The Dragon Bond

Chapter 13

The rest of the day consisted of more exercises with Alan. He had her do lunges, lunges with weight, more running, backwards jogging, swimming, push ups, and more running. They only stopped to eat lunch, re hydrate, or when Ariana would collapse from exhaustion.

They continued to exercise until the sun went down.

"You should probably get cleaned up for dinner now," said Alan.

Ariana was overwhelmingly tired. She doubted she could even make the walk back to her room. "Are we done for the day?" she asked.

Alan smiled. "Yes, we're done for the day."

She let out an exasperated sigh of relief. "Thank goodness!" she exclaimed, still panting from their last workout.

"Just make sure you stretch when you get back to the room," he warned.

"I will, don't worry."

"I should probably walk you back," he offered, "Wouldn't want you collapsing with no one around," he teased.

Ariana rolled her eyes, but allowed him to escort her down the path back to the castle.

"Tomorrow on your way to the fields you should run out. That way you will warm up and get loose."

"Alright," she replied.

Alan looked at her. "You did really well today, by the way."

"Thanks," she said, blushing slightly. She had worked her hardest today and was grateful for the compliment. The entire day it had seemed like their efforts were useless, but maybe they were just the beginning of something great. 

"If you keep this up, you'll be doing magic effortlessly soon."

Ariana wondered what it would be like to do magic; wondered if it was really as draining as Alan said. Then her thoughts went to Fuego and she wondered how his flying lessons had gone. Could he be sore too?

When they reached the castle, Alan went to his own room, letting her go to her room by herself. As soon as she was in her room, she stretched her muscle as Alan had instructed. Then she stripped out of her dirty, sweaty clothes and took a bath. The hot water helped relax her sore body and relieve some tension.

After her bath, her maids helped her get dressed and fix her hair. She was so tired she almost fell asleep while they were brushing it. But her bath had taken longer than expected and she had to hurry to get down to dinner on time.

Everybody sat in the same seat as last night's dinner, with the addition of Sofia. She was seated closer to Jordan and, unfortunately, Ariana didn't get to talk to her friend. The food was good, but her aching arms could barely lift up the fork to feed herself.

To her embarrassment, she almost dozed off towards the end of dinner. Her eyelids grew heavier and heavier and her head slowly went down.

"Ariana!" she was jerked awake by the sound of Alan's voice in her head.

She immediately looked around to see if anyone else had noticed. It seemed that Alan was the only one. She looked at Alan with grateful eyes. "Thank you." she sent him.

He nodded his head and continued his meal. Ariana was too tired to continue eating and her body aches had diminished her appetite.

There was still food on her plate when dinner was over, but her glass of water had been refilled at least three times. Afterwards, she immediately made her way to her room, too tired to even make conversation with Sofia.

When she was in her quarters she put her nightgown on and got in bed, falling asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.

Once awake the next morning, she crawled out of bed and got dressed. As soon as she was standing, she felt every sore spot on her body. Her legs throbbed, she could barely extend her arms, her stomach was tight, and her feet were blistered from running so much. She slowly hobbled over to her table and ate breakfast, then changed into clean clothes. The clothes she had worn yesterday were being washed, so Alexia gave her a wardrobe full of similar clothing. Her maids had worked all day yesterday sewing her new wardrobe while Ariana had trained. Ariana was touched that her maids were so dedicated and considerate to have spent all that time for her comfort.