That wasn’t me, though. It wasn’t Alison.
“Come on,” I said. “We have to find Joran.”
I had no idea what had happened to him, but we had to head back to the Djarn path to see if we could find him.
“But she can find us.”
“I don’t know that she can. You forget, we’re in the forest where no one escapes.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Alison whispered.
20
I managed to untie Alison’s bindings, and she did the same to me. Having my wrists freed gave me the chance to at least move them, rubbing the pain out of them. The tingling that I felt seemed to persist, as if it came from more than just the ropes, though as I looked down at Elaine’s fallen form, I thought that was likely.
“Help me tie her up,” I said to Alison.
She nodded. The two of us worked quickly, securing Elaine by the wrists and ankles. When we were done, Alison stepped back. “What now?”
“I’m not exactly sure,” I said. “We could leave her.”
“We probably should,” Alison said.
“Only I don’t know. Something’s going on. She was with the Academy, and until we know just what it is that’s taking place, maybe we shouldn’t leave her.”
“She tried to hurt me. Because of her, others were hurt, even killed. She deserves anything that comes to her,” Alison said.
She was right, but until we understood who this other person was in the forest, and what they were doing, I didn’t know if we would need a dragon mage.
“Come on. Let’s go to this light.”
“What light?”
“The light I see in the distance. You don’t see it?”
“I don’t see anything, Ashan. I didn’t know what you are doing. When she forced you to keep going, I thought you were leading us back to Berestal.”
“There’s a light in the distance. I don’t know what it is, only that I can see the outline of it.” I turned and looked into the trees, but couldn’t see anything out there other than a hint of the pale light that had drawn me in the first place. It had come out of the darkness, guiding me, and calling me toward it.
It was the dragon, though I didn’t know why I was the only one of us who could see it.
I looked down at Elaine. She hadn’t moved since I’d knocked her out, though I was worried that she might start moving again. With the magic that she had, it was hard for me to know whether she would come around faster than I expected.
“You can see the dragon?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. Maybe.” I thought about what Elaine had said about the connection that I might have to the dragon, though I didn’t know whether it really made sense to me, or whether it even mattered. “When I freed the dragon, there was a light that glowed from it, so for all I know, it is the dragon.”
“Now that she’s knocked out, why would we go toward the dragon?”
“I didn’t get the sense that it wanted to harm us. It killed two of the Vard, though it left me alone. It seemed as if it did that intentionally.”
“I still don’t know why we would go after the dragon. Let’s go home, Ashan.”
I turned back to my sister. It was a good question. Why would we go back toward the dragon?
I had wanted to see a dragon, and now that I had been given the chance to see it up close, I no longer knew if that was what I wanted. Seeing what had happened to her, and seeing the way that she suffered, I couldn’t help but feel as if we needed to return home.
I stared into the distance. There was still that glowing light. It seemed to call to me, though not the way that it had when I had been near the wagons. This time, I could ignore it.
“Something is bothering me,” I said, looking over to Alison. “It’s something Joran said about the Vard. They don’t like the dragons, so why would they want to use one?”
More than that, why attack the Djarn?
“There’s something wrong. With all of this.”
“It’s not for us to worry about,” Alison said. “We’re farmers. Not a part of the kingdom. Not a part of whatever war the king has with the Vard.”
It hadn’t been an open war before now. Some sympathizers in Berestal, but nothing like this. I didn’t know what this was, but I started to wonder if it was even the Vard.
And if not, what had happened here?
“There’s someone else from the capital who serves the king out here. If we can find him, maybe we can—”
The steady rumble that I’d heard before erupted. It was behind us.
I looked back to Alison.
“What was that?” she whispered.
“That’s the mesahn, as far as I know.”
I shared with her what I knew of the mesahn, along with how I’d seen one. That there was a creature like that prowling in the forest should terrify me, but I couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps we should head toward it.
If Elaine and those she was with feared the mesahn, then having it on our side might be helpful.
As I looked at Alison, I knew that wasn’t the right strategy, either. Her eyes were wide as she jerked her head around constantly looking for threats. She’d been through too much already. It was time for her to leave the forest and get to safety. “We should go,” I said.
“What about her?”
We looked down to Elaine. She still hadn’t moved. I didn’t want to leave her where she was, but bringing her through the forest wasn’t going to be easy to do either. We had to leave her. There wasn’t a choice in doing it otherwise.
“Leave her. I don’t think she’s going to follow us. I think she’s going to follow the dragon. If we’re here when she comes around, she might be able to overpower us and force us to serve her.” She was a dragon mage, after all. I’d surprised her once, but doubted I could do it again. I remembered the pain that I’d felt when she’d used that strange magic on me.
We started walking away from Elaine, and away from the glowing light that might represent the dragon, and away from the sound that suggested the mesahn was coming toward us.
