Chapter 30
Thirty
Aesira
Aesira woke with Stone’s arm draped around her middle, his other arm tucked under her head like a pillow.
Birdie and Bee were chatting in the distance–possibly bickering–about how much food they had left.
The sun was less intense on this side of the Whispering Mountains, the thick trees acting as a blanket, keeping the bulk of the heat at bay.
The air was warm, but not stifling as she peeled herself away from Stone.
He was still asleep, his face smooth and brows relaxed.
She stood and dusted the dirt from her pants and shirt and joined Bee and Birdie.
“Good morning.” Birdie tossed her one of the ration packs. “We only have a few left each which means our stay here can’t be long. If we're going to make it back Aquila, we have to save some." She rolled her eyes. "Can thank Vic for that.”
“We haven’t explored much.” Aesira ripped open the bag, wincing at the smell of dried meat. “There's water which means there could be food here.”
“I don’t trust anything in this place, especially to eat,” Bee said.
“It seems to be a pattern,” Birdie said, “you, not trusting things.” Her eyes narrowed at Birdie as she sipped from her canteen.
“I’m just saying, nothing about it feels natural.
” Birdie scoffed and Aesira couldn’t help but feel there was a large piece of the conversation she was missing.
She took her ration pack and found somewhere quiet, under a large tree with thin green leaves and cracked white bark.
The wind twisted through her hair, kissing her cheeks.
In the distance she could hear the faint bubble of water, from a spring they found.
Aesira couldn’t disagree with Bee more. Everything about Ravki felt natural, wonderful. The trees and the green and the abundance of water. Foreign, yes, but not unnatural. Like this was how life was supposed to be and somewhere along the way, they’d messed it all up.
She tore into a piece of the dried meat and rested her back against the tree trunk.
The field across from her appeared plain, just as it had yesterday afternoon when they arrived.
But last night she and Stone had seen with their own eyes how Ravki transformed under the moonlight, with the Lunaris moths.
They were barely noticeable, balled up so small they looked like seeds, but the astra flowers covered every inch of the field. Easily mistaken for grass at first glance.
She couldn’t wrap her head around the color though. In Vargah the astra reservoirs were purple. She knew she was remembering correctly because she told Kamari they matched her dress perfectly.
“Can I sit here?” The deep timbre of Stone’s voice startled her, but she made room for him to sit. “It’s amazing how different it looks in the daylight.” He gestured to the field but she wondered if anything else looked different under the sun instead of the faint light of the moon.
Her, for example. Their choices last night.
“Birdie and Bee said we can’t stay long.” She forced her mind in a different, safer direction. “I don’t know where to start looking for Desmond.” She glanced over her shoulder, to the looming ruins behind them. “I certainly don’t want to go in there again.”
Stone chewed his food in silence, his eyes fixated on the field of astra. “We split up. Look for any tracks or traces of someone being here. If we find nothing by nightfall…” He took another bite so she finished the thought for him.
“If we find nothing by nightfall, we leave, with or without Desmond.”
He nodded and swallowed down the last bites of his food. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Unless we find a reliable food source, we can’t burn much time waiting.”
Vic and his crew had plundered most of their supplies, including their ration packs, leaving them with the bare minimum. She knew they wouldn’t have much time to explore Ravki but it still left a disappointed taste in her mouth.
“And what do we do about that?” She nodded to the field of astra.
Stone licked his lips. “We take what we need to get the Aquila back to Vargah without stopping, as planned.”
“And nothing else?” It was a cheap, baited question, but she wanted to know the answer.
Stone’s very reason for coming on this mission was to see if Ravki was real.
See if astra grew here, and it did, in abundance, straight from the earth just like he thought.
Would he take it, she wondered, and fly out of Vargah for good?
With the pardon from Kamari, it would be easy to leave and never look back.
To find his way here again and pillage the flower for himself.
“Nothing else.” His eyes were still on the astra.
A more forceful breeze kicked up, sending a pile of fallen leaves swirling through the air. “What do I tell Kamari?” Stone glanced at her. “About the astra, I mean. About Ravki?”
A muscle clenched in Stone’s jaw. “What do you want to tell her?”
The golden buds were closed tight, tucked away until they would open under the moon, but the image of them glowing in the field last night hadn’t left her mind.
How beautiful they were. How much power they held.
The last thing she wanted was to risk this place being attacked by the kingdoms–both Vargah and Novaria–which is exactly what would happen.
They were two kingdoms starved for power and a discovery like this would bring another war. Peace treaty or not.
“We don’t tell her everything,” she said, “at least, not right away. Until we can figure out what’s best.”
Stone bumped her side. “We?” He smiled.
“Yeah.” She bumped him back. “We. Unless you don’t plan on staying in Vargah.” Another cheap question, it burned the tips of her ears, making her feel like a fool.
Stone studied her face, eyes dipping to her mouth.
“If you two are done confessing your love, can we get the hell on with it?”
“Coming, Bird.” Stone’s eyes stayed glued to Aesira’s, that small smile still slashed across his mouth. He leaned in and kissed her temple. “Ready?”
“I’m with you, Stoney,” Birdie said.
So much of Ravki was like walking through a dream. The clouds were perfectly puffed and white. The sun was warm but not sweltering. The trees swayed, their green leaves sparkling. The water trickled down the rockfaces, landing in pools of vibrant blues.
There were more ruins than the ones they saw yesterday. Several were smaller, but just as crumbling with vines coiling through the cracks. A few had fallen completely, leaving nothing but piles of rubble.
