Chapter 33
The journey back to Vellhorn took four days.
Four days of goat paths turning to dirt trails turning to actual roads.
Four days of Alsen’s left arm throbbing with every step, every stumble, every time the terrain shifted underneath him and his body instinctively tried to balance with both arms. It couldn’t.
The left one hung in a sling, bound tight against his chest, the fingers poking out swollen and purple.
Arleria healed him every moment they stopped. She’d sit beside him at every opportunity, pink light pooling around her fingers, working the torn tendons and shredded ligaments, trying to restore them to something functional.
It wasn’t going terribly well, though. Arleria insisted she was making progress. He didn’t feel much difference, but he also couldn’t use the arm, and saw no alternative treatment options.
Derell, Malick, and Kern all recovered well on their own, barely looking wounded two days in. Arleria had only been harmed by cold, which she recovered from. Luna never got any injury in the first place.
Alsen could feel her gaze on him almost all the time now, though. He didn’t know from where, but he felt Luna watching him almost all the time.
He enjoyed it.
They passed by the river when they got close to Vellhorn. Luna happened to walk next to him, on the other side from Arleria. She graced him with a playful smirk. “Do we go three out of three?”
He heaved a heavy sigh. “You really shouldn’t have said it.”
“We’re at two out of two, and we’re walking by the river to Vellhorn for the third time.”
He realized that too, all right? Everyone else suddenly walked a bit closer. “Two out of two for what?” Malick asked.
“You’ll see,” Luna said. “I’m betting on three out of three.”
“I’m not,” Alsen said. “And that’s horrible.”
Luna moved to walk even closer to him, shoulders almost touching. “By the way, did you cast anything on me?”
He resisted the urge to smile. “Like what?”
“I don’t know.” She looked away. “Just asking.”
“You know I don’t have any charms or enhancements.”
She only grunted.
Technically speaking, he wasn’t even lying. A system skill wasn’t a spell. That was why she couldn’t detect it in the first place.
Up ahead by the river, they spotted the procession.
Damn it.
Alsen’s heart still sank a bit. Indeed, three out of three. They did these sacrifices far too often. Everyone from Arleria’s group didn’t even look. To them, it was the most normal thing.
The city materialized from the afternoon haze the same way it always did, a sprawl of mismatched rooftops and crooked streets with no walls, no gates, no pretense of being anything other than a huge village.
In the distance, the crimson bulk of Verathras lay across his hills of gold, visible from miles out, the permanent centerpiece of a city that had built itself around a monster.
Alsen felt the tension in his shoulders release. The road widened. Buildings multiplied. The sounds of civilization reached them, the distant clatter of carts and market noise.
Two shapes flew toward them from the sky. Kern motioned up, and they stopped by the roadside.
Alsen soon recognized the drakes. He couldn’t tell which ones, but he would bet on the usual duo.
The two red drakes landed near them. Each about twenty feet long, serpentine bodies covered in scales that glowed like cooling embers, steam rising from their hides in the cool afternoon air.
Alsen recognized them even before Luna waved at them, grinning. The usual duo.
“I see you’ve missed me,” Luna shouted for a greeting. “Came to fly me the rest of the way? You couldn’t come earlier, but the thought counts.”
Arleria glared at her, together with her group. Alsen only rubbed his face with his palm. Way to escalate without anything even happening.
The drake she had ridden huffed out a puff of smoke. “We are here on behalf of Verathras himself.”
“Oh, so he wants to become my mount himself.” Luna’s grin only deepened. “That’s nice.”
“On official behalf,” the drake added, clearly fighting the intense urge to hurl a torrent of flame at her. “Verathras expects your presence at the hoard before sundown.”
“All of us?” Alsen asked.
“Yes, all of you.” The drake’s eyes flicked across the group. “He wishes to discuss the recent events with you lot.”
“That is the message,” the other drake added, spreading his wings. “Before sundown. Don’t be late.”
Both drakes launched upward in a single beat, climbing fast, banking toward the center of the city. The takeoff released a cloud of dust, which Alsen had to cover his face against.
The group watched them shrink to specks against the sky.
“Well,” Malick said. “That’s new.”
“And highly unusual,” Arleria said. Her voice had gone quiet, focused. “Verathras wouldn’t care about the mission itself, so it’s about the explosion.”
