22. Freshly Planted #4
Her heart seized in empathy.
She wasn't brave enough to ask.
"Why didn't you just… tell all of the Tethered the truth?"
"We were afraid of the king doing… well, what the prince is doing now. Locking the Tethered away, punishing them. What if he separated them from their dragons out of fear? None of them would survive."
Aaryn's stomach lurched. "So when an Awakened dies…"
"The dragons either die, or go feral. Untameable. Unpredictable. Even a Tethered is blessed in the same way. It's why they're so protected and looked after now, in Evergale."
"A prison and a safety precaution," Aaryn murmured.
"Precisely."
Disgust suddenly filled Aaryn. For the kingdom to take the truth and twist it so utterly, for their own purposes… it was so… wrong. She hated it so much it felt like a physical ache.
Starspark nudged her as if he could feel her turmoil, and she released a tight breath, stroking his scales reverently.
"Have you had any more visions?" Vaelen asked.
Aaryn shook her head. "No."
Vaelen nodded, and the silence settled, though it wasn't tense or awaiting someone to fill it. Vaelen and Aaryn watched on as the Awakened trained with their dragons, until the sun was making the back of Aaryn's neck hot.
"Would you like to see the hatchlings?" Vaelen asked.
"Is that even a question?" Aaryn breathed. Baby dragons!
Vaelen's smile was kind and knowing, and she chuckled softly as she stepped away from the fencing.
"Well, then, let's…" She tilted her head to the side, and turned slowly. "Do you hear that?"
It took a moment for the rhythmic noise to register. The sound of a dragon’s wings, followed by… a deep, thunderous roar.
"That's one of ours," Vaelen said, looking to the barrier that shimmered beyond the line of trees. Vaelen raced toward its edge, branches obscuring most of their view, but that roar sounded again, and Aaryn felt something slam into the magic. It vibrated through her feet, in her teeth.
"Wait!" Vaelen barked at the small crowd that grew, and then she was working magic, pushing past them with a sharp glow to her hands as her fingers made shapes and runes in the air.
Past her, toward the edge of the circle, on the other side of the force that kept them all safe, was a dragon, flailing and shrieking and throwing itself against the barrier.
Vaelen's voice roared loud enough to rival the dragon's. "Move!"
The crowd listened, the fierceness in her voice alone enough to shift their bodies before their minds caught up, and Vaelen threw her magic at the force field. It broke temporarily, and the dragon shot through, landing against the grass before the crowd, exhausted.
The barrier knitted back together.
Aaryn was standing back, a spectator, but as the dragon crashed to the earth she gasped at the familiar storm-cloud coloring, and found herself moving before she'd decided what she would do.
It was Carissa's dragon, Stormstrike. Her heart ached for the great beast as his chest lifted up and down, his puffs of desperate breath making the grass sway.
As Vaelen neared, he roared again, and Vaelen smartly stepped away. His big, bright gaze swung… to Aaryn.
Aaryn, who had spent many afternoons with him on the same field. She was familiar. Would he…
"Aaryn," Vaelen warned, and she would have heeded it, but something was pulling her closer anyway.
Aaryn studied his scales. It was nearing evening, the sun still bright, and that somehow made the sight of his dark blood seeping into the grass more shocking.
Her heart skipped a beat as she called out, "He's hurt!"
He was clutching his wings and limbs close, and Aaryn feared the worst as she neared. If struck just right, the bellies were the most tender on a dragon, ripe for blades and arrows as long as the attacker got between the scales.
"It's okay," she cooed. "Let me see."
Where was Carissa? What about her husband?
Voices around her called for the healers.
The dragon's labored breaths were calming, and his wings twitched where they cradled around him.
"Where's Carissa?" she asked softly. "Rolim? Either of them?"
The dragon huffed, and then his wings moved.
Aaryn gasped at the bloodied figure clutched in his arms. "Carissa!"
The dragon relinquished her to Aaryn, who dragged her onto the soft surface of the grass. It didn't seem to be her own blood, but she was unconscious. Aaryn looked back up to the dragon, and found what she feared.
Great slashes and arrows dug into the dragon's belly.
The healers arrived, but they were not armed with bandages and ointments. Instead, magic glowed softly in their hands as bit by bit they saw to the dragon.
Vaelen herself came to Carissa and knelt down, expression grim. "It's not her blood," Aaryn told her.
With a gentle push of magic from the archdruid, Carissa awoke with a gasp. "Rolim!" was on her lips, and Aaryn steadied her.
"Carissa, you're in the circle. You're safe. What happened?"
She sat up, searching for her dragon, who was breathing much easier now, his wounds healing quickly, aided by magic.
Her eyes were wild, darting around, connecting dots. She grabbed Vaelen's arm with a conviction Aaryn had not seen in her before. "They're attacking Skymore."
"Who?"
"Evergale. We were—the honeymoon. Rolim and I were separated. Stormstrike got me out of there, but not before—"
Vaelen cupped her cheek. "You are safe."
"Please find him," Carissa said, tears in her eyes. "Rolim's still down there."
Vaelen glanced down, her gaze softening on the woman in Aaryn's lap. "We will do our best, child." Her attention shifted to Aaryn. "Take her somewhere calmer."
Aaryn nodded, because there was no way she would put up an argument, not with the intensity of Vaelen's eyes, the energy in the air.
Things moved quickly from there. Vaelen called out orders, confident, strong.
In a flurry, bodies shifted and moved like a well-trained army, and in moments the Awakened were mounting their dragons, taking off, flying through the barrier as druids worked magic to open it, before diving down and to the west, toward Skymore, with riders on their back.
Some of the Awakened were armed, and some of the largest dragons carried things like cots on their back, between their wings.
"Thea," Aaryn heard, just as she got Carissa to her feet. She lifted her head, finding Thea on the other side of Vaelen's figure. Whatever Vaelen said, Aaryn didn't understand, but then she moved on.
Thea stalled.
Time seemed to pause as they studied one another in the midst of the chaos, but the healers rushed between them and when her path was clear once again, Thea was gone.