The torchlight pulled Jon and the Dragon Eggs from the pitch-black shadows.
Jon's shadow and the shadows of the Dragon Eggs twisted with the flickering flames, like some strange dance.
Jon picked up a broken eggshell from the ground. It was sharp and hard, like shattered glass.
Looking down, he found the remains of two hatchlings, each about the length of his foot.
They must have starved to death after failing to find food, or perhaps they had simply died shortly after hatching for some other reason.
Even dragons hatched by the Targaryens had records of dying within mere hours.
The two tiny hatchling skeletons were like the final strokes of ink at the end of a dragon epic.
Desolate and tragic.
Jon lowered his head and counted. Aside from the two Dragon Eggs that had already hatched, there were actually twenty-three intact Dragon Eggs here!
Daenerys had only received three Dragon Eggs as wedding gifts, while he had gotten twenty-three in one go!
But Jon quickly realized that he could not possibly take all these Dragon Eggs with him.
Leaving aside whether that dead pine tree could bear their weight, could he even keep so many Dragon Eggs safe?
Jon quickly made up his mind. He would take three and leave the rest here.
Then he would simply pull down that old dead pine tree!
That way, no one else would be able to climb up.
If he truly hatched dragons one day in the future, he could come back for them then.
Looking at the Dragon Eggs scattered across the ground, Jon found himself in a dilemma. Which three should he choose?
The Painted Dog Tribe was as quiet as ever, just as it had been for the past several centuries.
If not for the Ironborn soldiers