Chapter 28: Chasing living flame

If someone gives you an opportunity to claim you didn’t know any better, take it. Run with it.

-Wrend

As the serving girl darted off along the row of tents, it took Wrend several moments to process what she’d said. He was too distracted by his naked wrist and the memory of chopping off his own hand. Drying blood covered his hand and arm, coated his pants and shirt. He still couldn’t believe that he’d done it. He’d lowered the knife, and the hand had just dropped away. And he’d done it without a thought, without hesitation.

Had it been part of the proving? Would Teirn have to do the same thing?

But all thoughts of severing hands disappeared as he raced through the city of tents after the serving girl. It felt like he chased a living flame, with how her yellow dress and fiery red hair shone in the night. He could barely keep up with her as she ran through the grass or around the sagebrush, sometimes even leaping over the silvery-gray bushes.

“Stop!” he called to her.

She didn’t respond. He considered halting, knowing she wanted to draw him somewhere for a reason that might prove dangerous. No doubt she’d purposefully lured him down streets without paladins, at a time when the camp was relatively empty and no one would witness their chase; he could still hear the faint music and chatter of the celebration behind him. Most people would remain at the feast long into the night.

She reached the edge of the tents and wagons and turned back to grin at him. Her teeth flashed in the starlight. With a coy laugh, she darted on.

Not far behind her, he stopped at the edge of the tents and took a moment to think. He could find a dozen rationalizations to follow her, but knew that the Master would condemn the action and say he should have stayed. Following her teetered on the scales in his head, opposite staying in the tent city. The options wavered back and forth until tipping in favor of following.

If the Master wouldn’t tell him the purpose of the proving, he could always claim he thought this might be part of the test. And besides, he didn’t feel in danger. Not from the girl. And surely he’d proven his intention to obey by cutting off his hand. Couldn’t he satisfy his curiosity?

Taking a deep breath, for the first time in his life he purposefully did something he knew might upset the Master. He stepped past the last tent, into the clearing. Then he started to run after the girl. His boots pounded in the dirt, and he kept his breath measured. How could she possibly outrun him? She was so slight.

She led him up a hill that sloped for half a mile outside of the camp. His curiosity increased, but the intensity of the chase subsided. She looked back often, but always stayed a little ways ahead. He called out several times for her to wait, that he would go with her, but she ran on.

At the top of the hill grew a clump of pinion pines and juniper trees. She entered ahead of him, and by the time he followed he couldn’t see her through the darkness among the twisted trunks and thick branches.

“Keep coming,” she said from ahead.

He continued on. Little starlight filtered in through the branches, and he had to feel his way through the rough bark and prickling leaves. He tripped several times, but never fell. In just a minute, he emerged on the other side of the grove and stopped with his hand on the trunk of a juniper.

His legs began to tremble. Though he needed to breathe deeply from the run, his breath caught in his throat. His eyes slowly moved upward.

The girl stood smiling, hardly winded, looking for the entire world like the master of the draegon that lay behind her.

“Close your mouth,” she said. She stood between the draegon’s forelegs. “You look like a lunatic.”

Words wouldn’t come to Wrend’s mouth. His body had seized up; he couldn’t move as he stared up at the draegon’s black eyes. He felt like food on a dinner plate.

Behind the draegon, and to the sides, the desert stretched into the night. All of the pinions and junipers grew behind Wrend; in the direction of the draegon, only sagebrush and other low bushes peppered the countryside. A cool breeze blew into his face, smelling of dust, sagebrush, and what he could only assume was a draegon that needed a bath.

The serving girl gestured up at the monster.

“Wrend, I’d like you to meet your son. This is Krack.”

The creature was simply so huge. Wrend had stood near the Master’s draegon before, but only on a few occasions. Even then, knowing that the Master controlled his loyal mount because it bore the soul of a wolfhound, Wrend preferred not to linger near it. It made him feel small and powerless. And now, standing near an unknown draegon apparently controlled by a girl with unknown intentions—well, a terror-driven flight seemed prudent.

Only his feet had seemingly melted into the ground. He could only look up at the monster. It huffed as if in derision. Its body shifted, and the claws in its front paws dug six-inch deep trenches in the ground. The fur along its back rippled in the wind. Its long body wound back into the darkness, and the great canvas of wings shifted with a rustle. It smelled of rotten meat and sweat.

Teirn was never going to believe this.

The girl stared at him, amused. She looked like she’d recently experienced a severe beating. Dirt smudged her face and clothes, and her dress had tattered edges. Her hair hung loose and tangled around her face. She reached out and stroked the draegon’s foreleg.

“He’s a handsome boy, isn’t he?”

Wrend swallowed hard. When he finally spoke, his voice came out as a squeak. “Why did you bring me here?”