“Don’t apologize. You’ve done nothing wrong.”
“But Stone—”
“Stone shouldn’t have even been on that side of the mountain. He knew the risks and chose to ignore them. We only go over there when we need to. Most of the time it’s only to keep a look out, and even then we try to keep as far away from the slayers as possible. He was a grown man, and the decision that cost him his life was ultimately his.”
“You didn’t stay far away from me as possible,” I said, remembering just how close he’d flown to me the day I had first walked up the mountain.
“Yeah, but I thought you were cute. I just wanted a better look.”
I gave a sad laugh, more for his benefit than mine. He was trying to cheer me up but it felt as though my heart had been replaced with a heavy stone.
“Listen,” he said, pulling away from me so he could look into my eyes. I couldn’t bear to look at him so instead, I gazed at the ground. He gently placed two fingers under my chin and lifted my face until I had no choice. My face was a mess of tears and snot but I was too upset to care. Ash had no malice in his eyes. Instead, they showed nothing but kindness. If anything, it made me feel worse.
“No one blames you for what happened to Stone.”
“Bill does,” I reminded him.
“Bill is just upset. He doesn’t know what he’s saying. He worked with Stone. They were pretty close. He doesn’t really blame you.”
“Well, he should!” I shouted, feeling wretched. The anger inside me was nothing to do with Ash and everything to do with how I felt about myself. Anger and guilt and grief swirled through me. “It was my people that killed him.”
“You’re right!” he countered, his voice matching my own. “Your people. Not you. You didn’t stab him with your sword. It wasn’t your fault.”
What was I doing? Why was I shouting at the one person who was on my side? I fell into him once again, needing his warmth and protection, desperate to feel his arms around me. He stroked my hair, calming me.
“This has to stop!” I said. “No more blood can be shed over some ridiculous, ancient feud. We need to put an end to this.”
“That’s exactly what I’ve been saying all along,” replied Ash. “Between us, we have the power to put an end to this.”
He gently pulled back a stray strand of hair and kissed me lightly on the cheek. Yesterday the action would have delighted me, but today I took little pleasure in it. I felt like all the happiness had been sucked out of me, leaving me empty and afraid.
Then, some other emotion came over me. I don’t know whether it was because of Ash holding me or something I had inside me all along, but I suddenly felt a strength I had never known I possessed.
With every bone in my body, I vowed to put an end to this. Soon enough I’d have to speak to the other dragons, but for right now, I had Ash.
I pulled away from his arms and instead held his hand. I turned slowly to the grief-stricken villagers. If they hated me for Stone’s death, I wouldn’t blame them, but sooner rather than later I’d have to answer to them. To the man who lost a workmate. To the brother that lost his twin and to the village that lost a son and friend. I’d have to answer to them all. I gripped Ash’s hand tightly and took a step back to the campfire. I knew I had to be strong and with Ash beside me giving me courage, I had everything I needed in order to do what had to be done.
Chapter Twelve
If I was nervous five minutes ago, it was nothing compared to how I felt when I saw Spear standing by the campfire. There were also many more people than I had previously met. They, like Spear, must have come from the houses in the village. With Ash by my side, I tried to hide my fear as I entered the circle of dragons. He’d managed to get them into some semblance of order and now the stone circle was filled with people all looking his way. I took the opportunity to sit toward the back in the hope that no one would see me.
The sound of sobbing still surrounded me but the chaos from ten minutes ago had subsided.
“Right!” said Spear. “I think everyone is here so I shall begin. As you all know, a courageous young man died last night...”
“He was murdered by a slayer, you mean,” shouted someone although I couldn’t tell who. I pushed myself farther back on the rock in an attempt to hide.
A couple of people jeered at his words.
“He was one of our very best,” continued Spear, ignoring the man who had heckled him. “He will be sorely missed by all of us, but especially by Eleanor, Tom, and Ally.”
