by Mike Shelton
If we keep you safe and you don’t get yourself killed while bringing peace to the land. Abylar chuckled, and a small puff of fire erupted from his nostrils.
Hey! You almost burned me. I thought it was your job to protect me, Abylar.
Moving a paw and pulling Bakari in tighter, Abylar brought his head down onto the ground. That it is, Dragon Rider. My sole purpose is to protect you and to see that you live for hundreds of years.
Bakari snuggled closer to his dragon and drank in the peace and love coming from their bond. It took him a while to fall asleep. But, when he did, he slept soundly with few dreams.
CHAPTER SIX
Breelyn Mier stood in front of a tall, gold-bordered mirror in the governor’s compound in the city of Silla. The tree-city was the northernmost major city in Elvyn, a kingdom located just to the east of Alaris. Even though Silla had been a minor city of the elves throughout the centuries, one hundred and fifty years ago, as the magic barrier around Alaris came into being, the city became more important. The governor appointed a barrier watcher in Silla, a role that the city and its people had taken seriously through the years.
Breelyn brushed her long, silky hair—twenty strokes on each side, as was her habit. Her blond hair and upturned ears, characteristics of her race, were only in contrast to the desert elves, who lived in Mallek, in the southernmost part of Elvyn. Their hair grew red.
She briefly wondered what she would look like with red hair. The thought made her smile. She peered into the mirror at her clear, blue eyes, and her thoughts changed from her hair to her mission and the disturbing news she had brought of the barrier coming down.
“Protector,” called a voice from the other side of the door, “your escort is here to take you to the governor’s table. Are you ready?”
“I will be with you shortly.” Breelyn finished the last three strokes through her hair and then put the brush carefully in its place, on the small table in front of the mirror.
King Arrowyn had sent her, one of his five protectors, to perform a random circuit of their kingdom’s defenses. Every year, each of the protectors would travel around the borders of Elvyn to help ensure their safety. Extra time was always spent on the western border, the one that had been separated from Alaris by only the magical barrier. This year, she was chosen for this incredible honor. Every year, the protectors looked specifically for any weakness in the barrier.
During her circuit, she and her guard, Alair, were ambushed and captured. If it were not for the barrier weakening briefly and the young Celestar guardian Erryl untying her, Breelyn didn’t know what would have happened.
What did happen was that she had helped Erryl find the wizard Bakari. From there, events unfolded quickly. The Orb, which powered the barrier around Alaris, was shown to be a dragon egg, and that dragon had emerged and had bonded with Bakari, resulting in the first dragon rider in over one hundred and fifty years.
She stepped out of the room with a flowing, white robe over her white leather clothing. Her almond-shaped eyes and pale pink lips were the only color accenting her attire. She left the tree that her guest room sat in and walked upon a high bridge to the tallest tree of the grove in Silla.
Upon entering the great tree, it took Breelyn some time to climb even higher, toward the top. The living, wood railings felt good against the palms of her hands. She had missed being up in the trees during her ride from the capital city, when most of her nights had been spent on the ground.
She turned a corner around the trunk, and there stood the grand ballroom, which had been built overlooking most of the other trees of the northwestern Elvyn Forest. Breelyn’s heart sang with joy at the sight. She breathed in deeply and relaxed herself before entering the room.
Elves are big on ceremony, and so, even though she carried important news to share, they would first dine together. A reception had been organized in her honor. The protectors came as an extension of the king himself. Since the beginning of their race, the elves had hailed the protectors as special men and women among their people. Their kings lived long and were well loved, and a protector’s job, first and foremost, was to protect the king and his kingdom.
As she entered, the crowd rose to their feet, though she saw a few of the older elves doing it slower than they should. She tried not to furrow her eyebrows in frustration. Candles and lamps, along with a row of mage lights, made the room bright and cheery. Bright ribbons in blue, yellow, and pink hung from the ceiling, and the light wooden walls had been shined to reflect all of the brilliance of the grain in the wood. Polished wooden tables sat in the middle of the floor, with a few dozen men and women standing behind their chairs. So Breelyn made her way to the front table.
Governor Ellian bowed low, but not for as long as protocol dictated he should to a representative from the king. Breelyn noticed how portly he had become since the last time she had traveled to the city, years ago. It was not proper for members of the Elvyn race to let themselves go to such extremes. He also seemed tired, and his smile did not reach his eyes.
Before sending Breelyn on her journey to check out the barrier, King Soliel had voiced his concerns about whether the leaders in Silla would take Breelyn seriously or not. She had insisted on going, though, and he had agreed that she was the best protector for the job. After going through the barrier, meeting Bakari, and seeing the dragon, she had definitely gotten more than she had anticipated on her trip. Now, speaking to the governor of Silla would be her last stop before returning back and reporting to the king all that had happened.
The elderly governor motioned with his meaty hand for Breelyn to sit at his right. Once she was seated, the rest of the crowd followed suit. Then they waited for Breelyn to take the first bite.
