Arven's Scarlet Desire

Chapter Nineteen - The Lurking Steel Titan

The cool night air felt good on Scarlet's face. The lights of Levincia faded away behind them and they sped away up through the hills into the night. They rode Arven's cyclizar, and Scarlet sat behind him, arms around his waist. The full moon was high and the road was mercifully easy to see. Once the last building was out of sight behind them, they slowed and dismounted his Cyclizar, and out came Koraidon, who was twice as fast, to take its place.

Arven barely rolled his eyes at all, this time, but Scarlet, of course, was Koraidon's rider, so she sat up front, while Arven told her where to go.

The time passed quickly, she felt, with his arms strong around her, and her body bouncing against his. Every now and then, he leaned over her shoulder and told her to veer left, or to take the lower path, etcetera, and his breath was warm against her skin.

They travelled uphill at first, but at his direction, Scarlet realised they were going down, lower and lower into a sort of quarry. They passed dark places, out of reach of the moonlight, that she realised were abandoned mines. They couldn't talk easily while they were riding, so she had to wait until they dismounted before she asked questions. It was well past midnight by the time they were at the right spot.

"This is the closest we're going to get," Arven said, into her ear. She nodded, slowed Koraidon to a halt, and Arven jumped down. Her back felt cold without him, and he took her hand to help her down - an uncharacteristic act of chivalry, but she realised why, when her legs nearly buckled underneath her from riding for almost three hours.

She fell against him, feebly. He laughed.

"Easy there, little buddy."

She scowled up at him. "I'm not that little," she said.

He held her steady while she stamped awkwardly to get the feeling back in her legs.

"But no protest at being called buddy." Arven said, slyly.

She looked at him. "We're buddies, then?" She said, sarcastically. "That's what you call this?"

He looked down at her, unsure how to answer. She rolled her eyes and stood back, clumsily. Her legs were getting pins and needles now, but she stood her ground.

"So, let's get this moving, then, buddy." She said.

He pulled out a paper map and showed her a line drawn in pencil.

"I made it just down to there when you called, before," he said. "This line is where I estimate the Tera field reaches out from the Herba-Mystica. It fades as it gets further away, but I've started to make some good guesses about where it could be located when I cross-reference with the previous maps."

"We're already in pretty far," she said, looking at the map. "Wow, we've almost circled halfway back to Levincia!"

"Yeah, if we could scale the mountain range, we'd be able to get back in an hour. But it's way too hard to climb."

He looked up at the dark mountainside looming above them.

"It's too bad," he said, almost to himself. "Would be nice... if we had more time."

Scarlet blushed and pretended she wasn't thinking the exact same thing.

"So if we're going by your estimate," she pressed on, "the Herba-Mystica should be somewhere around here," she pointed at the centre of the circle he'd drawn.

"Yeah," he said. "Somewhere under the ground there - through one of those abandoned tunnels."

"How old is this mine?" Scarlet asked.

"I think it's been re-opened and shut down a bunch of times over the years," Arven said. "The oldest of the tunnels are probably over a hundred years old, and the newest... maybe ten years or so?"