The Dragon Games

The Storm

Stonehedge was close now, a day's hike away. Would have been half a day, but a storm broke out last night, leaving a thick layer of mud coating the ground. Trekking through it was like wading through quicksand; with each step, my boot sank further. 

It might have been manageable, if my rock-filled back did not weigh into me, pushing me down further. After a misstep, the mud swallowed my leg up to my knee. I grabbed the edges of my boot, yanking with both hands to no avail. Then Elio came along and freed me with one hand, making me look like a complete jackass.

"Thanks," I mumbled. 

Yesterday had left me unsure of where we stood, whether we truly bridged the gap from enemy to ally. My own feelings weren't any clearer. I shifted between guilt and anger on a dime, wanted to help Elio and hurt him in the same breath. 

As much as I pitied him and his family, Elio punished me for a murder committed when I was three years old. What the hell could I even do at that age? Cry? Aggressively crap myself?

The second and third times Elio freed my boot, I thanked him. The fourth, I couldn't help but scowl. I wasn't normally this weak, without all of Grace's crap. 

"You can't even pretend to struggle?"

"My apologies," he said wryly. "I'll try for a better performance next time."

Grimacing, I set my hands behind my head, trying to catch my breath. "There is no next time. I cannot go on."

"And yet you persist." Elio put his hand on the small of my back, pushing me forward. "Don't think of it as mud. Think of it as swimming."

"I bloody hate swimming," I grumbled.

"Well, yeah, if you've only ever been to the lakes in the burrow." This was normally where the conversation would end, and we'd lapse into tense silence. But Elio cleared his throat and said, "One day, you should try the coast. The water's clear as glass there."

"Visit often?"

"Every summer. Leon built a cottage on the seaside, in the center of a beach town."

"My aunt owned a cottage like that. Only, it turned out she wasn't really my aunt. She was an actress, luring orphans into an organ harvesting scheme."

Elio missed a step, then quickly righted himself. "Gods, I hate it when that happens."

I laughed. It felt strange, like flexing a muscle you haven't used in ages.

The group rested at high noon. Moments after Tobias took Elio into the woods for a piss – with Rick trailing after them like a lost puppy – the rain kicked up again, thundering down so hard the rest of us had to take shelter under a dense tree. Expect me, of course. I was told to keep standing out in the rain.

I was soaked in minutes but barely noticed the rain compared to the pain tensing up my back. The straps of my bag dug into my shoulders, and my legs burned from keeping its weight up. Just for a moment, I needed to sit down and catch my breath. Or not even sit down, just lean against something. I inched down, my hands grazing my knees –

"Raven," Grace chided. She looked around the group and named the first Windsor she saw. "Rob, go walk her."

As Rob led me into the thick of the trees, my boots slurred into each other, and my eyelids grew heavy, fluttering shut – only for a familiar voice to holt me back awake.

"... showing the raider mercy, risking the wyvern just to coddle a criminal," Rick was ranting. "What kind of leadership is that?"

I turned to the sound of his voice, and through the gaps in the heavy rainfall, I spotted Tobias and his minion deep in conversation.