Breelyn relaxed and savored the moment as a small breeze stirred the bangs of her hair. Being only thirty years old—quite young in Elvyn culture—she actually enjoyed this attention and the lifestyle of a protector. It gave her a chance to use her talents and growing magical powers for the good of her beloved land.
Elvyn was looked upon highly by all of the other neighboring countries on the Western Continent. Their kingdom enjoyed free trade with Tillimot and Quentis to the south, all the territories to the north, including as far as Gildan and, sometimes, even the port of Mar, in the Realm, with periodic trips by sea to North and South Solshi. Now, she supposed, new trade agreements with Alaris would be forthcoming – including new land routes to many of those other kingdoms.
She motioned to the servant standing at her side, and he poured her drink carefully into a tall glass. It was a beautiful red color and had swirled into the glass, delightfully reflecting the room’s light. She guessed it to be a blend of grape and pomegranate. She took the cool glass in her slender fingers and brought it to her lips, enjoying how the fresh juice ran down her throat.
She lowered it with a smile. She had been correct. She tasted the slight tang of pomegranate, most likely grown in the southern region between the Elvyn Forest and the desert of Mallek. As she touched the glass back down on the table, she signaled the others to proceed.
The meal was delicious, consisting of a broad variety of fruits, vegetables, meats, and breads. Small platters of pork, chicken, and local fowl sat around on the tables, but Breelyn did not touch these. She had found that meat did not settle well with her and made her feel sluggish and tired.
“Protector, how is our beloved king?” asked an elderly man a few seats down from Breelyn.
“He is concerned about the barrier. I am traveling back to see what his recommendations are, now that it is down.” Breelyn understood why he had asked about their king’s health, as the king had not been well in recent months. However, she had purposefully avoided answering the question and had gone right to the heart of the matter.
The man, the chief watcher in Silla, scrunched up his dark eyebrows at her answer, but proceeded anyway. Even while sitting down, he appeared tall. His hair was graying, but it still hung down long on his back.
&n
bsp; “He should have no concern there,” the chief watcher said. “We will continue to watch the border, whether there is a barrier or not.”
“You?” Breelyn asked, letting her anger show. “The barrier has been weakening for quite some time, and we had not heard anything in Lor’l from your watchers. You have been derelict in your duties here. So I will recommend that the king send his own troops to protect us along the border.”
The chief watcher’s eyes popped open wider. He glanced at the governor, who had suddenly taken an interest in the conversation. A few of the other men at the table looked briefly at one another. Breelyn continued to eat pieces of a delicious, juicy melon, pretending she did not see the worry in their eyes.
“We will discuss this in the morning, when the full council of the city meets,” the governor said, trying to steer the conversation away from the barrier. “You can make a full report then.”
“I will expect the chief watcher to also have a full report ready. I will hear why we did not hear about this sooner.”
The chief watcher was new to the role. After an accident happened to the previous watcher, earlier in the year, this man had been named as the chief watcher, a position of power and honor among the northern elves. He glared hard at her now, with a look that spelled trouble.
Breelyn also noticed the cold stares directed at her as she leisurely finished eating her dinner. But she wasn’t going to let these rough border elves bother her. The king was correct to suspect that something was not quite right in Silla. They had been left on their own too long.
Lor’l, the capital of Elvyn, was so immense that they sometimes forgot about their northern cousins, who didn’t live as long as they did. So, even though Arrowyn had been king since the barrier around Alaris went up, the governor in Silla had changed four times since then and the chief watcher more times than that. Unlike the rest of Elvyn, the elves here closer to the border lived little longer than their human neighbors.
The rest of the guests filed away shortly, and the servants began clearing away the platters. Each of the governor’s council excused themselves, one by one, until only the governor and Breelyn were left.
Then the governor stood. “Protector, would you like to retire and rest now, after your long journey?”
“I think I will spend some time in your library.” Breelyn excused herself and left the dining room.
Alair, her guard, fell into step beside her as soon as she had exited the doorway. He was much older than she, and his dark hair was speckled with gray, but his blue eyes still appeared bright. He was dressed darkly and moved smoothly and silently next to her.
“Not necessarily a forthcoming bunch,” Breelyn said.
“Did you find out anything more, Protector?” Alair asked, his eyes constantly scanning to take in any potential dangers around them.
Breelyn turned aside and asked a nearby servant for directions to the library and then turned back to Alair. “They are hiding something. I know it. The way they regarded one another when they thought I wasn’t watching. But...” she paused as she opened the door to the library.
“But you are always watching,” Alair said, finishing the sentence.
Breelyn smiled. Alair knew her too well. “They did not seem surprised about the falling of the barrier or even concerned. I surmise that they were behind the attack on us at the barrier.”
Soon, a young girl in the library inquired if the two visitors needed help with finding something.
“Yes,” Breelyn said. “I would like to see some works written during the occupation.”
“Oh,” the young girl said, raising one eyebrow in surprise, and motioned her to follow.
