Forty Seven
Alara
“Will they be back soon?” Olaf asks as I hand him a bowl.
It’s a simple stew and some bread, we aren’t exactly given anything else here.
“I hope so,” I say, sitting on the stool next to him.
I’m bursting to tell Rohan about finding the eggs, about Sparks.
I thought he was dead, that I would never see him again, and yet he’s there. Skinny with cuts on him, but alive.
I tried to get him out of the cage, trying to ignore the bodies of other younger dragons in the separate cages, but I couldn’t open it without a key.
“How are you?” I ask Olaf, trying not to think about Sparks stuck in that place for now.
Olaf and I haven’t interacted much, but I know how much he means to Kaldar and Adora.
He sighs, looking down at the stew. “Bored mostly.” I nod. “And sick of this.”
He raises his arm, the stub at the end covered in a bandage.
My heart hurts at the look on his face. A grimace, his eyes averted like he can’t bear to look at himself.
I can’t imagine what he’s been going through.
“Adora has been in here a lot, I’m sure it’s nice to spend time with her?”
He frowns. “She’s hurt.”
“What?” I sit up straighter. “Why?”
I didn’t notice if she was.
“I… I like someone else,” he admits.
“I’m not sure what you mean?”
He sighs. “There’s a man in the Highwing clan. We’ve met a few times in The Glade…” he trails off, and my eyes widen in shock.
“But, I thought you, Kaldar and Adora are, you know… together?”
He nods. “We are… I love them, but I also like Finn,” he says, almost shamefully.
“Adora and Kaldar went into The Glade with Rohan a few years back and I fell and hurt myself.” He huffs.
“It was stupid really, but we talked all night while I waited for them and I… I don’t know.
” He shrugs. “I like his company, his hugs. We hadn’t done anything else but…
I hid it from them and then Kaldar found out.
He told Adora and she’s hurt by it and I feel like I’ve done something really wrong to them that I can’t fix…
and now look at me.” he says, holding up his arm.
I bite my lip. “Have they said anything about it?” He shakes his head. “I’m not very good at this, but I’ve learned that secrets are no good. They only hurt.”
“Yeah…” he looks down at his injury again. “Not like it matters, look at the mess of me anyway.”
I adjust his furs. “I saw a woman with the bottom half of her leg missing once,” I tell him as he takes a sip of stew. “She walked with a handmade stick. It had a flat top to go under her armpit and a handle sticking out in the middle where she held onto it. She wasn’t very old.”
He pauses, and then quietly asks, “What happened to her?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know,” I say softly, “But what I do know, is that as she walked with that stick, and she smiled. She argued with a fish monger, and she laughed with her friends, whacking them with the stick.”
He chuckles. “I bet it was a good weapon.”
I laugh too. “She certainly made it so.” I eye his arm. “Do you want to know what I noticed most, though?”
“Yeah,” he whispers, putting the stew down on the side table.
“She was loved.”
His eyes water, his jaw tight.
“She was so loved by those around her, you could tell by a single glance, and though I’m sure it didn’t fix everything, it had to have helped even a little, right?”
Olaf looks away, swallowing hard. “Right,” he croaks out.
I smile and take his hand in mine.
“They love you very much, you know.”
His lip trembles. “I love them too.”
“So let them remind you, and talk with them.”
He smiles shakily, but then nods.
“Okay, I have more jobs to do, more to feed.”
He laughs. “They can feed themselves.”
“I know, but I like it. Makes me feel like I’m doing something, you know?”
He nods.
“You should help when you’re feeling up to it, okay?”
He pauses for a moment. “Yeah, okay.”
“Perfect. We could always—”
“Olaf?” Adora’s voice comes from further within the healers’ tent, and then she’s shoving back the curtain that surrounds us.
Her eyes that began hard and worried, soften at seeing him.
“There you are.” She tries to smile, but it’s strained.
“I’m always here,” Olaf says, looking down.
“I know, I just…” Adora looks away, and I stand.
“I’ll see you soon,” I say to him. “Is he in his tent?” I ask Adora.
“I don’t know, I came straight here.”
I nod and exit the tent, walking straight into Kaldar.
“Hi.”
He nods, arms folded, looking over my shoulder.
“Adora’s in there?”
“She is,” I answer, but he makes no move to enter.
“Try talking to him,” I say softly, and his eyes come to mine. “He’s going through a lot, and I’m sure you’re all hurting, but it does no good to linger in pain.”
I did it with Rohan, and it just made me feel so much worse.
We stand there awkwardly, and then he blows out a breath. “Okay.”
He enters the tent, and I stare at the material for a moment.
I hope they can sort it out. They were the first people that I saw showing how much they loved each other openly, and to see them so… parted feels so wrong.
I hope they find their way again.
