Chronicles of Carnezia (Book 1): Dragons of Dracona

Chapter 28: The Tree House

Chapter 28: The Tree House

            As Doran and I made our way towards the town, Hydra and Frain launched themselves into the sky and headed up the river. I watched but couldn’t for long as Doran nudged me on again. Itra, being near a river as wide as the Levap, was a port town. Even though on my map it appeared to be a while away from the riverbanks, in fact it had a harbour about half a mile from its outer houses. There was no kind of wall or any sign of past barricades; it was a very open town or rather, a very small city.

            Walking past the first few houses, there was the smell of fried fish in the air and I felt hungry again even after eating mere minutes ago. My mouth watered with memories of fish and chips from seaside cafés and I remembered the salty air around me coming off the sea. Thinking about it, I wondered if Frain would like to have a taste of fish. Anyway, I shook my head and followed Doran closely. All the time whilst we made our way to wherever, I kept looking around to see if I could spot Ky; it seemed impossible but I thought my luck might keep up.

            After a few more minutes, I had grown tiresome. ‘Doran, where are we going? I at least want to put these bags down first,’ I complained. We had taken the burden off Hydra and shared it amongst ourselves but they were slightly too heavy for me.

            ‘Not too far now. I believe they live around here somewhere,’ he replied to my annoyed comment.

            Keeping my further thoughts to myself, I pursed my lips and huffed along silently with the load of a dragon saddle bag on my back. They? I thought to myself, I wonder where he’s taking me to sleep while we’re here. Eventually, I found out and it was more of a surprise than maybe it should have been.

            We strolled up, me sighing with relief when I could finally put the bag down, to an average sized house compared to the ones we had been walking past. It had a black wooden door and white wooden-framed windows; it appeared to be two storeys tall but possibly had many rooms. Doran made sure I wasn’t about to collapse before he loudly rapped on the door.

            Not too long after, a woman with long, wavy black hair peeped her head round the frame. ‘Hello?’ she asked in a meek sounding voice but she looked neither frail nor old.

            ‘Hello, Cynthia. It’s Doran.’ I kindly kept out of the way.

            The woman’s eyes widened and she enthusiastically pulled the door wide open and stepped out to throw her arms around Doran’s neck in a kind embrace. As cringy as I felt, there was no sign or aura of this being a loving encounter but I rolled my eyes away all the same.

            ‘Well, it’s nice to see you. And after so long, you seemed to have hardly changed,’ she commented with her head tilted to one side.

            ‘Neither have you,’ Doran replied politely. ‘Cynthia, this is Carly. She’s here on the same business as me.’ As he introduced me, he pulled me closer.

            Cynthia scanned over me once with her eagle hazel eyes. ‘Nice to meet you.’ There was uncertainty in her voice but the reason for that I could not tell; nor could I tell whether she liked my being here. ‘You’d better come in. It looks like it will rain soon,’ she commented and turned her attention up to the skies.

            Sure enough, an hour or so later, there was a horrendous downpour going on outside the window I was stood near. Leaning on the sill, I peered out into the mirth whilst Doran was briefing Cynthia on why we were here. I didn’t like him telling her about our mission as I didn’t have a clue who she was. In my frustration however, I kept all my thoughts and comments to myself so as not to cause any trouble. After first coming inside, Doran had shown me up to one of the four bedrooms of the house and said that I was welcome to use it. It appeared, to me anyway, that Doran had clearly been here times before as he seemed as comfortable in this house as he was in his own.