But where?
He didn’t like the odds of finding a safe crossing anytime soon, which meant that Elizabeth would have the advantage. She would have time to get far enough away, deeper into Toulen, before they could get near enough to do anything to stop her.
“We have to go back,” Fes said.
Jayell looked over at him. “Are you mad? We’ve ridden this far and now you want to return?”
“It’s not that I want to return, but I don’t know of any other way that we will be able to get across the river. Every moment that we go, we get farther away from where we need to be.”
“There should be another crossing soon,” she said.
Fes wasn’t certain. The longer they went north, the more they neared the dragon fields, and that was definitely a place he did not want to get too close to. Heading into the dragon fields would put them in a very different type of danger.
“What happens if there’s not?” he asked.
“Then we continue to head in this direction.”
“You do know what is in this direction if we continue this way,” he said.
She looked over at him. “I’m well aware of what we might find.”
Fes nodded. “Just as long as you do know.”
It was the way she had intended to take with Griffin, traveling north through the dragon fields, attempting to find whatever they believed would help restore the boy. They made good time, hurrying as they went, and it wasn’t long before they passed beyond the rolling grasslands and into the dragon plains.
Steam rose in the distance, a familiar sight and something that he had hoped not to see again. At least, not so soon. It was a steady haze rising over a barren landscape. Much like he had thought when he’d first come, there seemed to be something off about the dragon fields. The barren rock carried a certain brutality, and the haze that hovered over everything was a reminder of what had been lost when the dragons had died centuries ago.
“I never thought that I would make it here,” Jayell commented.
He glanced over at her. “You were planning on coming here.”
“Many people have sought the dragon fields over the years, but those who have often suffer. Many don’t even return.”
“I hadn’t heard that,” Fes said.
“Unless you travel with one of the Settlers”—she glanced over at Fes, and a trace of a smile made it to her lips—“or one of the Deshazl, it isn’t necessarily safe.”
“The priest I traveled with the last time claimed that he had been here. He said that the priests were safe here.”
“The priests are safe enough, but it’s a matter of understanding their connection to the flame in order to keep them safe. Some will wander and will go far deeper into the dragon fields than is safe.” She looked over at him. “Many think that they are immune to the dangers as if their worship of the dragons somehow protects them.”
Fes hadn’t that sense from Alison’s grandfather. He had seemed to understand the dangers of the dragon fields, and though he had willingly crossed them, he also had seemed to know that there were places within the dragon fields that he wouldn’t be able to safely visit.
“I just want to get through it as quickly as I can,” Fes said.
“Why? With your connection, why wouldn’t you want to stay longer?”
“I know better than to stay here too long,” Fes said.
They made their way slowly, heading along the outer edge of the dragon fields. The rock was just as barren here as it was everywhere else, but the haze that rose over the landscape seemed less. The horses seemed tense, almost as if they also recognized that there was something off about this place.
Every so often, he would pat his horse’s side and the horse would whinny before shaking his head. They needed to make good time. There wouldn’t be much water for either them or the horses. He didn’t have much for the horses to eat, either.
“How long ago was it that you were here?” Jayell asked.
“It’s been a few months,” Fes said.
Long enough that he had begun to forget about how much he disliked crossing the dragon fields. He hadn’t enjoyed his time here before, and time away hadn’t changed anything.
It might only be his imagination, but he felt almost as if there were something to the dragon fields that tried to draw him in. It was as if he were supposed to come here. That had to be his imagination, or more likely, it came from the fact that everybody kept filling his head with stories of the Deshazl. Tales of who he was supposed to be and what that meant. None of that felt quite right to Fes. What connection did he really have to these lands? He was no dragonwalker. Certainly not like the dragonwalkers of old, and even if he were, Fes didn’t think that was what he wanted to be. He was content collecting for Azithan and using his connection to the dragon relics, a connection that had to be Deshazl, for him to find them—and profit from them.
Or, he had been. Now that he had attacked Jaken and he had put himself against the Dragon Guard and the empire, he might no longer have a place. Not as he once did. It was possible that now all he had was this. Whatever this was.
He wasn’t entirely certain.
“Most people are happy when they come to the dragon fields,” Jayell said.
“What is there to be happy about here?”
“Maybe happy isn’t quite the right description, but most people feel a certain sense of awe coming here.”
Fes stared straight ahead, noting the wispiness of the haze. Hopefully, it would part and make it easy for them to get through, but he wasn’t going to hold his breath. More likely, the haze would persist and he would have to find some way to plunge through it. And they still hadn’t even come close to the Draconis Pass.
Could they cross through the mountains without heading that way?
“I feel a certain sense of awe,” he said. “I also recognize what was once here. I don’t feel about the dragons the same way the priests do.”
He also didn’t feel the same way about the dragons as the fire mages. The dragons were a means to power, and seeing as how he didn’t have any way of accessing that power, there was very little reason to feel any sort of connection to them.
