The Dragons' Crystal

Chapter Fourteen

"I'm glad you're on board with it!" Darius pulled his pack onto his lap, opening it up and reaching down into it. "Before I left home, I stole one of my father's maps. He marked it with several spots he thought the crystal had disappeared to. I figured it was worth a try to find her myself and at the very least, he'd have to get a new map if he wanted to find her." He shrugged. "Ah! Here it is!" He pulled out a scroll with obviously aged paper. It was rolled up, tied with a piece of brown leather. 

I watched impatiently as he carefully unrolled the scroll. With the recent discovery of the man I'd been seeing not being my father, I was eager to know the truth behind the dreams. If Allira was truly calling out to me, I wanted to help her in anyway I could and I wanted to do so as quickly as humanly possible. Between what Darius had told me about her and what I had experienced, it was imperative to find her soon. 

I couldn't help but wonder how a spirit like herself would have blended in. Had she taken on a form of those around her? Or had she remained a crystal simply waiting for someone with a pure heart and clean intentions to find her? Both sounded miserable, especially when it wasn't her purpose in this world. I didn't want to imagine willingly leaving your life behind to what you thought would have been a great thing, only to have it turned against you and have your powers be used to kill and pillage instead of to heal and bring justice. It only made me that more desperate to figure where she was hiding. Once in Darius' hands, things would be restored to their rightful glory. 

I eagerly looked over the stained map as it fully opened up. Several landmarks were spread across it, including my awful hometown of Erstonia. Three places were circled in black ink. The edges of the map were outlined with the bodies of dragons, their tails taking up a majority of the space. At the top were words printed in a language I, at first, didn't understand. I stared down each squiggle, barely recognizing it. The letters started to mix around, revealing themselves to me.

Au-dessous de notre maison

The letters shifted, their shape taking on one I understood. 

"Below our home?" I glanced up to Darius. "Oh! Below the home of dragons?"

Darius hesitated. Slowly, his confused eyes landed upon me. "You... Understand French?"

"...No." I eyed the lettering again. "I've never heard anyone speak French before. I assumed any French speakers were too far from here to be around." How had I been able to read it? Why had the letters transformed like that? "Why is this in French? Shouldn't it be in English? Or Irish?"

He cracked a smile. "Only our royal family and some servants were taught French. No one else knows it, allowing it to be our secret code. My father is able to exchange many secrets among his most trusted servants because of it. I'm surprised you were able to read that."

"I am too. When I first looked at it, I couldn't make it out at all. I didn't even know what language it was. The longer I stared at it, the more the shapes began to move and turn into something I understood." I gingerly ran my fingers across the words. They were starting to tremble, beginning to shift back into French.

"We'll look into that more later." His smile remained for seconds, his eyes lingering upon my face. 

I felt blessed beneath his gaze, despite the voice in the back of my head reminding me why I had left in the first place. How was it the one person that hurt me was the one I would get partnered with on a mission that had the possibility to determine the rest of my life? Perhaps if we found Allira, she'd be able to explain what was happening. She might even be able to break whatever force it was that caused pain between us.

Darius' fingers traveled across the map. It landed on a delicately drawn landmark. The mountains had been carefully etched in with a waterfall coming down from them. Little details of flowers had been painted beside the waterfall. An arrow pointed off to the side with a picture of several houses. A village, perhaps? Above the houses in neat cursive was the name of the village.