Chapter Eleven
Hubric snorted, his leathery features crinkling into what might have been a grin or even a snarl.
“Speak for yourself, Gerond. I’ve never needed anyone to do my speaking for me.”
“I’m not sure anyone really wants to be my mentor,” I said, helping myself to more fruit as Nasataa grabbed an entire roast chicken, circling around it with snaps and snarls and then grabbing a leg and shaking it like he thought it still needed to be killed. “My last mentor died when her dragon was killed and the one before that died saving my life.” I tried to keep my tone light, but there was a lump in my throat. “Can we just be friends without a mentorship?”
“No,” Hubric said gruffly. “And I don’t die easy, so you won’t be getting out of this so easily.”
“Do you also breathe underwater? Because you might have trouble keeping up if you don’t.” I said, making my eyes large but trying not to show that I was laughing inside. The old fellow was all gruff and growls and I could just tell he was a huge softy inside. I could probably tease that out of him given enough time.
“I do not. But keeping up will not be a problem.”
“What a pity,” I said with my most innocent look. “We spend a lot of time underwater. I suppose you’ll need a lot of time to sleep though, won’t you?”
“Sleep?”
“Don’t old people sleep a lot? Old Janny in the village spends most of her time sleeping or drinking soup.”
The snarl he made was a combination of disbelief and irritation. I hid my grin behind a huge slice of melon.
“I am not so old as that!” he said when he was finished sputtering.
“It’s just I’d hate to see you wasting all your precious time mentoring squirrels and trees while I’m underwater. That hardly seems fair. Maybe you deserve a better person to mentor?” I batted my eyelashes innocently. I didn’t need a minder. And I didn’t like the idea of putting yet another person in harm’s way.
He snorted. “Nice try, little girl. I’ll have you know that we have a way around the underwater part – devices that make it possible to breathe underwater.”
“Like the Rock Eater’s patches?” I asked innocently.
His eyes narrowed for a moment and then he laughed. “I’m going to like you. I thought my last two charges were challenging, but you’re going to keep me on my toes, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I said, smiling broadly. I was beginning to like the old fellow. “But, if you really want to help me, you can start by getting Heron free.”
“Heron?”
“My friend. He saved my life, but the dragons are holding him as a prisoner.”
“Well,” Hubric started to say, but he was cut off by a rumble in the ground beneath us. We all paused, listening.
The rumble intensified, growing deeper and heavier by the moment. Was that an earthquake? There were legends of those in our village – horrible events where the foundations of the world shook and moved. No one knew what caused them. The Elders said that their grandparents had felt one once. It shook down every home on the island.
“What in the –” Gerond began, but I was already moving.
There was a basket with a cover nearby. It wasn’t my bag, but it would do. Frantically, I filled it with as much food and bottles of water as I could stuff into the basket while Nasataa shook the chicken for the last time and then leapt onto my shoulders.
This time when we ran, I wasn’t going to be without food. I hated being hungry and thirsty all the time.
Hubric was on his feet first. He gripped the handle of a short sword at his waist and I grabbed my own Dragon Staff, ready to go. Even with our quick reactions, we were hardly even ready before the Ilerioc Guard of the White closed in around us.
“We need to head lower into the mountain while we can,” Jeriath said as our guard formed up. “Those are our orders.”
“You’ll keep the girl and baby dragon safe?” Gerond asked urgently.
“We will. And the Ilerioc Guard of the Red will keep the other girl and dragonlet safe. We don’t know which of them is the Chosen One and his guardian. We must be cautious.”
Well, I felt a lot better knowing that they were protecting Atura. Ha!
Gerond nodded briskly and hurried toward the door and I found my eyes watching him leave. He was a stable presence and I hated to see him leaving just when things were getting dangerous.
“Don’t worry about Gerond,” Hubric said gruffly. “He always lands on his feet.”
“What about you?” I asked, challengingly.
Hubric barked a laugh. “I always land on someone else’s feet.”
Around him, the Ilerioc Guard chuckled under their veils.
“Come on,” Jeriath said, leading us to a mural at the back of the room. He touched a button and it clicked aside, revealing a doorway and stairs leading down. “We have to hurry. I don’t know what is going on, but my instructions are clear. I am to move you to the lower levels and await further instructions.”
As he took the first step into the doorway, the ground shook again, throwing him against the wall. It was all I could do to keep my own feet. What was happening out there? It wasn’t an earthquake, was it?
I hadn’t realized I’d asked that aloud until Hubric answered.
“I don’t think it’s an earthquake or even a volcano erupting. I think it’s something else – a debt long unpaid. A reckoning coming due.”
And at his words, I couldn’t help the shiver that slid up my spine.
Chapter Twelve
Two steps after we walked through the door, Hubric took the basket from me gently, whispering as we walked.
“I know the temptation to keep what you can get, Seleska, but this is going to slow you down. You already have your hands full guarding that dragonlet, don’t you think?”
Reluctantly, I let it go. I did have Nasataa to take care of. He was right about that. I reached up to stroke his head with a finger as Hubric set the basket down on the ground and we followed Jeriath and two other Ilerioc Guards down the stairs.