An older couple stood next to Ally, presumably the twins’ parents. The woman was crying into her husband’s shoulder. My heart went out to them.
“Do you want to say a few words about Stone?” asked Spear to the couple. The old man set his mouth into a grim line as he shook his head and held onto his inconsolable wife. Ally pushed into the circle, taking Spear’s place.
“I want to talk about my brother. He was my twin and my best friend.” His voice cracked with the pain of speaking. “Everyone thinks that twins have this unique connection and it’s true. It does exist. When Stone scraped his knee, I felt the pain in my own knee. When I fell out of a tree at the age of eleven and broke my arm, he went home complaining of a sore arm way before he knew I’d hurt myself. We knew what the other was thinking. He was half of me.”
He broke down into loud sobs but didn’t give up speaking. I could see that he needed us all to understand just how special Stone was, but I had a feeling everyone already knew.
“I can still feel him! How can that be if he’s dead? How could I still feel him so strongly within me?”
A young woman I didn’t know came up to him and threw her arms around his neck and gave him a tight squeeze.
“I’m sorry, Ally. I was out there with him. I saw them kill him. He’s definitely dead.”
“But I can feel him,” he pleaded to the young girl before descending into uncontrollable crying. She led him away from the circle so that Spear could take his place again.
He began to talk about how connected they all were to this land and how they could never leave, but something about what Ally had said resonated within me. Of course, he could have been in denial about his brother’s death and the weird twin connection thing could mean nothing, but what if he was right? What if Stone was out there somewhere? The woman had said that she had seen him die, but if his soul was trapped within the slayer’s sword, then maybe that was why Ally was so sure he could still feel his existence. Because he wasn’t dead at all. His soul was just not inhabiting his body.
Once the thought entered my mind, I couldn’t shake it. Was Ally still alive out there somewhere? I thought of my own sword that I’d left in the bedroom in the cliff house and how it was supposed to be filled with the soul of a dragon by now. My father’s sword was said to be filled with the souls of a hundred dragons. Before I’d come here, it had been nothing more than an abstract thought that didn’t really mean anything. Sure, I knew the souls strengthened the swords, but I’d thought that dragons’ souls were worth very little, that they didn’t mean anything. The thought of a hundred or more of them trapped within my father’s sword was enough to bring bile up my throat. It was worse than death, the thought of being trapped forever within a metal object.
I looked across to Ash who was listening intently to Spear speak. He was still talking about the connection they felt to the land and to each other, and how they could never leave, despite the danger on the other side of the cliffs. It became clear to me just why they felt so connected. The souls of their ancestors, their fathers and their brothers, were still here, albeit trapped at the other side of the cliff and they didn’t even know it. The way Spear was talking about it being a spiritual connection was right. I had to tell someone! If it would bring Stone back, I’d stand in front of the whole crowd and speak myself.
I opened my mouth to tell Ash when I suddenly realized what telling them would mean. It wasn’t as simple as getting the dragon souls back. They�
�d have to go to my village and take them back. By force.
Most of the villagers were trained dragon slayers. They’d fight to the death before even knowing who the dragons really were. Causalities would be high on both sides and then maybe it would be Jasper or my father that would get killed. Maybe it would be Ash.
“Come on,” I heard Ash say, breaking me away from my thoughts. The people were beginning to disperse. It seemed the meeting was over. “We need to get you out of here.”
I followed him silently as we ran behind the people into the cave house and shut the door. Firecracker came bounding over, her tail wagging enthusiastically.
“At least someone likes me,” I said, giving her hair a friendly tousle.
“I like you,” said Ash, coming toward me. He gazed at me with such concern in his eyes but something else too. It wasn’t happiness. It was warmth and safety and friendship and something else I couldn’t quite decipher. I couldn’t look at him without the tears welling up. I couldn’t help it. My eyes stung and I knew that if I held his gaze just one moment longer I was going to cry. He pulled me into a hug and the dam finally burst. I sobbed onto his shoulder, wetting his outfit. The hug could have lasted two minutes or two hours, I couldn’t tell, but it was interrupted when Edeline and Lucy walked through the door.
