luminescence that rippled across their shells whenever a human approached. As a boy brushed past, a speck of amber sparked across the sapphire shell; a warrior’s grin prompted a flash of emerald on the forest green egg. The eggs reacted to presence, each tiny spot a reminder that they were alive, that they could feel.
Vinland was not the end. The gods had decreed that the eggs would travel inland, across wild forests and over jagged ridges, until they reached the Land of the Two Volcanoes, where the fissures of the world pulsed with primordial fire. There, under the watchful eyes of Erik and a foreign princess named Citrali—her name meaning “star” in the tongue of her people— the dragons would hatch.