I move toward the gates that lead to the tunnels, watching everyone come through and going to the general area where all the clans mingle.
They’re dirty, bloody, some gravely injured.
My heart pounds.
I look for Rohan, but as more and more come through, I think he must have already come back until I hear shouting.
“You had no right!”
I tense at the sound of Karag’s voice as the Dragonbonds walk through the gate, masks on their hips.
“I don’t answer to you,” Rohan says, and I freeze at the tone of his voice.
It screams danger.
A threat.
Death.
His hands are covered in blood, more splashed on his pant leg and I swallow roughly.
“Just drop it, Karag,” Sigrid says, helping one of her clan members walk.
She’s leaning into her, leg bleeding.
“The Games have no loyalty, we all know this,” Durruk reminds him.
“Let’s just move on,” Varan retorts.
“He still had no right!”
“I had every right!” Rohan gets in his face, fists clenched. “She was a traitor, she betrayed my clan, my dragons, all dragons. What do we do with traitors, Karag, tell me?”
Karag’s face loses its color. “What are you talking about?”
“Rohan,” Varan warns, grabbing his shoulder to pull him back but Rohan shoves it off.
“Tell me!” Rohan shouts, causing me to jump. Causing everyone around to jump, the tension rising.
Karag scoffs, but he steps back, shaking his head. “You are no Dragonbond, Rohan.”
“I am more Dragonbond than you will ever be,” Rohan snarls, violence swirling around him.
“You don’t even have the scales to prove it!” Karag shows the patch on his arm. “You are an imposter!”
“I’ll show you a fucking imposter—”
“Alright, break it up,” Sigrid whistles, getting everyone’s attention. “We have wounded to attend to.”
Karag scoffs, and then he’s walking to his tents, disappearing between them.
“Rohan.” Dorkin approaches, shoving his glasses up his nose. “A word.”
Sigrid’s eyes trace the length of Dorkin, and when Dorkin catches her looking, he looks away, red tinting his cheeks.
She would eat him alive, but something tells me he would like that.
“This is all your fault!” a woman screams, and I turn to find one of the Firehorn clan, face full of fury as she stomps toward me.
“W-what?” I say, as I take a step back from her anger.
“You’re the reason we’re here, elf scum!”
“Watch your tone!” Rohan barks, coming to stand in between us as a crowd gathers, members from all clans.
“Oh? You’re protecting the elf? She’s to blame for all of this!”
“What do you mean?” A Rivertail member asks.
“Hush,” Varan says to them.
“Dragonbond, we have a right to know,” she replies.
“Let’s all just head back to our tents, it’s been a long day,” Sigrid tries, but more and more of clan Firehorn has gathered, and suddenly, all five clans are facing off against each other.
“Tell us!” a man from Firehorn demands.
The angry woman points a finger in my direction as Tofa steps up next to me, curling her arms around me protectively and Beau stands on my other side.
“It’s because that Dragonbond.” She points to Rohan. “Made a deal with King Halen to bring him an elf and he backed out of the deal. And who do you think paid for it?” she shouts. “Us! King Halen burned our homes and brought us all here because she didn’t go to him.”
My stomach sinks, a weight like stone landing there as my hands shake.
“What?”
“It’s her fault!”
“Is that really true?”
“My parents died because of an elf?”
“I knew she was scum!”
“Enough!” Rohan roars when the chatter gets too loud, the insults hurtful.
“Calm down,” Sigrid warns her clan, while Varan and Durruk wrangle theirs.
“What do you have to say for yourself?” The angry woman turns her anger on Rohan now as I feel Blackscale’s eyes on me.
I bow my head in shame, in guilt.
“Don’t listen to them,” Tofa whispers to me as Beau squeezes my shoulder.
“I did make a deal,” Rohan begins while my heart beats painfully.
“And I went back on that deal because no matter what, we would have always been here. Halen wants to kill us all, any way he can. You all know this!” he growls, looking at them all, and then looking back at his clan, to me. “She is not the cause of this.”
“She’s an elf,” the angry woman spits.
“And she’s a member of this clan!” Tofa shouts, and I look up at her, my eyes watering. “If you have an issue with it, say it to my fist, bitch.”
The Firehorn woman scoffs. “You want to fight over an elf?”
“No,” Tofa says, leaving me to stand next to Rohan. “I want to fight because you insulted my clanmate.”
“It is rather uncalled for,” Adora says, coming to stand next to Tofa.
“Shall we set up a ring?” Calian asks, coming to Rohan’s other side.
“Add me in!” Bellamy says.
“And me.” Agnis follows.
“I have some fight left in me,” Fiona calls, her nose still bleeding from The Games I presume.
More and more join in from clan Blackscale, walking past me to make a line in front of me, protecting me. The tears finally fall.
They want me here. They see me as one of theirs.