Dragon: A Histories of Purga Novel

Chapter Eleven

 A flood of white, intense light lit up the darkness. Darvian, his mother, and his sister stopped in their tracks as that light threw their shadows ahead of them. They turned around but the light winked out and they couldn't see a thing. Then the screaming started and his mother grabbed his hand and squeezed it as hard as she could. He could feel her sharp nails digging into his skin but he didn't let it bother him.

His jaw set into a hard line and he forced the very real fear that his father was dead to the back of his mind.

Keep going. Never look back.

He clenched and unclenched his teeth, popping out the muscles of his jaw into stark relief.

"Let's go," he said, his voice commanding. He could see that his mother and sister were about to cry. He looked at their eyes and saw the hope that Quent Tims was still alive wither and die. It hurt him to the core to see that. To experience it. But he shoved that to the back of his mind as well and pushed all of them to keep going.

"Never look back," he said, letting the words fill his mind. He let them stoke a fire of resolve in the center of his chest.

He grabbed his mother's hand first and then Aeri's. He forced himself to keep looking ahead at the endless stretches of woods and trees.

They walked like that for hours. He kept a hard pace, one that the girls had trouble keeping up with. Finally, his mother collapsed to the ground, crying hysterically. He stopped and waited for her to get up, but she never did.

"Please," she whispered. "Please."

He knelt down next to her, putting a comforting hand on her back. She looked up at him with miserable, sad eyes.

"Okay," he responded. "We'll make camp here. Aeri?"

His sister looked at him, her eyes weary and half-lidded. She looked as if she was going to pass out from pure exhaustion at any second.

He gave the pack to her.

"Hold this," he said quickly. "And make us some mattresses. I'll put up a tent."

She picked a blueprint and the mechpaks on her arms opened. The nanos quickly converged into three different mattresses, each one as soft as feathers. Aeri had always teased him relentlessly about being able to adjust her nanos to make things soft. It had been a constant irritant to him that he had never mastered the skill, but he was glad she'd been able to now.

With his own nanos, he created a somewhat bigger dome than before and added a floor to it so they wouldn't have to worry about insects. He kept the inside of the tent opaque and made sure to cloak the outside. He also formed two small, stream-lined planes that hovered in the air. He looked at both of them and sent them flying out of the tent. They would patrol the perimeter around their little camp and if they found anything, they would alert him instantly.

When he was done creating what they needed for the night, he went to their mother and guided her inside the tent. She lay on one of the mattresses and went to sleep. Aeri went in next and was fast asleep a second later, but Darvian stayed awake. He didn't allow himself the luxury of dropping his guard. He had to protect them. He had to make sure they stayed safe. It was his father's last request and he'll be damned if he was going to fail in that promise.

He tried to make himself stay awake but eventually, however, exhaustion swept over him too and he fell back on the mattress, asleep before his head even hit it.

That night, he dreamed of many things. Most of it was about nasty battles, pulses of red light, explosions. Death. Blood. He saw the mutilated corpses of his friends. His family. His sister. His mother. His father's sightless eyes peered at him as if condemning him for their deaths. Accusing him of even being alive, as if that were some kind of insult.