“Fine, then you haven’t been there before, but I still think that you are unusual—even for one of the Deshazl.”
“You don’t have to stay with me. If you were only coming with me to make it into the dragon fields, you can return to the Priests of the Flame or to the fire mages, wherever you would prefer. I have no intention of heading into the pass again.”
“You might not, but after everything I’ve seen, I think I need to stay with you.”
“What if I don’t want you to stay with me?”
“If that’s how you feel, I won’t push,” Jayell said.
Fes breathed out heavily. Was it worth it for him to upset her simply because he was frustrated by what she had done?
He didn’t think that it was. And it might be valuable having a fire mage with him where he felt that he needed to go.
“I need you to be honest with me,” Fes said.
“I have been honest with you.”
Fes arched a brow at her. “I need you to be completely honest with me.”
She met his gaze and finally nodded.
“When we reach Toulen, it might be dangerous.”
“Everything about where I had planned on traveling has been dangerous,” she said.
Fes turned his attention to the distant river. He could hear it now. It came in rushes, with the steady sound of turbulent water roiling over rocks. He could almost imagine the froth. It was almost as if he had seen it before, but he had never passed this way.
“You will need to use your abilities.”
She nodded. “I will do what I need to.”
Fes looked over at her, uncertain whether she really would or not. He needed her to be a part of this. He needed for her to help. And he might need for her to fight.
“What do you intend to do?”
The longer they had been traveling, the more certain he was of what needed to happen. The only problem was that he wasn’t certain whether he could do what he thought he needed. If he could… then he could thwart the empire, perhaps find a way to get back into good grace with the emperor, and remove the threat of Elizabeth all at the same time.
“I intend to get to the dragon skull before Elizabeth.”
Chapter Nineteen
When they reached the bridge, Fes hesitated. It was late at night and darkness swirled around them, the sound of the river rushing below. The bridge arched over the river, an enormous stone structure that seemed to be positioned in the middle of nowhere. The air held the fragrance of flowers and grasses, as well as deep, earthy scent.
“What are you waiting for?” Jayell asked.
“I’d rather cross in the daylight,” Fes said.
“Why in the daylight?”
Fes stared at the shadowed form of the bridge. “It makes me uncomfortable.”
“It’s a bridge, Fes.”
“A bridge. Here. Just west of the dragon fields. Doesn’t that make you nervous?”
“Nothing about the dragons makes me nervous,” she said.
Fes shook his head. “Perhaps it should.”
Jayell shrugged. “Perhaps.”
Fes took a seat near a clump of trees, letting the horses graze. It had been a long day. Traveling across the dragon fields had fatigued all of them, and he would let the horses have time to recuperate. It was time that Fes needed almost as much as their mounts did.
Jayell settled on the ground next to him. She looked over, watching him with an amused expression. “You are an interesting man.”
“Why? Because I don’t want to cross an old bridge in the middle of the night?”
She shrugged. “That, and other things. You don’t strike me as the kind to be concerned with superstition.”
“There isn’t any superstition in avoiding an unknown crossing.”
“Why is this unknown?”
“Do you see any settlements nearby?” Fes looked north and south, but everything around them was empty. It wasn’t as barren as the dragon fields, but there was a certain absence. It was almost as if the dragon fields pushed away anyone else who might be nearby.
“There’s a reason that no one lives this close to the dragon fields.”
“Is there?”
“There are superstitions about the dragon fields, a belief that nothing can live near them.”
“I’m not sure how much of that is superstition and how much is true,” Fes said.
“What do you see around you?” Jayell asked. When he arched a brow, she went on. “Look at what you’re resting against. There’s no reason for such superstition. The dragon fields are miles from here, and far enough away that life has returned to these places.”
“That is meant to reassure me?”
“I’m only saying that the dragon fields aren’t the reason that people haven’t settled here.”
“Why do you think people haven’t come here?”
“It’s too far from the empire. It’s too far from the seat of power, and it’s too far from anything that would make it worthwhile.” She shrugged. “At least, that’s what I would say.”
Fes leaned back against the tree. He wasn’t certain whether that was the case or whether there was something else. Perhaps there was some other explanation. Either way, as soon as they crossed this bridge, they could pass into Toulen, and then he could begin the search for Indra and Elizabeth.
But how?
That was the thought that had been troubling him the longer that they had ridden. Fes wasn’t certain how he would find Indra. Maybe he would feel the heat from the fire mage and could track through that, but that required her to be performing a spell, and would require that she draw that attention to herself. If he knew anything, he doubted that Elizabeth would be foolish enough to allow herself to be detected in such a way.
Unless she didn’t know that he could detect her. If that were the case, then he might have an advantage. But it was an advantage that he didn’t want to count on. He thought about what he knew of Toulen, which wasn’t much. The only things he knew had been picked up from Theole. Little more than snippets of conversation during their brief time together.
