Journey onto the Storm (BOOK 2)

Chapter 31

ADARA

—In the heart of sea and sand, we called him the first flame — the Wolf of Dawn. He, who pierced the skies of the Great Crimson Dusk and set the Derelicts aflame with his righteous fury, a vestige of light. Left in the protective grasp of the desert, the giants built a statue to honour the king who became the first pillar of Haneka, embodying our strength, our fiery pyre of a soul. Awaken the blade of dawn, and send its light into the clouds to raise the sun.

Raise the sun... Adara ruffled through the book to piece together the stories from whence her Guardian came. On a stray box inside the lift's area, she waited out of sight while Wardens sent magick into the pulley system with Yuven observing and conversing with Warden Katau. Runic circuits lit up and tugged the chains upwards with strong ripples of metallic music. It rattled with the upwards motion of dragging the heavy weight up the edge. Her knees quivered at the idea of descending down the cliff, so she stole herself deeper into the Hanekan fairytale in her lap and proceeded to the next passage.

—In the soul of ground and sky, we called him the second flame — the Dragon born of lightning—

"May I sit here?"

Fenrer's voice dragged her out of the seaborn tales he suggested to her before their endless journey of Yuven not knowing the definition of rest. He stood off to the side, a smile on his face. Adara searched for the night's previous shadows, but the dawn graced his cheeks when he bowed his head to her. "I didn't mean to interrupt."

"Oh!" Adara slapped the book closed. "You weren't." Scooting to make more room for him on the box, she held her breath when he shuffled and sat beside her. Lost in her own words, she rubbed her tongue on the ridge of her teeth as he paid her no heed and tugged out his food container. Parchment drifted against the edge of her finger, threatening to dog-ear the page. Sunlight glittered the swirling greens and through his dark brown hair, glinting off the wolven pin hanging off the end of his small braid. It weighed down her tongue, and she jolted when he turned to her with a curious frown. "How are you feeling?" she blurted out, but longed to rip out her own tongue and stomp on its embarrassing usage. From the way his gaze flicked around her, it wasn't only her tongue betraying her embarrassment. "It's just—" Rescue it, Adara. "—after what happened last night I was just... concerned." She brushed her nose.

"I am much better for my rest," he said, not drawing attention to her flimsy words. He dropped his attention to the book in her lap, then tipped his head. "Are you enjoying the book? I know there was a bit of a rush to leave Fallholt."

Glad for a shift in topic away from her flubbing, she nodded and laid it flat against her hands. "You know, I was a little hesitant considering the sorts of stories Garren told me," she admitted at his attentive expression. "He gave me the blood, death, hopelessness, the whole thing. It got exhausting..." It fluttered out of her throat at the last taste of old despair layered with a Derelict feast. "I didn't need more of that in my life. Just trying to get by, unable to control what I was." Her fingers tucked underneath the next page, and turned it to run once more from Prunal. "I wish Garren told me half the stories in here. Tales of the high seas. Sirens. Merfolk. There's even sea shanties in here, then I started imagining the old man singing and..." A laugh bubbled out of her lips. "Unrelenting passion in the face of adversity. Those stories I love... and made me homesick for a place I've never been..." The story of the dragon, the last of his kind... and I lost my belief. His memory swelled her heart, and she turned to him for an answer. "I should've listened to you back then, when you told me to believe."

He blinked and swayed in place. "It's hard, I know," he said and tapped his food container. His breath lifted his chest, and he exhaled it in one soft sigh of the wind. "Surrounded by people who cannot believe in the light, we hold to our oath." He tucked his food container away, never having opened it to chew on the contents, and she winced at the clear drop of appetite when he closed his eyes. "Shadows will fall; the dusk will reign, but the dawn must always come." He opened them and turned back to her with a softer smile. "Someone told me that a long time ago, and I've lived to those words since I could comprehend their weight."