Dragons Rising ✔️

Ch 66: Traitor

I wanted to stand and face our attacker, but it took my last scrap of strength just to stay upright. Just as suddenly as the terrible light had come, it disappeared, and I felt a little better.

"That worked well," Farot said. He was standing in the middle of the unconscious crowd of katalnis. There was a melon-sized metal orb in his hands. The soft light coming off the orb made my head ache. Bylanna and Farot's other riders stood nearby with their thunderbeasts.

Farot glanced my way and seem to notice me for the first time. "Oh, Ella. Come. We will go to the portal now. Their leader told me where they put it. Bring your friends."

Kuertis stepped out from behind a fallen red katalni with Tawny. "We're already here."

Clarisa cleared her throat as she moved around a violet katalni. "Same."

"Then let us go. We have a portal to open." Farot mounted the nearest thunderbeast. Its rider had been killed in the cold desert by the frazin riders, so he rode alone. He directed the rest of us to pair up with several of his other riders. I sat behind Bylanna and glanced over at Clarisa, who kept giving me a strange look. She was tugging at her sleeve, too, and when I shrugged in confusion, she huffed.

She lifted her sleeve a little to reveal the reddish hilt of a dagger. Unfortunately for her, I still wasn't sure what I was supposed to do with the Dragoneye Dagger when we got to the portal.

When we set out, Bylanna started trying to convince me in whispered tones that I should destroy the portal. Farot didn't tell us exactly where the portal was, but since we spent the next hour flying towards the only mountain on the island, I guessed it was probably in a cave.

My suspicions about the portal's location were confirmed when we landed on a relatively fat flat area just outside a silver arch in the side of the mountain. We went in on foot, but the thunderbeasts came with us. Bylanna was finally silent when we entered the cavernous tunnel inside.

I edged away from her and met up with Kuertis and Tawny. Neither of them said anything, neither to me nor to each other. As angry as I'd been at them, they would possibly be my only allies if I chose to free the mindstones.

"I'm sorry for what I said on the beach. You were right. When all this started, I didn't know dragons were sentient any more than you two did."

They were quiet for second.

Tawny gave me a nervous half-smile. "Apology accepted."

"Forget it happened," Kuertis added.

I remembered what Flametongue had said about Kuertis being a half-blood. I'd suspected it before, but knowing that it really was true, I wondered again why he hadn't told me. Now wasn't the time to confront him about it. We needed to be united in our effort to oppose Farot. After this was all over, we would definitely be talking about it, though.

We continued on into the cave for quite some time, Farot leading us with an extra-large glow orb floating along beside him. No one talked much, though Tawny kept staring at her feet and murmuring what sounded like prayers the whole time.

I looked at the walls as we walked. They were covered in charcoal drawings and claw etchings of katalnis and bipeds. Some even depicted what I thought were mages. They certainly look like a mix between katalnis and bipeds—two legs, along with wings, tails, and sometimes claws. I wondered if my father had really looked like that beneath whatever illusions he wore to look like an elent. It certainly changed how I'd always imagined him.

After a long while of walking, Farot stopped in the middle of the tunnel and turned to face us. "Before we go deeper, I need to know your loyalty."

"You already know our loyalties. We came to help you in your quest to win the war with Lykela," I said.