“We’d be better stay indoors today,” remarked Edeline. “I think a storm might be brewing. We’ll eat away from the others in here.”
I glanced out the window. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The storm she was talking about had nothing to do with the weather.
The day passed slowly. I hung out with Ash up in my bedroom, and we sunbathed a little on the terrace. He tried to engage me in conversation but I was so distracted with thoughts of the slayers’ swords that I wasn’t much of a conversationalist. We ate dinner there until great black clouds blew in. Maybe Edeline was right after all. When the first big, fat, heavy drops of rain began to fall from the sky, we moved indoors.
“Are you okay?” he asked as he closed the door to the outside. “You’ve been quiet all day.”
“I’m sorry. Today has been hard. I just need some space.” His face fell as I said the words but it was true. I knew he was hurting too, and I had the feeling that he’d been glued to my side all day because he needed company, but my company wasn’t worth much at the moment. He’d been wonderful to me but the truth was I felt guilty about getting him into this. He shouldn’t be inside with me; he should be outside with his friends so they could all share their grief. “Goodnight then,” he said, kissing my cheek sadly.
I watched him go, leaving me alone with only my own misery for company. It was early but I flopped onto the bed, listening to the hammering of the rain against the window. Usually, I loved the sound.
I tried sleeping but the thought of those dragons locked within the swords was haunting me. Guilt had me lying awake for so long that it was completely dark before I eventually got to sleep. I couldn’t have been asleep long before a huge roll of thunder rattled the windows. I sat up in bed, fearful of the noise, before I realized what it was that had woken me.
Someone needed to find out if we could get the souls back from the swords. I jumped out of bed and put on the warmest clothes I could find. I also attached my armor and sword, not because I thought I would have to fight anyone, but because I wasn’t sure if I’d make it back.
I crept quietly through the house, only disturbing Firecracker who was her usual exuberant self. Thankfully, she didn’t bark as I let myself out into the night. The rain was pounding down, making it difficult to see, but I only had to follow the cliff to get to where I’d seen the stairs cut out of it earlier. I had no idea if they would lead me up over them, but I had to try. I couldn’t bring myself to look at the circle where we had trained only a day or so ago. It only reminded me of Stone.
By the time I came upon the steps, my clothes were soaked and I was freezing cold. It was too late to turn back though. Someone had to save those dragons and that someone had to be me. I placed my foot on the first step and looked up. The steps seemed to go on forever. It was going to be a long and arduous journey but in my heart, I knew it was one I had to make. I whispered a goodbye to Ash and started the journey up the cliff face.
Chapter Thirteen
The rain lashed down as I fought my way up the mountainside. The going was tough as each step was slippery and the wind blew a gale in my face. I clung to the rocks, drenched to the bone and fearful for my life. The steps were narrow and, without a rail of any kind, it would be easy to take a misstep and fall to my death. I could barely see a thing with the rain stinging my eyes and the darkness of the clouds. There would be no moonlight or starlight to help me out tonight. Using my sense of touch, I climbed the dangerous path, feeling my way along the wet roughness of the rocky cliff face. My eyes were stinging so much that I couldn’t tell if it was from the rain or tears. Nothing rivaled the pain in my chest though. Not my stinging eyes or my body that screamed with the blistering cold of the storm. My armor weighed heavy as I trudged upward, each step feeling like a mountain all on its own.
I tried to think of something, anything, to keep my mind from the agony in my hands and feet as the cold bit down hard. I thought of Ash, asleep in his bed, and the pain became unbearably worse because now it was inside my heart as well. The thought that he would wake up the next day and I’d be gone filled me with such guilt, but what choice did I have? It was the only way to get Stone and the others back. I could almost see the moment when he would wake up and realize I’d gone home. He’d think I was betraying him, wouldn’t he? And yet I felt that he knew me. When he looked into my eyes, it felt like he saw into my very soul. He had to know that I wouldn’t leave if it wasn’t important.