Jayell remained silent, and Fes appreciated that. He wanted nothing more than quiet, a solitude that would allow him both the chance to rest as well as an opportunity to think through what was to come. As his eyes drifted closed, he slept.
He lost track of time and how long he slept, knowing only that he rested.
Strange dreams came to him. They were snippets, little more than brief glimpses of visions that he knew were not real. In those visions, he saw dragons. Most of them soared high overhead—enormous creatures that were large enough to block out the sun. Scaled bodies of blue and red and green, each of them flying as powerfully as the largest eagle he had ever seen. In those visions, Fes felt a strange sense of calm. A distant part of his mind knew that he should be terrified of seeing dragons, but there was nothing terrifying about these. They weren’t hostile. He wasn’t certain how he knew that, only that he did. The dragons wanted nothing more than to protect their home.
Heat enveloped him. For a moment, it seemed as if he were caught in one of the dragon’s flames, as if the breath of one of the mighty creatures crawled over him, but that wasn’t it. The heat seemed to come from everywhere, and it took a moment for him to realize that it came from inside of him.
Fes awoke with a start.
Jayell rested, her head lying on her arm, her breathing regular.
Fes got up, unable to shake the visions. He had seen dozens and dozens of dragon relics, but never had he imagined that he would see a dragon, even if it were only in a dream. He didn’t know which was more surprising—that he were to have a dream about dragons or that he would dream that they were if not peaceful, then noble creatures.
He made his way to the river’s edge, looking down at the water. From here, he was high enough over where it cut through the land, forming a steep drop off into a ravine where the river swept through. A fall would hurt, and he doubted that he would
be able to swim well enough to get back to the shore. He could take the river, flowing along with it until it reached Idaris, perhaps staying with the river even longer, letting it drag him farther south, perhaps all the way back to the capital.
Troubled thoughts continue to play at him, and as much as he tried to ignore them, it was thoughts of dragons that filled his mind. He had lived his entire life not thinking of dragons as anything other than a source of relics, a source of power for fire mages.
Could there be more to them?
Even if there was, why would he suddenly care?
Glancing back at Jayell, he thought he knew. He had been twisted. There was no answer to it than that. The time that he had spent with both the rebellion and Alison’s grandfather and now with Jayell had somehow muddled things.
He had made a point of not angering people of power. Rather, he had worked intentionally to stay in the good graces of the empire, serving Azithan so that he could claim that ongoing connection to the empire. Even after he’d left the employ of Horus, he’d not done anything in the time following to risk alienating him. It was how he hoped to one day find a measure of peace.
More than the last job that had carried him out of the city, this mission had pitted him against the emperor and against those who served him directly. It was a mistake, and Fes knew that it was, but unfortunately, he didn’t feel as if he had much of a choice.
As he stood along the shore, he felt a strangeness behind him, almost like there was some sort of presence. Fes turned slowly, reaching for the hilt of his dagger.
There was nothing, but that didn’t shake the sense that he felt a presence. What was it that he detected? Could it be nothing more than his imagination?
There were other things for him to worry about beyond his imagination.
He had thought they kept ahead of the Dragon Guard, but what if they hadn’t? What if the Dragon Guard had a different way of traveling and had managed to catch up to them? The lack of bridges along the river wasn’t much of a secret, and though they had traveled quickly, maybe they hadn’t gone quickly enough.
There was no sign of movement.
Only his imagination, then.
He held onto the daggers, keeping them unsheathed. Even if it was only his imagination, there was something peaceful and relaxing about holding onto them. Especially here. It was a strange sort of irony that the daggers were dragonglass and he was so close to the dragon lands. He had never taken the time to try to understand where they had come from or how his family had gotten a hold of them. That had never mattered to him before. All he cared about was that they were his family’s and they suited him in ways that other weapons did not.
After a period of silence, Fes made his way back to the tree and took a seat. He watched Jayell as she rested, her breathing still regular. There was quite a bit that he didn’t know about her, and though she claimed that they had come this way to help Griffin, parts of that story bothered him.
Given what he knew about the dragon fields, as well as what he knew about the rebellion and their movement along the northern edge of the empire, he was uncomfortable with the fact that they had been traveling in such a small band. They would have been bound to run into difficulty, wouldn’t they?
And there was the fact that Griffin had been silent as if unable to speak. That troubled him, though he wasn’t entirely sure why. It was more than the fact that he wasn’t able to speak. It was that he was presumably Deshazl and had a similar type of connection to the ancient dragons as Fes. It couldn’t be only coincidence that they had come across him.
And then there was Jayell’s knowledge. She had a breadth of knowledge about both the dragons and the dragon fields that seemed unusual. It rivaled that of Talmund, which made little sense, as she wasn’t the one who was leading them, or had she been?
Fes sat up.