“You don’t have to feel about the dragons the same as the priests.”
“Thanks for telling me how to feel.”
She shook her head. “That’s not what I’m getting at.”
“Then what are you getting at?”
“Only that coming to the dragon fields is a way of seeing what once lived.”
Fes looked around him. His gaze swept over the harsh rock, the haze that covered everything, and the complete absence of life. If this was the way the world once had looked, Fes was certain he didn’t want to know what that was like. He was happier knowing the world as it was now, seeing life and vibrancy around him. When he saw things like this, he wondered if perhaps it wasn’t best that the dragons were gone. At least this way, there were no creatures that could attack and destroy, leaving others helpless against them. The one thing he did understand was what it was like to feel helpless against a much more powerful enemy. Losing his family when he was young had taught him that. He had lived his life trying to make it so that wouldn’t happen again.
“If you say so,” he said.
He continued to keep toward the western edge of the dragon fields. The ground was as smooth as it was anywhere in these lands and the horses made adequate time, though not quite as good as it would have been had they traveled outside of the dragon lands.
“Why do you have no interest in seeing dragons?”
Fes looked over at her. Jayell continued to struggle with the idea that he had a complete lack of interest in the dragon fields, or in the creatures that once had called them home. For some reason, the idea that he had no interest whatsoever was anathema to her. They were nothing to him other than creatures who had been destroyed.
“I’ve already told you why.”
“Even with what you’ve heard? What you know of
the Deshazl? You wouldn’t want to control the dragons?”
“I can’t imagine what it would be like to attempt to control a dragon. I have a hard enough time controlling myself, so for me to attempt to control a creature like that…”
Jayell watched him as if trying to decide whether he was serious or not before smiling. “That’s a good point. From what I’ve seen, you do have a little difficulty controlling yourself.”
“Like I said.”
They fell silent as they rode. The dragon plains were completely flat, a stretch of land that once had reportedly been quite vibrant, filled with lush grasses and dense trees as they stretched up to the base of the mountains. Now there was nothing but rock, either burned to a blackened cinder or simply destroyed by the fallen dragons.
“They say that the dragons retreated here during their final days because they knew the people of these lands would care for them. They had a special relationship with the Deshazl. The dragons knew that the Deshazl would watch over their bones and that they would not abuse the powers that they were given.”
Fes laughed bitterly. “Little did they know that the Deshazl would betray them, selling their bones as relics that would grant the very people who had destroyed them a means to maintain power.”
Jayell smiled. “I suppose they didn’t know that.”
They rode in silence for a little while longer before Fes spoke up. “In the pass, there are still quite a few remnants of dragons.”
He thought about what he had seen when he’d been there, and the remains of the fallen dragons. He wasn’t sure whether or not he would ever understand what it meant for him to be a Deshazl, but there was certainly no question about the power that he had witnessed at the heart of the pass.
“The dragons that had retreated there were supposedly some of the greatest among them,” Jayell said.
“How do you know?”
“The priests have records from that time. Most of them are Deshazl, and so translating them is difficult, but they have had nothing but centuries with which to attempt such translations.”
“And what have they learned?”
“They learned that the Deshazl revered the dragons.” She looked over at him. “While you might think that the Deshazl abandoned their obligations, the records that the priests have would tell another story. They would tell of a people who loved the dragons, and had been willing to give up some of the dragon relics so that they could maintain those they held most dear.”
Fes snorted. “It still feels like a betrayal.”
“I think of it more as a calculated move,” Jayell said. “If they knew that they were going to have no choice but to betray the dragons, why wouldn’t they use the bones of lesser dragons?”
“If they knew they were going to betray the dragons, why would they care at all?”
The pulling sense that he had noticed when he first came to these lands continued, almost as if trying to draw him inward, deeper into the dragon lands. He could imagine where the pass was and could almost track it with his mind. The longer they rode, the more he felt it, a sort of urgency that summoned him, trying to draw him deeper into the dragon plains. Fes resisted, but only because he had no choice. If he followed that pulling sensation, he would veer off and be drawn deeper and deeper, to the point where he wouldn’t be able to help Indra as he intended.
“What is it? I see tension within you.”
Fes shook his head. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing. Ever since we’ve come here, you’ve been tenser than you were before. Is it these lands? Do they upset you?”
“It’s not that they upset me. It’s that…”
It wasn’t entirely sure what it was. It was more that he didn’t feel as if he should be here. And, despite that, he still felt as if he were meant to be here.
That made no sense, which was why he wanted to be away from here. He didn’t like the idea that there was some ancient creature—some ancient power—pulling at him. It was bad enough that he had powers in the world today pulling at him.
“We need to hurry to the west of the mountains,” Fes said. “Get to Toulen before Elizabeth and stop her from whatever she’s planning.”