The library in Silla was small, compared to the one in Lor’l. Breelyn remembered roaming the library tree in Lor’l as she had waited for her father, who was on the council of Elvyn in those years. She specifically liked reading the stories from other countries, which had intrigued her, especially the stories of dragons and of the prophecy that, one day, a new dragon king would return, who could bind all the kingdoms in peace. She laughed to herself about that. The last mention of dragons was written before their lifetimes.
This library only contained two small rooms. But, with it being in an area that was an integral part of the barrier battle, she figured its rooms might contain some additional books about that time frame. The library in Lor’l, for some reason, held very little information about that great battle and the time of occupation. She had surmised that it was an embarrassment, somehow, to their nation to have been partially occupied by the selfish and vicious wizards of Alaris. For, she had noticed that most people tried to ignore her whenever she had asked about it, even the king.
Breelyn took a few books and spread them out on a small table that seemed to be growing from the wall. Then Alair asked to be excused. She saw that he would become restless waiting for her, so she instructed him to talk to some of the servants in the castle and see what else he might hear that would be useful for her meeting the next day.
Alair walked silently out of the room, as was his usual habit as a protector’s guard, and seemed to disappear into the surrounding evening shadows.
Breelyn turned her head down, and started reading bits and pieces as she flipped through each book. But she learned nothing new in the first few books.
As the night grew late, Breelyn had to replace the light from the worn-down candles with a mage light of her own. The amount of energy the light took would hardly deplete her. Besides, she was now a level three mage, and she’d been told that, after a few years as a protector and once her powers were honed better, she could be a level four. And, her greatest source of power came from the earth and the nature surrounding her anyway.
Hours later, Breelyn put her hand to her mouth to stifle a yawn and closed the smooth, leather-bound book she had been reading. She needed some sleep in order to have a clear head the next day as she met with the local council. So she left the library, trying to remember which direction her room was in.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Leisurely walking toward her room, Breelyn breathed in the evening air. Before she had walked too far, a young page came up to her and handed her a note. His hair sat disheveled on his head, and he appeared to have been woken up to run this errand. The note stated that the chief watcher wanted to meet with her tonight to give her a more detailed report about the status of the barrier.
It sounded plausible to her for him to want to do this, but something in her senses screamed a warning. Yet, to refuse would seem undiplomatic. So she reached her mind out for Alair, but she couldn’t find him.
“That’s odd,” she whispered out loud.
“Did you say something, Protector?” questioned the young boy. He must have only been ten or so, and he craned his neck up to look at her.
“Have you seen my guard?”
“No, Protector. Would you like me to find him?”
“No. That’s fine.” Breelyn nodded to him, remembering herself at that age: so eager to do anything to please those above her. “Just take me to the chief watcher.” She was confident in her own abilities, and Alair could take care of himself. Besides, the chief watcher wouldn’t dare attack a protector in the heart of the city.
They wound their way over and through many branches, bridges, and rooms on the way. She tried to keep track of their path but was wary she wouldn’t be able to find her way again. She knew that Alair would have been able to, and, once again, she worried about not being able to contact him. Sometimes he did shut down their mind link to concentrate more fully on something. So he would find her when he was finished. He always did.
The page stopped at a sizable, ornate wooden door in a grouping of rooms a few trees away from the governor’s complex. Two men stood guard in front of it. The young boy bowed to Breelyn and left with a smile.
“Guards, where is your master? I am to meet him here.”
“He will be along shortly, Young Protector. He invites you to wait in this room unt
il his arrival.”
She had raised her eyebrows at the mention of her age once again. It was a definite insult, among a people that lived so long, to be called young. It denoted being immature and foolish. Being from Lor’l and being a mage, she should most likely live to be well over a hundred years old.
So Breelyn stood up as straight as she could, held her tongue from firing back insults, and, with forceful words commanded them, “Tell your chief that I will wait for him in this room until I have counted to two hundred…and then I am leaving.”
The guard’s eyes opened wide at her command, and one left to find his master, while the other guard led her into the room. Internally, she berated herself for sounding so childish in her ultimatum.
Lamps already lit inside gave an eerie glow to the room as she entered. She gasped as she noticed the deadness of the wood and turned toward the guard to ask the meaning of it. But the guard was already outside the room, closing the door.
She pushed her magic out to stop the door, but nothing happened. It closed with his soft touch and left her staring at a room of white-colored wood. She had never seen anything like it in her life. She could feel the wrongness of it. The room was pure white and held no life. These trees had been forced into an unnatural form. A few trees, like birch and aspen, were white on the outside, but there wasn’t any tree whose wood grew pure white throughout.
Breelyn pushed out with her powers again and only felt them being pushed back against her from the white walls. She couldn’t believe that she had let this happen again. In her anxiousness to return to the king, she had let her guard down.
Thinking of the king brought a quick blush to her face: not for the king himself but for his son. She glanced around and tried not to let panic take over. Her powers had always been a part of her since she was young. She remembered moving small objects and opening doors at as young as three years old. The power of earth was strong in her family and worked best on moving objects. She had only been without her power one other time. And that was a few weeks ago, when she and Alair had been attacked at the barrier, before it had come down.