But I kept glancing back at it as we walked. Hubric made sense, but I didn’t like leaving it behind. It felt like I never had enough anymore. Right now, I didn’t even have shoes. I’d left those boots up top on the cliffside.
Snap, snap, crunch.
Nasataa’s little voice sounded distracted and he moved nervously over my shoulders, shifting his weight constantly as I hurried down the steps.
Crunch. Snap.
“It’s okay, little guy,” I said gently, but I was more worried by his thoughts than I wanted to let on. Was he okay? That was a strange thing to say and he wasn’t adding any images to clarify what he meant.
Hubric watched me wordlessly as we hurried down the steps, like he was making a list in his head of everything we were doing. I felt my face grow hot at the thought. Did he think I wasn’t good enough guard for Nasataa? Honestly, who wouldn’t?
I was untaught and untrained.
And I was young. Hubric could probably fight in his sleep and he had a lot of life experience.
But I wasn’t about to let that get me down. I was the right person to take care of Nasataa because I loved him the most and because I’d never leave him or let any harm come to him as long as I had strength in my arms and breath in my lungs. That brought a confident smile to my lips. If I needed to learn to be a great warrior woman to take care of my little flamer, then that was what I’d be.
I liked that as a nickname. Flamer. What do you think Nasataa?
Flamer. Crunch. Snap.
Yeah! He liked it!
The stairway shook again, and I stumbled down the last step into a crowded landing that I hadn’t seen because of Jeriath blocking the path in front of me. My feet slipped as I struggled for balance on the slick rock floor of the landing and stumbled headlong into red leather and loud cursing. I grabbed at the other person, trying to stabilize myself and felt something tear free into my hand
. At least the Dragon Staff was still far from that other person and unlikely to take an eye out.
When my balance returned, I was face to face with Atura. She scowled at me and then leaned forward so fast that I thought she was going to bite me or spit in my face but instead, she leaned in close to my ear and hissed.
“Say anything and I kill you.”
Yeah, very friendly.
She drew back and then gave me a smile that she must have thought was sweet but was laced with venom. I wanted to bite her, but instead I clenched my hands hard to keep my temper.
“I’m so glad we found you,” she said in a tone that I didn’t trust at all. “Whatever is happening is so dangerous. It’s a good thing that we’re together!”
Yeah. Good. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, right? Only, I’d never had any enemies until I met her. Well, other than my cousin and his pirates.
“And the prophecy made it clear that we needed you – remember?” she said oh so innocently. “One born on distant island far from home. One brought to keep him safe, if he roam. One given as a strength to face that day. One who with her life for them will pay. We still need your part of that, Seleska.”
Nasataa hissed and Hubric stepped between us with a dry look on his face.
“If you ladies are done making each other’s acquaintance, maybe we can keep fleeing to safety, hmmm?”
Our guards were already heading down the next staircase going in a different direction into the darkness below. Lit torches lined the walls of the staircase.
My cheeks felt hot. I should be worried about keeping Nasataa safe and instead I was letting Atura be a burr in my sandal.
“Can we get to Heron?” I asked, looking for Jeriath’s eyes before he disappeared down the stairs. “He shouldn’t be imprisoned at a time like this.”
“That’s not my affair,” the Ilerioc said from behind his leather veil.
“Please,” I asked, giving him my most winning look. “If everything falls apart, he could be trapped or hurt.”
He sighed. “But our path will take us close to where he is being ... detained. I will make a judgment then.”
So, he had that kind of power, did he? I slipped in a little closer to where he stood, smiling encouragingly. If I was close, then he wouldn’t be able to forget I was there and that there was something I wanted.
He shook his head and slipped down the stairway and I followed close behind.
If I didn’t think about Heron right now, no one else would and if this volcano really did blow or there was an earthquake, he might need to flee with us. I was having a hard time believing this shaking was anything other than a massive disaster coming, despite Hubric’s creepy words about debts and reckonings. Which reminded me – I still had something in my palm that had torn loose from Atura.
As I walked, I looked down into my palm and saw a small leather pouch that had torn away from her clothing. Was it a pocket? It was sewn shut. Carefully, I picked away at the seams.
“What’s in your hand, Seleska?” Atura asked, slipping close from the stair behind me.
A small stone no larger than the last joint of my littlest finger slipped from the pouch into my hand as the earth shook beneath us again. A bright rune glowed on it.
“Show me your hand!” she demanded.
I didn’t want to. I wanted to know more about this rock. I slipped it into my cheek. I could show her an empty hand and spit it out again in a moment. It felt strange – almost warm – against my tongue.
“Show me!”
She grabbed me, spinning me against the wall of the staircase while I was trying to show her my empty hand.
I was so surprised, I sucked in a breath suddenly, sucking in the stone and then coughing. It lodged in my throat and then I felt it slowly moving down.
Oops. I had swallowed it.
And I had no idea what it did.
Chapter Thirteen
“Shut up!” Jeriath hissed and Atura’s mouth snapped shut with an audible click. “Do you hear that?”
