Abi Elphinstone - The Crackledawn Dragon

Where the map ends, the adventure begins

The Crackledawn Dragon

Abi Elphinstone

Bestselling author of Sky Song

Abi Elphinstones books are a nonstop delightKatherine Rundell

The Dreamsnatcher

The Shadow Keeper

The Night Spinner

Sky Song

The Unmapped Chronicles series

Everdark

Rumblestar

Jungledrop

For Younger Readers

The Snow Dragon

First published in Great Britain in 2021 by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd

Copyright 2021 Abi Elphinstone

Map illustration copyright 2021 George Ermos

This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.

No reproduction without permission.

All rights reserved.

The right of Abi Elphinstone to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988.

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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

PB ISBN 978-1-4-711-7370-7

eISBN 978-1-4-711-7371-4

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

For Amelia and Ruby Melvin

Who always say yes to adventures

And for Hana Lily Suzuki

M ost grown-ups are far too busy to believe in magic. They have newspapers to read, bills to pay, phone calls to answer and most time-consuming of all children to nag. But if grown-ups were a little less busy and a little more curious, they might notice some of the things that children see. Unlikely, impossible, extraordinary things. Like portals to secret kingdoms that reveal the truth about how our world actually began

In case youre wondering, it all started with an egg. An exceptionally large one. And when this egg hatched, a phoenix emerged. It wept seven tears on realising it was alone and when these tears fell, the earths continents were born, forming the world as you and I know it. The phoenix called these lands the Faraway, but they were dark and empty places, so, to brighten things up, the phoenix shed four of its golden feathers. And from these feathers grew secret, unmapped kingdoms, invisible to the people who would go on to live in the Faraway. These kingdoms held all the magic needed to conjure sunlight, rain and snow, and every untold wonder behind the weather, from the music of a sunrise to the stories of a snowstorm.

Now, you may have encountered wisdom before: grandparents, for example, are wise, librarians are wise and some (though not all) elephants are wise. A phoenix is wiser still, and this particular phoenix knew that if used selfishly, magic will grow strange and dark. But if it is used for the greater good, it can nourish an entire world and keep it turning. So the phoenix decreed that those who lived in the four Unmapped Kingdoms could enjoy all the wonders that its magic brought, but only if they worked to send some of that magic out into the Faraway, so that the continents there might be filled with light and life. If the Unmappers ever stopped sharing their magic, the phoenix warned, both the Faraway and the Unmapped Kingdoms would crumble to nothing.

Next, the phoenix set about choosing rulers for these kingdoms. And being such a wise creature, the phoenix gave squabbling kings, queens and politicians a wide berth when deciding who to appoint. Instead, the phoenix chose the Lofty Husks magical beings all born under an eclipse and marked out from the other Unmappers on account of their wisdom, unusually long life expectancy and terrible jokes. In each kingdom the Lofty Husks took a different form, from wizards and golden panthers to ancient elves and snow eagles, but they all ruled fairly, ensuring that every day the magic of the phoenix was passed on to the Faraway through the weather.

The four kingdoms all played different roles. Unmappers in Rumblestar collected marvels droplets of sunlight, rain and snow in their purest form which dragons transported to the other three Unmapped Kingdoms. There, they were mixed with magical ink to create weather scrolls for the Faraway: sun symphonies in Crackledawn, rain paintings in Jungledrop and snow stories in Silvercrag. Little by little, the Faraway lands came alive: plants, flowers and trees sprang up, and so strong was the magic that eventually animals appeared and, finally, people.

The phoenix looked on from Everdark, a place so far away and out of reach that not even the Unmappers knew where it lay. But a phoenix cannot live for ever. And so, after five hundred years, the first phoenix died and, as is the way with such birds, a new phoenix rose from its ashes to renew the magic in the Unmapped Kingdoms and ensure it continued to be shared with those in the Faraway.

Time passed, and every five hundred years the Unmappers learnt to watch for a new phoenix rising up into the sky to refresh the Unmapped magic and herald the arrival of another era. Everyone believed things would continue this way for ever But when youre dealing with magic, for ever is rarely straightforward. There is always someone, somewhere, who becomes greedy. And, when a heart is set on stealing magic for personal gain, ancient decrees and warnings can slip quite out of mind. Such was the case with a harpy called Morg who grew jealous of the phoenix and its power.

Almost four thousand five hundred years ago, Morg cursed the nest of the phoenix on the night of the renewal of magic in the Unmapped Kingdoms. No new phoenix appeared, so Morg seized the nest as her own and set about seeking to claim all the magic for herself.

But, when things go wrong and magic goes awry, it makes room for stories with unexpected heroes and unlikely heroines. Perhaps you have heard about the girl from Crackledawn who sailed to Everdark to steal Morgs wings, the very things that held the harpys power? Maybe you know about the boy named Casper who journeyed from the Faraway to Rumblestar to destroy those same wings so that the Unmapped Kingdoms and the Faraway might be saved from ruin? Possibly you have come across the Petty-Squabble twins who travelled from the Faraway to Jungledrop to find a mythical fern that banished Morg from the Unmapped Kingdoms and restored rain to our world? Or, you might just be one of those wise children who sense the ways of dragons and know that they are now roaming the Unmapped Kingdoms, scattering moondust from their wings to keep what is left of the Unmapped magic turning, until Morg dies and a new phoenix rises. And rise it must because the magic is fading every day, despite the dragons efforts to keep it alive, and it will not be long before it vanishes altogether. For only the arrival of a phoenix can restore what Morg has destroyed and renew the kingdoms to their former glory.