The Cleansing (Book One: The Folara Chronicles)

093: Rion

Crevan glanced at Rion as they began to skirt the small encampment in favor of the forested land to the north. "I do not intend to give Ondrea Taan my dragon."

"I didn't ask you to."

"She will." Crevan warned. "I wanted you to know. I will not be complying if she does."

"Fair enough. I don't see why she would. She is more concerned with getting as many people free of the kai so they live when the planet...." His eyes, staring back to the south above Crevan's head were suddenly wide with astonishment. "Heals itself."

Crevan whirled around expecting to see a full contingent attacking them. Instead, he saw a few people crest the dunes all staring south at the hazy skyline where Sentinel was. A huge black circular cloud was surrounding the mountain clearly delineated with its greenish glow and crackling with lightning. A ripple of wind forced the air into their lungs as they stood there, and the earth shook as it had the day Etrusia imploded.

"Crevan! To the sea!!!!" He yelled as they both began to leap rocks and shrubs in an effort to reach the shore before the toxic cloud could reach them. They could both see it widening its scope at an alarming pace. Soon it would touch them all. How long could they live once the air had been cleansed if they weren't adaptable?

The waves were close, Rion shed his outer wear and dove headlong into the crashing surf, submerging himself just seconds before the cloud reached them. He felt the ripples as the water around him shimmered with life, small strange animals appearing out of nowhere and attaching to his skin. The water above and around him teemed reddish gold with their strange small slippery bodies. He closed his eyes and hoped he could stay submerged long enough to out last the effects of the healing, toxic cloud.

"Kara!" He cried out in Zalez.

"I am here, Rion!" Her voice was strong, although far away. "Are you safe?"

"I have revoked my assimilations! I am in the sea as the cloud reaches us." He tried to believe she would also be safe, but he knew she was closer to the mountain.

"I have revoked my kai already." Her tone was fierce and determined, and he found comfort as he struggled for consciousness. "The air shimmers with its healing. I can breathe it and not die!"

"Will you come to me here?"

"As soon as we can move. Oh, Rion! I wish you could see my brother! He rides Talisman as he directs the healing of the planet! They are aloft!" She gave him a bright image, just as he witnessed from her eyes the terrible blackness of the eruption far too close to her.

"Kara! Kara!"

Rion's breath exploded from his chest in fractured pockets of crystalline air that rose as he rose to the surface, hoping the cloud had passed.

"Kara!" She did not answer, and his immediate reaction was to somehow get back to the erupting mountain and find her, she had to be saved.

He surged out of the water and in his mind cried out to Jayce and Terryn. "Come as fast as you can to the water, brothers! Come! Drop it all and run!"

"No need brother, the dragon, and its rider have explained to us the need, and we are even now dumped into the sea nearby you." Terryn's mind voice was the most welcome relief he had yet experienced.

Having just seconds before been told that Galantyne himself rode the blue dragon, Rion's eyes searched the heavens for a sign of this miracle, but he was disappointed that nothing could be seen except the greenish black cloud.

Rion trudged up the rumbled shells poking his bare feet. "When did the dragon come to you?"

"Soon after you left this morning, brother, the dragon had unleashed the healing inside the mountain and was then searching for you at the Queen's request, but found us instead."