We hadn’t gone very far when I heard the rumble coming from behind us again.
I looked over to my sister, but it didn’t seem as if she heard it. If she had, then she didn’t say anything. We continued racing onward through the forest, moving as quickly as we could, and every so often it seemed as if the undergrowth would reach up and grab for one or both of us. Either Alison or I would stumble, and we would find ourselves staggering forward, practically sprawled out on the ground.
The light that had followed persisted. I thought that we were heading in a different direction, away from it, but the light seemed to head toward us instead.
At one point, I paused to look around us.
There was no movement near us, and I didn’t hear the shouts of the Vard or the rumbling roar of the mesahn. I didn’t feel anything that would suggest to me that there was magic working from behind me. No sense of heat or tightness to my skin. There was no burning within my belly.
The only thing I noticed was that the light seemed to be turning in the same direction that we were heading.
I continued stumbling through the forest. I had no idea which direction we were heading, or if this would take us the way that we needed to go. It was possible that where we were heading now would lead us right back to the Djarn path, but it was also possible that it would take us deeper into the forest. If so, I didn’t know what we might find.
Maybe the Djarn would help us, much like they had attacked earlier.
The thought of that almost made me chuckle. I had a hard time thinking that they would actively assist us. There were those three men that I’d seen with the strange circular weapons, but other than them…
The Djarn had never been helpful. The only one who had ever had any trade with the Djarn was Joran’s father. I hadn’t heard of anybody beyond him having any experience with them. We turned again, as we raced deeper into the forest.
T
his time, I was certain that the bright light was coming toward us.
When I slowed, Alison looked over to me. “What is it?” she whispered.
I shook my head. “Something’s not right.” I pointed to the glowing in the distance. “I don’t know if you can see it or not, but the light is getting brighter.”
“I can’t see it,” she said.
I nodded. “I didn’t think that you could, but if you could see it, you would know that as that light gets brighter, we’re heading in the wrong direction.”
As I looked around, I didn’t hear any sound that would tell me the mesahn was nearby. I didn’t see anything other than the light.
“We should—”
A shout came from nearby.
I turned, looking through the trees, trying to gauge what it was.
I couldn’t tell.
We headed away from that shout, though. I guided Alison along the path, moving through the forest. At least we had the glowing light—or, I should say that I had the glowing light— to ensure that we didn’t get snared by the forest itself.
There wasn’t anything else. I felt as if that glowing light was chasing us, like the dragon chased us. Power seemed to build around us in the forest.
It was an energy that radiated everywhere around us, an energy that suggested that there was something more taking place here, but even as I started to search around for answers, I didn’t have them. We moved more carefully now. If there was a shout nearby, it meant one of the men with Elaine had to be near us. I wasn’t sure any more if they were Vard or not. The rumbling came again. It was faint, but it seemed to me that it was growing more intense the longer that I listened—w hich meant that the creature was getting closer to us.
“I don’t know if we’re going to be able to get out of here,” I said.
Alison’s eyes widened, as she looked around, her gaze sweeping around her. I felt for her. All of this had been my attempt to try and rescue her, to get her to safety, but I was doing a poor job of it. She took my hand, squeezing.
I shared a look with her. “I’m sorry, Alison.”
She shook her head. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Ashan.”
We tried to step over a section of the forest, but my feet got tangled.
When I got back up , I looked around. The glowing was even brighter than it had been before. Strangely, I began to feel the drawing sensation again. Maybe that had been working on me the entire time. It was possible that, regardless of where I thought I was leading Alison, we were instead heading directly toward the dragon. If so, it meant that the pull of the dragon was far more compelling than I had known. Either that, or something else pulled us. I shivered at the thought.
Alison watched me, saying nothing. I forced a smile. There wasn’t anything else I could do at this point.
We reached a small stream. I crouched down, cupping my hands to the water and taking a quick drink. It had been a while since I’d had anything to eat or drink. My stomach rumbled, the water not quenching my hunger and barely satiating my thirst. “Which way do you think this goes? We might be able to follow the stream out of the forest?” I got up, wiping my hands on my pants as I studied the flow of the stream. “If this heads through the forest, then it’s possible we could use it to guide our way.”
“Or, it’s possible the stream runs north and south through the forest,” Alison said.
“Which means that we would have to find south.” If we reached the southern edge of the forest, it would take us to the King’s Road. If nothing else, that would lead us out of here.
Alison frowned as she studied the water. “It seems to be flowing this way,” she said, pointing off to our left. “It reminds me of where Dad told me he’d been injured.”
I stopped, looking over to her. “Dad never remembered where he’d been injured.”
Alison shrugged and looked around the forest. “I don’t know how much he really remembered and how much was just a story. With him, it was difficult to know. He once told me that he came through a place that looks like this. Thenis was with him. They were hit from behind…”
“By the darkness,” I said. “The monsters he’d always talked about.”