It was easy to see how the city was laid out before.
The main ruins were likely similar to the Citadel, the smaller ruins, where civilians lived.
It was a painful dichotomy, seeing the beautiful skies and trees next to collapsed buildings that once housed life.
People. But that was war. It was life and it was death and whatever happened to Ravki, it was clear now, it was not a natural extinction.
Aesira and Bee walked for what felt like hours. Through meadows, careful not to disturb the sleeping astra, around the ruins, up and over several hills. Everything seemed untouched. No trails or recent tracks. No sign of life, outside of them.
No signs of Desmond.
Her mind bounced between the Strix and the Dreamweavers.
Maybe Stone was right, maybe there was a chance Desmond never made it this far.
Defeat threatened to swallow Aesira whole, casting her body and mind in a blanket of darkness, when Bee shouted, startling a flock of bright orange birds from a nearby tree.
“Commander! I found something!”
Aesira trotted ahead and met Bee under a massive tree, its branches jutting out in all directions, its leaves large enough to cover her face.
“What?” Aesira followed the line of Bee’s finger as she pointed under the expansive tree.
Remnants of a camp lay scattered under its wide branches.
Old canteens, a ratty blanket, a broken compass.
“These are Vargahian steel.” Aesira ran her finger along the hilt of one of the blades.
It was small enough to fit in the palm of her hand, but the steel she recognized from the weapons room in Vargah.
A deep ‘V’ was engraved right in the center.
Bee picked up another similar blade. “Not Ravkian?”
“No.” Aesira pointed to the engraving, despite its age, was clear as day. “These weapons are from Vargah.”
“Desmond?”
Aesira pocketed the knife and riffled through the rest of the camp.
There was no recent fire or food. The maps were worn and illegible, most of them torn through with age or weather.
Even the weapons, including the pocket knives, were dated.
“No knight or soldier would carry a weapon like this anymore.”
Bee picked up the blanket, sniffed it once, then tossed it back down. “Maybe it’s all Desmond could find.”
“The king couldn’t sport better survival tools?” Aesira shook her head. “Whoever these belonged to, they’ve been here for a long time.”
Bee’s eyes went wide, realization playing across her round face. “Like how long?”
Aesira pulled out the small knife again. The ornate handle was carved, intricate moons and stars etched around the entire hilt. Weapons were not made with so many details, anymore. Artistry had been lost by way of convenience. This was not a new knife, not by years.
“Decades, at least.” Something sour spun in her gut. The breeze had stopped and the stillness of the trees and the old abandoned camp now seemed an omen of a different kind. “I don’t get it,” Aesira said. “How could there have been Vargahian soldiers stationed here?” She handed Bee the canteen.
“Beats me,” she said before taking a slow drink. “You’re sure the king didn’t just swipe some old shit from the armory? Maybe he didn’t want anyone to notice anything missing.”
“Maybe…” Aesira bit the tip of her thumb, glancing around the camp again. It didn’t make any sense. It wasn’t just the weapons that were dated, it was everything. The maps. The discarded uniform. The compass.
“Or maybe Vargah has been here before.” Bee glanced around. “Maybe they’re watching us right now.” Aesira’s lungs froze and the fear must have shown on her face because Bee laughed. “I’m kidding, Commander. If anyone from Vargah had been here recently, this place would have been run dry.”
“What makes you say that?”
“The astra,” Bee said. “Once the word gets out it’s here, it’ll be a fucking bloodbath.”
“And who do you plan to tell?” Aesira straightened, tossing the canteen to the ground. “Because Stone and I decided it was best to keep the astra a secret.”
“Of course,” she said. “We won’t tell a soul. Let’s walk, I need some air.”
“You’re outside, Bee.” It was no use, Bee trudged ahead, a new determination in her steps.
“First Birdie is pissed at me because I told her we couldn’t look in the tunnels.” She stomped forward, her boots crushing a cluster of tiny yellow flowers. “Now, you and Stone are making decisions without us? Seems as though our rules mean nothing anymore.”
Aesira froze. “What?”
Bee turned to her and what Aesira thought was anger before she realized was maybe more akin to hurt. “I said our rules mean nothing.”
“Not that,” Aesira said. “Why does Birdie want to look in the tunnels?” Stopping short at the shore of another glassy pool. The reflection of the sun and sky bounced off the lake’s surface, casting shards of light across Bee’s face. Her sweet, honey eyes narrowed.
“She thinks whatever you and Stone saw might be a clue.” She shook her head. “I told her it was insane.”
“A clue to what? Whatever’s down there, it certainly wasn’t Desmond.”
Bee picked up a rock and chucked it at the water’s surface. Aesira fought the urge to flinch as the still water was disrupted, rippling with the weight of the stone. “A clue to where the dragons went. Where they might be now.”
“Why does she want to know that?”
Bee shrugged. “I don’t know. She has a weird infatuation with them I guess. Either way, I told her no and now she’s pissed.”
“And now she’s with Stone,” Aesira snapped. “We need to go back to the ruins.”
“We still have more perimeter."
“Now, Bee!”
Aesira didn’t wait for Bee to catch up before she was running as fast as her legs could take her back to the ruins.
She didn’t stop to catch her breath. Didn’t stop to see if Bee had followed.
She ran as fast as she could, back to the ruins, because whatever lay beneath them was not meant to be disturbed. Not meant to be awoken.