Derell looked at Alsen. “Is this a problem?”
“It’s an audience,” Arleria replied. “With the dragon that rules this region. It’s not a problem if we handle it correctly.”
“And if we don’t handle it correctly?”
“Then we’re ash.” Arleria started walking. “Let’s move. We have maybe three hours and we need to prepare.”
The city swallowed them within minutes. The same cobblestone streets, the same drainage channels, the same tired efficiency of people who had long since stopped expecting change. Alsen had missed it, which surprised him. The mountain had a way of making mundane things feel precious.
He realized Luna had vanished. No one else had yet, but there was no sign of her.
They split at the market square, anyway. Malick and Derell headed for their usual inn to clean up and resupply. Kern went to check on his equipment at the guild. Each promised to meet at the fountain near the merchant quarter an hour before sundown.
Arleria caught Alsen’s good arm before he could follow. “You’re coming with me.”
“To?”
“My place. I have healing supplies there that I haven’t had access to on the road. And you cannot walk into an audience with the most powerful creature in the region looking like you slept in a ditch for a week.”
“I slept on a mountain saddle for a week. There’s a difference.”
“Not to a dragon.” She steered him east, her grip gentle but not really offering a choice. “I also need to look at the arm in proper light. The field healing was adequate, but adequate isn’t enough.”
He could have protested. Could have insisted on going to his usual inn, cleaning up on his own, meeting her later. The old instinct was there, the one that preferred to control his own presentation, to choose his own clothes, to walk into a room on his own terms.
He let it go. His arm hurt. He was exhausted. And the part of him that wasn’t pride wanted to see where she lived.
Arleria’s home occupied the top floor of a narrow stone building in the quieter part of the merchant quarter.
The entrance was on the side, up a flight of external stairs that had been swept clean.
A simple ward hummed faintly across the door, something to discourage casual intruders without drawing attention.
She dispelled it with a touch and let them in.
The space was smaller than he expected. One main room that served as living space, study, and workshop, with a partitioned area in the back that he assumed was the bedroom.
Bookshelves lined two walls, stuffed past capacity, with additional stacks on the floor and on a desk pushed against the window.
A low table held alchemy equipment, neatly organized, glass vials and ceramic bowls arranged with meticulous precision.
The place smelled like herbs and old paper. Two things Alsen appreciated more than he probably should.
“Sit down over here,” Arleria said, pointing at a padded chair near the window. The only comfortable-looking seat in the room. “Be careful around the things on the desk. Some of them might be volatile.”
He smiled. “Don’t worry.”
“I rarely have guests.” She disappeared behind the partition.
He heard drawers opening, water running, the clink of glass.
He took down his backpack, put it in an empty spot, and sat in the chair, letting his head rest against the back of it.
The cushion was firm but yielding. His body, given permission to stop moving, immediately began cataloging every ache, pain, and complaint it had been suppressing during the march.
His left arm dominated the list.
Arleria returned with a wooden case and a basin of water that smelled faintly of mint.
She knelt beside the chair, set the case on the floor, and opened it.
Inside, arranged in padded slots, lay a collection of healing instruments.
Crystal rods of various lengths, each glowing faintly with stored mana.
Small glass vials filled with liquids ranging from pale gold to deep green.
She also had a set of silver needles so thin they looked like they’d break if he breathed on them.
“This is going to hurt more than the field sessions,” she said, unwrapping the sling with careful fingers. “The deep tissue work requires direct contact with the damaged areas, and I haven’t been able to reach them properly on the road.”
“How much more?”
“Enough that I’m telling you in advance.
” She lifted his arm, rotating it slowly.
Her scan lit up, the pink glow of her healing magic running along the length of his arm from shoulder to fingertips.
Her expression tightened. “The shoulder is better than I expected. The elbow...” She trailed off, pressing gently below the joint.
Alsen’s vision whited out for a second. When it returned, he was gripping the chair’s armrest with his good hand hard enough that his knuckles had gone pale.
“Not that good,” Arleria confirmed. She pulled one of the crystal rods from the case and held it against the inside of his elbow.
The rod hummed, its glow intensifying as it interacted with the damaged tissue.
“The ligaments in here are partially detached from the bone. Whatever force pulled your arm nearly tore it off at the elbow as well as the shoulder.”