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Naia then sighed, almost as if she could hear his thoughts. “The gathering is tomorrow. We still have time to think.” She turned to her brother. “Aren’t you exhausted? I bet you need to sleep, but I’m not sure where—”
“I’ll go to the mountains,” Fel interrupted her. “Find a cave or ledge or something. I doubt anyone will find me there.”
She nodded. “You should go soon, so that nobody sees you. We can meet again here tomorrow, two hours after sunset. Then we decide what to do, after we sleep on all the information we got.”
River was relieved that she was saying this, even if part of him felt this meant admitting defeat, admitting they didn’t have the answers, and saw no clear path to move forward. But then, perhaps it was true that they needed to sit on it.
“Sounds good,” Fel said. River still found it strange to hear his voice like that.
Naia turned to Leah. “You can come to the Royal fort. We’ll get a room for you.”
“No.” She stepped closer to Isofel. “I’ll stay with him.”
“There won’t be beds in the mountains.” Naia glanced at Leah and her brother. “And it might get cold.”
The girl shook her head. “I’m not leaving him.”
“Fair,” Naia said. “I’ll bring a communication mirror tomorrow, so we can be in touch.”
Leah was thoughtful. “Are we going to spend an entire day… doing nothing?”
“I need to communicate with the other kingdoms,” Naia said. “And you need to rest. Maybe you’ll recall an important detail, maybe you’ll have an idea. Maybe…” She bit her lip.
“She’s right, Leah,” Fel’s voice echoed in River’s mind. “Come.”
He helped her climb to his back, then extended his wings as much as he could in that clearing, and took flight. River watched with fascination as his scales glinted in the moonlight, but then soon he was high up, at a distance where he could be confused with a bird. Magnificent—like Naia. But hiding her dragon identity, even forgetting about it, felt like the right thing to do for now. She also looked magnificent as a human, and stared at him, poorly concealed worry in her eyes.
River turned to her and kissed her cheek. “You want to go to the iron fort, then?”
“I have to.”
He could feel her apprehension and worry floating between them, so many words that were not being said and yet lingered in the air. River himself had an ominous sense of dread, a fear of never seeing her again, a fear that he would lose everything he cherished, that he would fail. Was this really the time for these baseless fears to creep up on him? He didn’t want to go to the Iron Citadel, didn’t want to try to do anything. If he could, he would hide somewhere far away. These were a coward’s thoughts, and he wasn’t going to entertain them.
River walked back to the hut and took his daggers.
“You didn’t use them before.” Naia stared at the objects with curiosity.
“They were in the Ancient City, and I couldn’t go there.” He put the black dagger on his belt. For a moment, he didn’t recognize the red dagger, and almost left it there. Weird thought; it was his favorite weapon. He put it on his belt then was ready to leave that place.
A nauseous feeling came to him, but he preferred not to say anything. It was just fear. Just nerves, and a horrifying feeling that something was wrong, very wrong. But again, of course something was wrong.Everythingwas wrong and Aluria was about to be taken by something they didn’t even know what it was for sure.
When River took Naia’s hand, her touch felt like a cool breeze dissipating a foul, fetid smoke, healing that strange nausea, as if her magic could suppress all his worry, all his fears. Perhaps it could.
This hut was within a circle, so it would be easy to take Naia back to the fort. “We’re going through the hollow,” he said.
The walls around them disappeared, giving way to darkness. A part of him was screaming inside him, screaming “No, no, no,” as if he were walking to his death, walking to his doom. But he was just walking between circles.
* * *
Leah had never imaginedshe would one day visit the mountain range that split Aluria in two. Well, she’d never imagined she’d fly on the back of a dragon, seeing everything from up high, higher than she had seen when flying with Fel still under the dome in Frostlake.
These mountains were covered with green vegetation and trees except for their rocky tops. The weather was cool, but not cold enough to cover the peaks with snow, as they were fairly north. Leah wasn’t sure if Fel would find a nice cave to hide in or if they would need to sleep on an open, flat terrain, under the stars. The thought was good, except that if it rained, it could get uncomfortable quickly.
Fel was flying by the top of the mountains and landed on a chasm between two rocks. So indeed there would be nothing over their heads other than the black sky and gray clouds.
They had so much to do, so much to decide, to think, to discuss, and yet she felt how tired he was just based on his silence, his movements. He lay down with his wings folded and curled his tail.
Leah leaned her head on it, while lying over his back paw, which was folded by his body. His scales were warm and soft, and for a moment, she could forget everything going on outside these mountains.