I couldn’t get the image of him out of my mind all the way up the cliff face, and when I reached a platform with a cave, I’d have done anything to have him by my side. The cave mouth was a wide, gaping chasm and without any light flooding it from outside, I couldn’t see more than a foot or two into it. I should have turned back but when I saw how far I’d come, the thought left me. It was the image of Stone and the reason I was doing this in the first place that spurred me on. I had made my way up the cliff face in almost complete blackness just by feeling the wall. If I could make it this far, I could keep going.
My hands waved in front of me as I felt my way into the inky blackness. Just a couple of feet in, I stumbled on something and tumbled to the ground, banging my knees and making my armor clatter as it hit the hard floor of the cave. I reached out, hoping to find something that would help pull me up into an upright position, but when I scrabbled around I felt something much better—a long stick with a cloth around the end. If there was a torch here, there must be some way to light it.
I was proficient in making fires—it was all part of the slayer training—but I needed some flint to make a spark. I’d also not tried setting fire to cloth, always using dry twigs and paper, but I could smell the bitter odor of some kind of fire accelerant emanating from the cloth so I knew it would light pretty quickly. I felt around the floor near where I’d found the torch until my hand came upon a smooth flint stone. Luckily, the floor inside the cave was dry so I ripped the flint along the floor just near the head of the torch. Sparks flew, lighting up the cave for a fraction of a second before it was once again plunged into darkness. I tried it again, this time getting as close to the torch as possible.
A spark hit the torch, igniting the accelerant and bathing the cave in a warm orange glow. Relief flooded through me that I could finally see. This cave, like the other one, went back much further than just a few feet. Even with the light of the torch, I couldn’t see the back. I walked forward, keeping my eyes on the ground for any more loose stones. If I were to fall and injure myself, I might end up stuck up here forever.
I followed the tunnel deep into the cave. My spirits were beginning to rise, knowing that it wouldn’t take too long to get through the mountain as long as I kept in a
straight line. This, however, was where my luck ran out. I came to a T-junction with my only options being left or right, neither of which were the direction I wanted to go. I waved the torch down each corridor, but both were equally uninteresting and neither looked like a way out. I took the path on the right just because it bent slightly to the left. After another ten minutes of walking, the path forked again. I scoured the floor and walls, looking for some kind of sign that someone might have left, but found nothing.
“What did you think you’d find? A glowing sign reading this way out?” I asked myself. The sound echoed hauntingly around the walls, doing nothing to calm my frayed nerves.
I’d heard about a trick to use when stuck in a maze, for this was a maze and if I ventured deeper, I’d surely lose my way. It was something about picking a direction, left or right, and sticking to it until I found my way out, but that didn’t seem right. If I took another right turn, I’d end up heading back towards the cliff face and that was the complete opposite of where I needed to be. I took the left-hand tunnel, hoping for the best, even though I had lost my sense of direction.
I had never felt so alone in my life as I did in that tunnel, trapped between two different worlds. The darkness scared me more than I liked to admit. Even though the torch light covered everything within a few feet, I saw nothing at all beyond its reach. The lullaby my mother sang to me on the morning of my eighteenth birthday popped into my head. It kept my heart warm, thinking of it as I walked through the network of paths, my decisions based on intuition instead of reasoning. I must have been walking at least half an hour before deciding I was hopelessly and terrifyingly lost.
Suddenly, there was a huge whoosh and the torch went out, plunging me into darkness. Then the wind came again followed by an intense heat as flames licked the ceiling of the cave. I screamed, wondering what could cause such a strange phenomenon until a large dragon with a pair jeans in one claw came around the corner. I only caught a glimpse before the fire stopped, but it was enough. I’d recognize those red scales anywhere. It was Ash. He’d come to rescue me.
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