What did he know about Jayell?
She had been a fire mage and then had joined the Priests of the Flame. He had never heard of any fire mages joining the dragon priests, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t happen. All that it meant was that it was unlikely, though there was much about Jayell that was strange, even unlikely.
What if she had been placed intentionally?
He didn’t like that idea, but it had merit. Fes knew better than to ignore ideas that he didn’t like. He knew that even though he might not care for that possibility, there was a real chance that she still served the fire mages.
Had he seen her do anything that would convince him otherwise?
She had helped attack Jaken, but she had been reluctant in doing so. And what if her attack on Jaken had not been an attack at all? What if it had been directed at Fes?
He shouldn’t be thinking like that. He shouldn’t be giving credit to ideas that likely had no merit as she had done nothing more than help him, but he had learned to trust his instincts, and those instincts were warning him now that there was more taking place than what he understood.
And then there was the convenient fact of Azithan’s appearance.
Fes trusted Azithan, as much as one could trust a fire mage, and he believed that Azithan wouldn’t hurt Griffin. What he didn’t know was whether there was any reason for Azithan to be working with Jayell.
Everything added up to make him uncomfortable. All of it seemed to lead to the possibility that Jayell was not entirely what she seemed to be.
When he had questioned her before, she had seemed offended, but of course, she would. Why wouldn’t she be offended by the idea that she wasn’t entirely what she seemed to be?
He turned away from the river’s edge and made his way over to his horse, grabbing the reins. He walked the horse up to the bridge and started over it, mindful of how loud the horse’s hooves sounded on the stone. As he crossed over the bridge, he glanced back at Jayell. Even in the darkness, he noticed how she rested comfortably.
It was time for them to separate. It was time for him to go on his own and figure out what Elizabeth had done with Indra. It was time for him to no longer question the motives of someone he was traveling with.
And if he was wrong?
If he was wrong, no harm would come of it. Jayell would return to the Priests of the Flame and he would continue searching for Indra. And maybe it was better. If it came to it, Fes had to be ready to face Elizabeth, and he wasn’t certain that Jayell was prepared for such a possibility.
On the other side of the bridge, Fes let out a deep breath. The air smelled different. He wasn’t entirely certain how, only that it didn’t carry with it the same acrid scent that he had noticed while in the empire. And maybe that had something to do with the remnants of the dragon lands, or maybe there was something else to it, the nature of Toulen. Either way, Fes breathed it in, climbed into the saddle, and headed out across the darkened landscape.
Days had passed without finding any sign of Indra or Elizabeth. He had been traveling south, thinking that if they had crossed the bridge near Idaris, he wanted to try and find a way to catch them. It would take riding quickly, and he pushed the horse as fast as he felt comfortable.
The first few days, Fes felt a measure of guilt. He had left Jayell behind, and he didn’t know what she would think when she found him missing. It was doubtful that she would have attempted to follow him. There was nothing for her in Toulen. This task was his and not hers. She had come only because her task with Griffin had failed.
Would she run into the Dragon Guard?
He doubted that she would. The Dragon Guard would be after him, not her. It was unlikely that the Dragon Guard even knew anything about her, though the more that he rode, the less that he could convince himself that she wasn’t working on behalf of them.
It was near noon when he saw a village in the distance.
Fes slowed the horse, wanting to approach carefully. A village meant the possibility of answers, but it also raised the possibility that he might draw attention, and he wasn’t certain he wanted to do that. The more people who knew he had come th
rough here, the more people there were who put his chances of success in danger.
The village was small. Several dozen houses were arranged in neat lines, and a few larger buildings, but not much more than that. If it were later in the day, Fes would hold out hope for a warm meal and a comfortable bed, but as he still had much of the day to travel, it made no sense for him to linger here any longer than necessary. As much as he might want to stay, there would be nothing for him here.
As he reached the edge of the village, he soon realized that it was empty.
He should have noticed sooner that there was no movement within the village that indicated life. There was no smoke trailing up from the chimneys. There were no smells of food. There were no children running through the streets. There weren’t even any animals.
It was empty.
How far were they from the empire?
That his first thought raised the question of the empire’s involvement in whatever had happened here bothered him, but what else was he to think? The river was only a minor barrier. Then again, it had been years since the empire had attempted to stretch its borders. Toulen had its own defenses and an army large enough to prevent the empire from attacking.
As Fes made his way through the village, he looked for evidence of an attack, but there was none. There were no signs of the fire mage attacking, using spells that would destroy the village. There was nothing here.
At the center of the village, he found a deep hole in the ground.
Fes climbed off the horse and made a slow circuit around the hole. It was odd, and he had never seen anything quite like it. From the heaping mound of dirt, the hole appeared to be relatively fresh.
What would have made that?
Dragon Blessed (The Dragonwalker Book 2) Page 20