Only the Wildwood Mage Guild housed dragon eggs. Their nursery protected the most valuable and rare. Students raised the hatchlings. Upon graduation, the best students took their charges to Dragon Land in hopes the dragon parents would accept them. Taking the young dragons across the lands of Atria and beyond required skills of battlemages, healers, and arcane magic the Mage Guild taught. A student when she first was introduced to her dragon egg. She loved the eggs jeweled encrusted shell and it made prisms colors on the wall. It was in a wooden inlayed box covered with hey. A heat lamp kept the egg at 89.7F. Katie had just finished orientation and all the students were taken into a large room where the older hatchlings played and slept. The eggs were kept in a separate room. Kate’s egg was in the very back as the breed belonged to a very rare species known to change into either human or elf form. She loved her baby. It was in her third year her little dragon disappeared when her Aunt was banished from Atria for falling love in with an evil sorcerer Lord Draco.<br/>Kate was sitting in her last class of magical history just a month away from Winterfest she would be graduating in the spring. She was looking at the snow falling out the window and dreamed of fly on the back of a multicolored dragon flying in the summer. The soared over the Wildwood Shire, over red tiled roof tops and the village keep toward the wharf then turning right to the country side following the main road to the 500-acre lake, the dragon skimmed the water as it spayed on her face she reached for the water…<br/>Rap Rap of her teacher’s wooden pointed slammed on her desk, forced Kate to jump out of her seat and with a startled blink she look at her teacher, “What is the explanation of lay lines, Apprentice Mage Katheryn Lyons.”<br/>“Um, Mam, yes, Ley lines...”<br/>The door magically opened and a messenger rushed in. She handed the teacher a sealed note.<br/>The teacher handed it to Kate.<br/>The mage student broke a red seal imprinted with a dragon and read the letter.<br/>My Dear Katie,<br/>I hope this letter finds you well. I have a gift for you at the stables in your father’s warehouse. The guards will lead you. I had it specially bred for you and if it had survived the journey it is yours. I am sure you can use your talent. I had to leave in a hurry many years ago. Your egg, I have kept safe and someday you will see it again.<br/>Kate frowned and clutched the letter.<br/>When the bell rang for dismissal, the mage stood. “I am so sorry. It will not happen again. Happy Winterfest and Malora is giving me one of her pets. I must hurry. Bye.”<br/>The mage scurried to her locker and headed to the infirmary. She grabbed healing potions, a black case and vile, bandages, and a mage robe and blanket and ran out of the main entrance, dodged students, and faculty.<br/>Her father’s driver waited in the main drive.<br/>“Peel,” she yelled, “we have to hurry to Papa’s warehouse.”<br/>He closed the carriage door behind her and climbed inside. He steered the carriage to the wharf.<br/>Once he stopped, Peel hopped down from his perch and opened the door for Kate. She jumped onto the cobblestoned walk then scampered into the warehouse. She showed the letter to a guard who directed to the animal pens. Meanwhile Peel made a palate on the floor of the carriage.<br/>Once inside the animal pens, the mage student covered her nose with her sleeve. A putrid smell wafted from a figure slumped over inside an iron cage. Kate approached the cage and softly spoke, “Are you alive?”