There was a rumbling again, but fainter. And this time, the sound of rock scraping on rock.
I shivered, remembering the last time I’d heard that sound as the Troglodyte desperately passed his message to me. I met Atura’s eyes and behind her feigned concern, I saw I look of satisfaction. Her palm was pressed against the rock wall as if she was feeling for something or gaining some kind of strength from the rock.
I frowned at that. She wasn’t ... she wasn’t causing this, was she?
“That sounded close,” Jeriath muttered. “From now on, we need silence.”
The Head of the Red Ileriocs nodded briskly, pushing forward to trot down the stairs first.
We followed, pressed against one another as we hurried down the stairs. Frustration filled me at every turn. I couldn’t see past Atura’s head in front of me. She was still wearing heeled boots like the ones I had abandoned, and she was taller than I was. All I could see was her back and patches of light between the people ahead of us, constantly moving as they hurried down the stairs.
If I looked behind me, all I saw was Hubric scowling and occasionally rubbing his chin in thought. His eyes met mine anytime I looked back, and his eyebrows rose questioningly. I felt my face heating. The way I’d hidden that rock in my mouth was embarrassing. What was I? Six?
Worse, I’d swallowed it and I still felt it making its way slowly from my throat to my belly. It left a strange, hot sensation in its wake. Was it one of those magical rocks the Rock Eaters ate? And if it was, had it been activated? Atura said hers had not been activated until she finished her task. What if it was meant for an enemy? After all, if it was something good, wouldn’t she have already swallowed it?
We reached another landing and this one branched in four directions. Jeriath and the Head of the Red Ilerioc Guard nodded to each other and then made hand signals and two of each of their guards darted down the steps. One of them returned seconds later with a shake of his head.
Jeriath’s eyes tightened behind his veil. I made a frustrated sound in my throat. I hated those veils.
Hubric leaned in close, whispering in my ear – again it was like he could read my mind!
“When the people of Haz gave a tithe to serve the dragons those people swore they would never again show their faces as free men. When the Ilerioc people were granted their freedom, they chose to honor their old vow by always keeping their heads and faces covered. I respect people who honor their vows.”
I nodded. But it was still frustrating not to see their faces. And it had to get hot under all that cloth. I hoped I hadn’t made promises that would bind me and my descendants like that.
Two more groups returned both shaking their heads.
“The stairways are blocked?” Hubric asked.
“Falling rock,” Jeriath replied shortly.
A moment later, the fourth scout waved from the stairway and we followed Jeriath as he hurried down that set of stairs.
“There’s only one way out through there and it is slow,” the guard protested. “We should turn back.”
“I was given strict orders,” Jeriath protested.
“We will have to choose which has precedence if we go that way, and neither of these has yet given their vows. That’s what they are here for in the first place!”
“Anyone can take a vow,” Jeriath said.
“But it should be done before Haz’drazen and the Council.”
We were all listening, not sure of what they were talking about.
“I will give any vow necessary,” Atura said boldly as we hurried down the steps. They were growing steeper. “I am your true Guardian. As the prophecies state, I was rescued by a dragon as a child.”
Wait? That was in the prophecies?
“Really?” Hubric asked dryly. He didn’t believe her? Actually, neither did I. Atura would say anything to get what she wanted. And she’d wanted to burn me alive when we first met. I still thought she might. She hadn’t been
very subtle about wanting to see me dead.
“I was rescued by a huge Blue Dragon from a sinking ship. He bore me on his back to land. That’s in your prophecies, isn’t it?” she asked, quoting in a slightly different tone. “On the backs of Blues, they bear her to shore, child in distress, child sacrificed for, child rescued from death. On their backs they bear up golden hope. Memory will not be forgotten. And in her belly will bloom the strength of gratitude.”
Ilerioc and the First Red Ilerioc Guard gave identical grunts as if they had been punched in the belly.
“I thought those prophecies were sealed to only a few,” Hubric said neutrally.
“They are,” Jeriath said and it almost sounded like a curse. “How did you hear of them, diplomat?”
“When the Dominar sent me on this mission to represent her, Raolcan Prince of Dragons spoke the words to me.”
Jeriath grunted again, but this time it sounded like respect. “Then you know that if her words are true, she is the true guardian of the Chosen One and she must speak her vows over him.” He shot a harsh glance at me. “And I have chosen incorrectly.”
I felt my face heating, but it felt silly to chime in right now. Would anyone believe me if I told them that the Gold Dragon who rescued me was carried on the backs of Blue Dragons as he flew his last hours to the Haven Isles to bring me to safety? His memory would never be forgotten. Not by me. Not by them. And I believed the prophecy. I believed it because I did get strength from my gratitude to him. It was what gave me fuel for every day.
I put my hand to my heart, silently thanking my old friend again.
Ramariri, I thought. You are not with me anymore. But I will always be grateful. I promise that I will protect little Nasataa and guard him in his task. Just like you guarded me. For your memory. For your sacrifice.
Chapter Fourteen
And that was the vow they were talking about.
The strange voice shattered my thoughts and I gasped. Who was that?
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