Flames [Slow Updates]

Chapter Fourteen

The Dragon Mother was right. I couldn't have missed it.

The fortress rose out of the woods, the tower on the side looking like it was reaching up to try and touch the moon. The other tower had collapsed into the rubble that littered the ground and made me step carefully. In fact, the rest of the fortress was pretty much in ruins. Only the single, unblemished tower stood straight in the moonlight.

"Okay," I said, lowering myself onto a rock. "So that's that."

I had been Sam for a little less than a month by then, and I was growing used to it. I wasn't as careful, as fastidious, with my surroundings now. I was halfway done learning to tolerate thumps to my back, and how to travel rough. Once, I had even taken a swig of brandy when it was passed around.

Sam was the son of a poor farmer, and he was headed to the coast in search of work as a sailor. He didn't know as of yet if he got seasick or not (Samantha didn't), but he was hoping that he didn't because it would be hard to find work otherwise. These facts I had amassed on my trip, but that was as far as I had gone to flesh out his identity. It was suprising how little imformation people actually asked for about a person. That definitely had worked in my favor.

The wind shifted slightly. I pulled my hat off and unpinned my hair, wrestling it out of its tight braids. It was decidedly wavy now. I wondered, absently, how long it would last. Loose strands blew in my face.

Now, I felt happier. My journey was at an end.

The last group I had travelled with, the ones who had passed around the brandy, had flat out refused to come near here. When they talked of it, they had continually performed the strange gesture that was their version of crossing themselves. They said the place was evil. That didn't give me much confidence about the fortress.

It felt strange to have weight down my back, and not feel the tightness of my scalp from the pins and braids. Now, it fluttered vaguely around my shoulders.

What was this place? I had no idea. What was the question the Dragon Mother had instructed me to ask? Something about the lapis lazuli shrine in Athnams. I knew the answer to it, at least.

The shrine had been right. I was betrayed the next day, by Alabaster. This world, though unfamiliar at first, had rules too. Once I had drawn the parallels between this place and the real world, it was easy to adapt myself to fit here.

The wind washed over my tired skin, blowing through my hair, across my face, into my lungs. The air was so cold it nearly burned.

Alabaster had been here. I knew this because of the village, just a few hours east that we had come to earlier that day. Even nearly a week after his visit, the streets were still fancied up. Colourful streamers had swooped far over my head, and a few had trailed to the ground, where they were trampled and dirty.

But I also knew this because of the footprints everywhere in the muddy ground; the swaths of trampled dead grass and the scraped up trees. Alabaster seemed to have brought an entire army with him. 

What was he thinking? I had evaded him sucessfully so far, despite quite a few close calls. Was he irked? Did he care anymore? Had the search for me been cast aside, deemed a lost cause? Was he searching for something else now? For a suposed recluse, he got out a lot.

Sometimes, I felt an itch, a very faint tug at the back of my mind, directing me to go back and turn myself in. It was always a weak complusion, however. I never struggled to disobey it. Even though the Dragon's bond was gone, I still felt it sometimes, like a phantom pain.

 The grass hissed at my feet, creating a harmony of sorts with the rustling leaves overhead. I could see each blade of grass clearly in the dark. Something called out in the distance.