Page 13 of Of Blood and Banes (The Arterian #2)
DRAGON RIDER
“ N ow, where is your dragon?” Sethan asks impatiently, scanning the forest.
“She…umm…” I struggle to wrap my head around this reality as I stare into A’nala’s golden eyes. I have to physically twist my shoulders to drag my gaze back to Sethan. “I-I thought all the riders were executed?”
“They were.”
“So then…how?” My gaze floats back up to the magnificent crimson dragon, thick, gnarled horns blending from ruby red to black at the tips.
He huffs. “We can speak of this later?—”
The trees stir around us, followed by the beating of wings.
I turn as Daeja lands with a thud on the ground, a few feet behind me.
She keeps her wings outstretched as she growls, the horns on her head and neck bristling.
Taking a step forward, she stretches her head over me protectively, the bottom of her chin brushing my scalp.
Sethan strides over to A’nala’s side, and the dragon lowers itself as if it’s done it a million times. Those yellow eyes are still trained on Daeja.
“Have you ever ridden your dragon before?” Sethan calls.
“Well…yes. Sort of?”
“Wonderful.” He snags something behind A’nala’s neck and pulls himself up and onto her back. He pats her thick muscled neck. “Let’s fly low and slow, girl.”
A’nala rises from the forest floor, revealing black leather straps and buckles encircling her chest and back. I must not have noticed it. As A’nala turns away from us, I glimpse Sethan seated in a black saddle, positioned perfectly between A’nala’s neck and shoulder blades.
Patting Daeja’s shoulder, she finally turns her attention to me and lowers for me to scramble up toward her back.
She noses her muzzle under my foot and nearly throws me over to the other side of her spine.
Schooling my heavy breath, I settle into the crook of Daeja’s neck.
I lower myself, squeezing my legs around the back of her neck and grabbing on to two of her long, skinny horns.
Without another second to spare, A’nala and Sethan slingshot into the sky.
“Are we following them? Do we trust them?” Daeja mutters.
“No, we don’t trust them. But…we are following them.” I clench my fists tighter around her horns.
“Sometimes I question your judgment…” She lowers her head and breaks into a run, her wings flapping before we lift off the ground.
“You and me both,” I whisper back.
The pine trees flash by us at an alarming speed.
I fight against my racing heart to calm myself and glance up at A’nala gliding off in the distance.
At least Sethan has a fucking saddle. My thighs are sure to be sore tomorrow after how hard I’m trying to balance myself on Daeja.
And thank the Gods my ribs have miraculously healed, even though the scar aches dully as my body rolls with each flap of Daeja’s wings.
We skim over the treetops, staying low. The ground taunts me from beneath us, reminding me if I fall there is no water to catch me. Just unyielding, solid earth.
It’s a mistake looking down. So, I glance back up to A’nala. They still have a good two-hundred-feet lead on us. This is slow for them?
“I could go faster,” Daeja murmurs, reading my thoughts. “I’m still a little sore from when that rebel punctured me with the spear.”
But I know she’s holding back. For me . She can sense my anxiety and fear. And something tells me she’s only using her wing as an excuse to calm my emotions. Because she could absolutely, definitely fly faster.
A’nala’s red shape cuts south toward Dragon’s Back Ridge.
The mountains reach staggering heights, lurching above us into the sky, with some of the peaks blanketed in snow.
We fly for another twenty minutes, deeper into the mountain range and closer to Arterias.
The views alone at this height are heart-stopping.
I’ve now added another reason to regret blacking out after the battle in Arterias.
It’s gorgeous out here. Something about it feels like a home I’ve never been to.
A valley opens up in between towering mountain peaks, and A’nala descends.
Daeja follows suit and flares her wings, slowing her speed until we land on the ground.
Sethan hops off A’nala, and I fumble down from Daeja, lacking any grace or experience.
When my feet strike the ground, I feel the vibration ring through my body.
My thighs are on fire, hands are already aching from clinging so hard to Daeja.
Sethan wordlessly prompts me forward with a hand.
His features are unreadable. Daeja and I follow him and A’nala up a steep incline, the wind picking up as we near the top.
A’nala and Sethan pause at the peak, their stares fixed on something in the distance.
