Fate of Dragons

Prologue

It happened slow and fast. Gradually, then all at once. The first time Derol noticed them was when he'd gone into town to negotiate the price of some seed with Mr. Gridder. They met over a drink at the Kitchen Witch. The travelers were obvious right away. They always were, for so few came to Enval.

He remembered them because of the girl. Seeing her demure glances his way reminded him of when he'd come to this inn for a meal with Tesa. The traveler girl was nothing like her. She had that brown skin more often found in the southern parts of Arethia, and her hair was a mess of black curls, unlike Tesa's long wavy hair. He returned a smile and a nod, then concertedly focused on Mr. Gridder's talk of seeds for spring and breeding of cattle.Throughout their conversation he could feel her eyes on him.

So studious were his attempts to avoid her gazes that he missed the chance to observe the others as he normally would have, like any good townsman. All he noticed, besides their dark-colored riding cloaks, was the flash of a gemstone on one man's neck. He remembered looking about the room for the source of the light that had reflected off of it.

Derol returned to his farm house that night thinking of Tesa again, wondering how she liked being a dragon rider. Her parents had shared the news from her letter with him, their faces grim and timid. Her mother had been shocked when he laughed and slapped his knee in delight at hearing that she'd been chosen by a dragon and would begin training as a rider. And a mage too, no less. He was happy for her, and tried to explain to them why, but he also saw how she'd dashed their hopes of her returning and marrying Derol, joining the two farms and securing a good life for herself. He couldn't help but be sad about that, too, deep down.

Later, he'd asked her father if he could read the letter, and after he read it, he couldn't stop thinking of her. Something about the letter made him feel as if there were things she was leaving out. That worried him. He had to keep reminding himself that she was training with the riders and the mages, the two main armies of Arethia. She didn't need him or anyone else to worry over her or protect her.

As he sat down to dinner with his two farm hands, their wives, and the one little baby, he still thought about Tesa even as he told himself that maybe the next time a woman made eyes at him, he should respond. He would need a child, children, of his own to take over the farm one day. But then, look at Tesa's ma and da. They'd had five, and all had gone away. Maybe one of her brothers would come back and run the farm if they knew that Tesa had gone. Surely they must know by now. Derol chided himself then, for his thoughts had strayed to her again.

A week later, even more travelers roamed the town streets. Derol scratched his head and wondered what it could be that brought so many travelers at once. Nothing seemed to connect them, besides the fact that they all showed up around the same time. Some had the same features as the girl who'd made eyes at Derol, and others appeared more like those from Enval. Derol remarked on the travelers to one of the innkeepers, who shrugged and said it was good business.

So it started gradually like that, with more and more strangers staying in town, for long enough that they seemed to become part of the fabric of Enval. It almost became easy not to notice them.

The rest of it happened all at once.

Derol had gone into the woods to gather firewood. It had always been one of his favorite tasks, ever since he was a child and he rode on the sleigh behind his father on the horse. As much as they could, they roamed the forest in search of already fallen trees.

"We respect the forest," he remembered his father whispering. He'd point and let his eyes roam above him in a slow arc. "For she watches."

It was with this memory in his mind that Derol left the well-trodden path and led his horse Daisy through the trees. The blanket of snow seemed to muffle everything, so that they went through in silence, only the sound of their feet crunching through the snow and the swish of the sleigh's runners sliding behind them.