Dragons Rising ✔️

Ch 25: Trial

"First thing's first, we need to choose a leader." Raven put her hands on her hips. "Obviously, it should be me."

I mimicked her pose. "You do, do you?"

She scowled. "Yes, I do. When I was leader during practice exercises, we always won."

"And half of us ended up dead or injured. I wouldn't exactly call that winning."

"It's better to die for a successful cause then to have everyone live and be slaves to the enemy."

"Of course, so long as you aren't the one dying, right?" My temper flared, but it wasn't accompanied by fire. My lessons with Callah had done that much.

"I would willingly die a thousand times over to end this war. Fear has never stopped me before, and it never will," she shouted.

"What fear?" I asked, jaw tight. "You think you know fear, living in safe, little Marysburg your whole life? I know-" It was all I could do to stop myself from saying exactly why I had such a close relationship with fear.

"You what?" She spat on the ground. "Don't you dare tell me you know more about fear than I do. You have no idea what it's like having a filthy beast clawing at your throat while you fight for your life."

I took a step back, trying to keep my face clear of emotion. I didn't know what to say. What would a normal talme say?

"Does anyone else honestly think they'd be a better leader than me?" Raven asked the others.

No one responded, so she launched into explaining her plan. Apparently, Liz, Raven, and Tawny would go after our opponents' gemstone while I stayed back to guard ours. After that was decided, we set up our tents and went to bed early.

The next morning, Raven woke me up while it was still dark. It took me a second to realize why my room seemed so small and tent-like.

"Remember the plan?" she asked as soon as we were all standing in the middle of the clearing. There was enough moonlight that I could see everyone's outline but not much else.

Why had she dragged us out here so early?

Tawny yawned. "Your plan lacks several key details."

"I know everything that needs to happen. I just didn't say it all in case we were being watched."

"The competition has yet to begin. They shouldn't be observing us."

"That doesn't mean they aren't. Let's go." Raven climbed into her dragon's saddle and looked down at us.

Liz shook her head. "Tawny's right. The competition hasn't started yet."

"Which gives us the element of surprise. Come on."

Tawny hesitated a second before mounting her dragon. Liz looked like she wanted to argue, but she just shrugged her shoulders and mounted up.

As soon as they had taken off, I went back to my tent and retrieved the purple gemstone, a sword, a bow, and a quiver—all of which Sarafin had provided the day before. After equipping the weapons, I tucked the gemstone under my arm and went to sit on a fallen tree at the edge of the clearing.

I traced a knothole in the wood with my tail. "Raven is going to get us disqualified."

[Probably,] Leera said with a grunt. She was crouching in the middle of the clearing and peering out into the trees.

I sat there for quite a while. Raven had given me no instructions other than to stay in the clearing and watch the gemstone. Our opponents hadn't shown hide nor hair of themselves, so other than yawning occasionally, I had nothing to do. Eventually, the sun peeked over the tops of the trees, illuminating the forest with an amber glow.

Just when I had counted the twenty-second ant climbing across the fallen tree, Leera's head jerked up. She took a deep breath, apparently having scented something.

"What is it?" I bolted to my feet. Anything would be better than waiting for someone to come and steal the gemstone from me.

[Someone's coming. It's an elent,] Leera said.

I ran to her and quickly climbed into her saddle. Before she could stand, a flaming metal rod the length of my arm flew out of the trees and right at Leera's face. When she tried to dodge, it followed her movements and caught her on the nose. As soon as it touched her, she jerked back and hissed with pain. The rod flew away a few feet before rounding on me.

I drew my sword to fend it off. [Take off.]

We took to the skies, but the rod followed, diving at my face and arms. I managed to beat it off with the sword, but I couldn't swing hard enough to really hurt it with the gemstone under one arm.

[Try to lose it,] I said.

Leera flew faster, but the rod was just as fast. It darted around one of my swipes and smashed into my forehead. It was all I could do not to drop the gemstone. I wanted to grab the rod and quench its flames, but the rod's controller was probably nearby. I couldn't let them see me using elent magic.

The rod zipped away and hit Leera right between the eyes. She swerved, clipping her wing on a tree. Leaves and branches rushed around us for a split second before we crashed to the ground. I ended up in the dirt, spitting out bits of grass. Leera wasn't moving.