The Ashes Wake

Chapter 24: Raiden

Raiden
"All is well on the Joka Mountains. The dragons are happy and we have even been blessed with two new births this season. Their Dracofilli caretakers have named one Dinera and the other Chevlan. Perhaps even better news is that recruitment is beginning, and our older Dracofilli have found wonderful younglings to replace them. As my sixteenth Origen day draws near and my time on the Joka Mountains must end, I know I will always have fond memories and even fonder friends."

Seasonal update letter to the Royals from Dracofilli Leader Tenison Adams
6890 Year, Novus Season

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They left quietly. There'd been no major disturbance, no battle cries of protest, no ruffled fur or fangs or snarls. Raiden was thankful of course, but it was almost too strange of a change with how tumultuous the past few days with Trifica had been.

He glanced behind his shoulder-at the wolf boy and the Kalied whose tongue controlled the Realm's fate. What an odd group they created. The two were deep in conversation; at least, as deep as dialogue could get with Rom's poor vocabulary and grammar.

It wasn't his fault of course. Raiden admired the other boy creature for seeming so put together with the unfolding events. Though, he supposed that wouldn't last for long. When they finally reached Maekaryan City it would be a shock. Going from a recluse, frozen forest to the biggest, busiest metropolis in the kingdom wouldn't sit well.

Trifica gave a girlish laugh from behind, and Raiden felt a twinge in his stomach. What were they talking about that was so funny?

He swallowed the feeling though, thick in his throat. He didn't really know either of them, and it would go back to that once they finished all this business. Romulus would presumably leave him and Trifica once they got to the Keeper of Records-the wolf boy would surely want to locate his family and say, Hey, I'm not dead! It's me-your son who was a wolf for most of his life!

Or that was at least how Raiden assumed it would go.

A sudden snap of a twig to his left made him look, but it was only a gnome scurrying back towards its home. He'd forgotten it was novus, and that creatures would excavate out from their restful homes on the quest for food and rebirth.

How many novuses had he seen? How many times had the moons and suns turned above his head? It was too many to count.

And yet-Raiden couldn't remember a time he had last been in this forest, and certainly never under these circumstances. He let his eyes indulge in the landscape-who knew when he'd be back? Or if the forest itself would even be there, after all of this.

It was a sacred place, really. Creatures hadn't diluted the green of the foliage or tainted the ground red with their destructive tendencies. The Frost Forest was untouched by civilization, by Royalty, or by coin. Not many places like that existed. The only other Raiden could think of was Cold Colony, home to the Frozen Folk.

Those lands he cherished deeply. It was sister to the forest, similar in its purity and cruel primitiveness. It was a place to disappear in. There, as well as the Unscaled Peaks, Raiden had completed his training from the Sage Witches. Having no creature for miles in every direction was necessary for the activities he had to carry out and endure.

It was eating him alive now-not being able to harness the energy that coursed throughout every artery and collected in each cell. His ring, melted and cracked, could not help him. No kind of damage had ever been suffered by it, yet let it be during his most important endeavor that it did. Of course.

"Damned Asidi can rot in the void," he spat with as much acid as the venomous creature itself.

"What are you mumbling about?" Trifica asked.