And save Indra.
Jayell watched him but said nothing.
Eventually, their path led them beyond the dragon lands. It took the better part of the day and required maintaining a considerable pace. When they passed beyond the borders of the dragon plains, Fes let out a deep sigh. They changed over fairly abruptly. It went from barren and black rock to stretches of thin grasses, growing slowly, but a greater sign of life than anything that had otherwise been here.
Another hour or so and dusk began to fall. Fes didn’t want to stop, wanting to reach the river. It would cascade down from the mountains, cutting through the land, and he thought that it would be a good place to pause for the night, both to rest and for the horses to drink.
As darkness fell, they still hadn’t reached the river.
“How much longer do you think it is?” Fes asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t know these lands at all.”
“But you were planning on coming in this direction. You planned to come to the Draconis Pass with Griffin.”
He still wasn’t certain how the pass would have healed the boy. And maybe it wouldn’t have. Maybe there wasn’t anything there that would’ve made a difference, and considering that she had gone with the priest, she likely would’ve known that. The only thing that might have made a difference would have been finding someone like Alison’s grandfather. Someone who could work with him and who might know enough about the Deshazl to draw him out.
“Why were you coming in this direction?” Fes asked.
“You already know why we were coming in this direction. We told you that we were trying to help him.”
“And why would coming to the pass help bring him out of his shell?”
“There is power there. You said so yourself.”
“There is power, but it would involve using it.” Fes stared at her for a moment. “Was that what you intended to do? Could you intend to draw upon the dragon relics that were hidden in the pass? I thought the Priests of the Flame wanted nothing more than to protect those?”
And if what he was beginning to learn was true, then the dragons that had perished at the pass would have been those most revered by the Deshazl. It would be even more reason to preserve them if they were priests.
“Did you intend to take one of the artifacts?”
Jayell studied him for a moment. “Fes, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I understand that the dragons that were in the pass were those that mattered to the Deshazl. If that was the case, why would you be willing to risk them?”
“It wasn’t me willing to risk them. It was—”
Fes stared at her. “It was what?”
“The dragons are gone. They aren’t going to come back. We only thought that we would see what power remained here.”
“You and Donathon?”
“Yes.”
“And whose idea was it?”
“It was his. Fes—”
Fes felt increasingly troubled by what he had seen and he was bothered by the fact that he didn’t know whether or not he could believe Jayell. If she had come this way intending to utilize the dragon relics, it wasn’t so much that it bothered him that she intended to do that, it was the fact that she had lied to him about that intention. It would’ve been better for both of them had she told him the truth. He could not care less whether somebody came after dragon relics. The only reason he had cared before was that he knew what Reina intended to do with the relics. He knew that she intended to attack people he intended to keep safe. And he needed to stop her so that he could get to the dragon heart before she did. More than anything else, that had motivated him.
“It was what?”
“It doesn’t matter. It seems as if you have made up your mind.”
“I ha
ven’t made up my mind about anything. The only thing I made up my mind about is the fact that you have been misleading me.”
There had to be some reason for her to do so, and he wondered if it had anything to do with the fact that she thought that he might be able to get her to the Draconis Pass.
But then… if that had been the case, she would have pushed harder for them to head in that direction. She had done nothing. Nothing other than allow him to lead them through the dragon lands, and she hadn’t objected at his plans about what he intended to do to try to help Indra.
“I haven’t misled you. We did head northward so that we could see if we could find Griffin some help. You have said it yourself—there is power still stored here. And Griffin is Deshazl, something that we believed was rare—rare enough that he deserved the opportunity to see if adding to the lands of his ancestors would’ve made a difference.”
Fes breathed out a sigh. “If I am Deshazl, heading to the pass does nothing. It awakens nothing.”
“Are you so certain?”
“And why do you ask that?”
“It seems to me that you have abilities that so few others do. It seems to me that somehow you’re able to overpower fire mages and have been able to carve through their spells, rendering them ineffective.”
“I did that before I went to the dragon fields,” Fes said. The first time he had seen Reina, he had cut through the spells she was using. At the time, he was convinced it was the dragonglass daggers, not him. Even if it was him, he was still prepared to see if the sword might help him carve through spells better than the daggers.
“Maybe that’s because you had been there before.”
Fes smiled at her. “And now you think to know where I’ve been?”
“I’m just saying that others who have been to the dragon fields don’t have the same abilities that you do. Even other Deshazl, though admittedly I don’t know how many Deshazl there are remaining.”
“I haven’t been to the dragon fields before.” If he knew nothing else, it was that. His parents had dragged him to the empire from the south, taking a ship before they were lost, leaving both him and his brother, and soon even his brother had fallen. When that had happened, it had left Fes alone to fend for himself, to find whatever measure of safety that he could. And he had. He had survived when others thought that he would die.
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