Daeja and I climb the rest of the way, and as we crest the hill, the wind wipes away all of my breath.
In the valley below, a black ash settles over the land like an ominous veil, reaching up to the edges of the hills and mountains.
Stone buildings are either crumbling or toppled over completely.
Piles of stone and brick lay buried by dust. Scattered throughout the ruins are black, withered tree trunks with mangled branches curling in on themselves.
Violent, ragged lines shred the streets, as if claws tore across the town.
“What…what happened?” I murmur. “Dragonfire?”
“No. Not dragonfire,” Sethan whispers.
“Then what? Why are you showing me this?” I drag my gaze away from the decimated town and to him, terror settling in my chest like a heavy stone.
Sethan’s brown eyes are set on something in the distance. An aching sadness pulls at his brows. “Because this is all that’s left of them, and we need your help. This is what happens every time and will continue to happen if we don’t stop King Aaric.”
“What do you mean every time? What is this?”
“When I was still in the King’s Close Circle, we were dispatched to Wynnban one night.
It was the closest the rebels were rumored to have ever gotten to the castle, and when we got there, it was night.
There wasn’t a single person stirring—no one to fight back.
We were instructed to bar the doors and set fires to the homes.
Every. Single. One.” He looks down and clenches his fist. “They commanded us to leave no one alive. One home, I recognized the family’s sigil.
And that’s when I knew I couldn’t do it.
There were so many innocent lives—so many people who didn’t deserve such a cruel death.
Children, elderly, the sick…I had to get them out.
Even if I couldn’t save them all. But the fire grew so fast…
too fast. It wasn’t like anything I’d ever seen.
It was almost as if it had a life of its own.
As I broke through someone’s window and climbed into the house to save them, I felt something.
The air turned cold, heavy, and sharp. As if it crackled with the electricity of a storm, despite the raging fires.
I turned back to the window and watched the fire bleed through the streets at a rapid pace.
The King appeared in the flames and walked through the fire without even flinching.
I watched him pull a canister out and pour the liquid on his hand.
He coated every inch up to his wrist. And as I watched it drip—I could be wrong—but I swear it looked like blood.
He reached into the fire and it flared brighter.
Stronger. And as he moved his hand, the fire followed him as if it were… ”
“Alive?” I murmur. Remembering the night I passed out in Arterias, and how the flames almost responded to each sweep of my hands.
He nods. “That night I managed to rescue the family whose house I’d broken into.
We ran as fast and as far north as we could.
When we got to the hills on the outskirts of town, the ground shuddered underneath our feet.
We turned and saw the flames engulfing Wynbann morph from red, to blue, and then white.
And as quick as it had transformed, something sucked all the flames into the center of town like the receding of a tide… ”
He drifts off, staring at the demolished town before us as if he’s reliving the memory.
After a few moments of silence, he blinks and shakes his head, finally looking at me.
“You might not trust me. And that’s fine, because I don’t necessarily trust you, either.
But we must work together if we’re going to save Arterias, the Dragon Lands, and all the dragons.
We have to start somewhere. And maybe you don’t believe you’re the key to all of this…
maybe you think we’re wrong. But that’s all we have left—our hope.
And if that means betting on you, then I suppose I’ll bet on it. ”
My mouth parts as I register the information.
What if all along the fire that happened in Hornwood hadn’t been the rebels, and it had actually been the King’s men?
That the ones who killed the little girl, her family, and her entire town wasn’t who I thought it was?
Nausea at the thought of something so cruel churns in my stomach.
The realization rushes over me and drowns out all of my senses, pulling my attention toward it.
The sword I took from the ‘rebel’ who tried to kill me and Daeja back in Hornwood had the symbol of the King’s Close Circle.
I think some part of me wanted to believe a rebel had taken it from a battle they won against the Arterians.
I favored that idea more than this one, a reality that sickens me to my core.
Denial is a powerful negotiator—but now there’s no rejecting it.
No matter how hard I try to ignore it or refuse to swallow the reality.
A low, rumbling cry splits across the vast expanse, shuddering the blood in my veins. Daeja at my side winces, tucking her head low as she squeezes her eyes shut. A’nala mirrors her discomfort, and Sethan cringes.