“You know we can’t trust anything he said after that point. He wasn’t in his right mind, Ashan.”
Other than when he’d described the burning feeling from the dragons.
How many other things had been real?
“What did he say?”
“He said he was following a fire.” She sighed. “I know it doesn’t make much sense, and with our father, especially lately, it was hard to know. There were so many stories.”
I had heard them, too, so knew what she meant. The problem was that we didn’t know what had happened to our dad and Thenis, only that they’d been strangely injured. An injury that didn’t heal with traditional attempts. Maybe even a magical injury.
Fire.
Like with the dragon.
What if Dad had chased a monster into the forest?
I couldn’t think like that. Get out of here, return home, mourn my father.
That was it.
I could forget about the way I’d felt the dragon pulling on me.
I had to.
“We should follow the stream,” she said softly.
I just nodded.
After she took a drink, we picked our way along the stream, making our way through the forest. It seemed as if our steps were a little bit easier. It certainly wasn’t nearly as difficult as it had been when we had been trying to meander through the trees. By following the stream, we had purpose.
We had been going for a while when the glowing seemed to get brighter. Once again, I noticed the rumbling sound behind us, of what I presumed to be the mesahn. There had been no shouts, not for a while, but I still worried that Elaine and her people were chasing us somehow.
I glanced over to Alison.
“I hear it,” she whispered.
“It’s more than just the mesahn. That glowing seems to be getting brighter again.”
“Are we heading to the dragon?”
I shook my head. “I don’t really know. I didn’t think so, but…”
We had gone another dozen or so steps, when a cracking of branches behind me caught my attention.
I spun, grabbing Alison, pushing up near the trunk of one of the trees.
We waited, listening for anything else that might emerge out of the forest, but didn’t see anything. Alison watched me, panic still in her eyes.
I leaned close to her. “We need to sneak around here,” I whispered.
“What if we get caught?” she asked.
“We aren’t going to get caught,” I said. “I won’t let them do anything to you.”
I tried to sound as confident as possible, though I knew that there really wasn’t anything I could do to stop them if the others came for us.
If Elaine reached us again…
There would be even less I would be able to do to help her. She knew it. I knew it. It was a lie we agreed to share without saying anything.
We crept around the tree, moving quietly.
A branch cracked again and I tensed, freezing as I looked behind me.
Raising a finger to my lips, I continued to move forward, trying to stay as quiet as I could. Then I saw a shape. The figure was right in front of us, and all I would have to do would be to tackle them.
Glancing over to Alison, she nodded to me, as if she understood what I needed to do.
I darted forward, catching the figure in the back. They grunted. We tumbled to the ground and I rolled, bringing back my fist to strike them.
Then I hesitated.
“Joran?”
He looked up at me, one arm trying to cover his face, as if to block my blow.
“There you are,” Joran whispered. “I’ve been following you for what feels like hours.”
“How have you been following us?”
Joran got to his feet, and he motioned to the ground.
I looked down and realized that our boots had left deep footprints in the forest. I hadn’t even considered hiding them.
“I figured it was the two of you. When you reached the stream, I realized what you were doing. Then I heard something up here, so I knew I needed to be more careful.”
I sighed. “The only thing you heard was Alison and I.”
“I see that,” he said. “What happened?”
“We were captured by Elaine. She was trying to force us to lead her to the dragon, but we got away.”
“I’d love to learn how you escaped from a dragon mage when this is all over, but for now, I’d be happy to learn your plan.”
“I don’t have much of one. Get out of the forest. Get away from Elaine and the people she’s with. And go back to Berestal. We can get to the marshal and reveal what we heard and get word to the king.”
Joran looked around, and he had a deep frown on his face. “What happens if they follow us out of the forest? What happens if we get back to Berestal and they come for us?”
“I’m hopeful that they won’t be able to find us outside of the forest,” I said. “If nothing else, I have to hope they end up trapped in here.”
“What happens if they don’t?”
I frowned. “Then you will have to see if your family will protect us.”
We started off again.
Joran and Alison whispered to each other, but I didn’t pay any attention to their conversation. Instead, I watched for movement in front of me, looking for the distinction of glowing light, and listening for any other sound that would suggest to me that something was taking place that I needed to be concerned about.
The men with Elaine were still out here. I didn’t know where, but I knew they were here. When they caught up to us—if they caught up to us—we would have to be ready. We reached a small clearing. It was surprisingly open, and there were piles of rock strewn about. The stream split here, heading into different directions, weaving through the forest. I paced around the inside of the clearing, looking to see which way we should go before glancing back at Alison. She and Joran were still talking to each other, whispering silently. Now the glowing seemed to be more intense than it had been before.
The Caged Dragon (Cycle of Dragons Book 1) Page 21
