The Rise of Light (Book 3: Together Forever)

Father

Osmund's POV

There was something up with Vera recently. She would disappear in the mornings and if someone saw her she would wait for them to get distracted and then slip away.

I had realized it about a month ago. How we wouldn't see her for the entire morning and then she would appear out of nowhere in the middle of the day. If I was being honest with myself, I could say I had noticed her odd behaviour months ago and had only recently put any thought behind it. And it's not like today was the first time I had tried to follow her. But I had always been too late or I had lost track of her.

But today, I was ready. And today I would find out why she was acting so strangely.

It was around dawn when she slipped out, at least that's what my internal clock told me.

I kept my steps light and stayed in the shadows as I followed her. Whenever she looked around, I feared she would see me and make a loop back home. It was her constant alertness that clued me in about a week ago that she really was hiding something and that it wasn't just my imagination.

I saw a familiar girl up ahead. At first, when I saw that she was waving, I thought she had spotted me, but when Vera landed and hugged her I realized that she'd been waving at Vera instead.

The started talking in a foreign language as I approached them cautiously.

Vera laughed at something the girl said and I found myself wondering what they were talking about.

Thanks to Freya I had better hearing than my father when he was in his human form. So when I heard a rock slide down to my left my gaze snapped over there and I saw something else lurking in the shadows. 

A flash of light caught on them, revealing a tiny dart.

My gaze snapped from them to Vera and as they inhaled sharply I leapt at Vera. She noticed me a millisecond before I hit her. I saw her eyes widen as I pushed her out of harm's way.

Thanks to my moment we were surrounded by dust, depriving whoever had just attempted to hurt Vera of a target and also allowing us to get up before the tried to finish the job.

I grabbed Vera's arm as I stood up and detected where the other girl was.

"What the-" I slapped a hand over her mouth.

"Not. A. Word," I hissed at her while opting to use dragonease to make sure that the message got across.

I grabbed the other girl's arm while making sure to create even more dust as it was already settling.

I scanned the area, checking for any signs that they were there before jumping off the cliff and pulling them both with me, much to the other girl's chagrin. I struggled to pull us up from the dive before we crashed to our deaths. And if I could, I would've kicked the girl for screaming the whole time.

"Shut up, we're not going to die," I told her as quietly as possible. Although, we might if you keep screaming.

"Osmund, what is going on?" Vera hissed at me.

"Explain later. I need you to shift and if you don't keep quiet we will all die." She looked at Vera who said something in a different language. The girl shut up after that.

"You're gonna have to drop me if you want me to shift. I'll carry Maylis." I nodded in acceptance because if we continued at this pace we would get caught.

I let go of Vera, who landed in a roll before springing to her feet immediately and shifting mid-leap and rising up just beneath me so that I could drop the girl onto her back.

When Vera gave the all clear that there was no-one nearby we landed.

"First things first, Osmund this is Maylis. Maylis this is my cousin Osmund."

"Osmund Haddock?" She asked in a thick accent. I looked at her closer.

"How did-?"

"You two met at the dance last night," Vera stated, exasperated.

"Vera how could you!" I said while she said something in another language.

We started yelling at Vera, forgetting the fact that someone was trying to kill us, well at least Vera.

After several minutes, and a lot of cursing later Vera shouted, "I know! I know! Thor save me!" We shut up at that. "I get it. I shouldn't have lied to you, Osmund, but I was trying to protect Maylis."

"How were you protecting me?" Maylis asked.

"Your village is a dragon hunter village. Most dragons have a kill-first-ask-questions-later mentality."

"Men-tal-lit-ee?"

"Way of thinking," Vera clarified, Maylis just nodded in understanding.

"So how long has this been going on?"

"Over a year," Vera sighed. "Can we please focus on the more important problem at hand? Why did you knock me out of the way and why were you so keen on keeping us quiet?"

I was stopped from answering when a dart landed a millimetre from my foot. "Yeah... That's why..."

Whoever it was stepped out of the shadows.

"If it isn't Vera and Osmund Haddock..." He drawled. I stared at him. Something seemed familiar.

"Who are you?" I demanded while stepping in front of my cousin who was growling at him.

"My dear, Osmund. I'm your father."

Astrid's POV

Something was wrong. Call it a mother's intuition or whatever, but I knew something had happened to Osmund.

"Zeph, Nuffink. Stay in the house. Do not let anyone in unless you know them. And under no circumstances tell anyone when I will be back, except your father."

"Mom... You're freaking me out-"

"It's okay. I will be back in an hour." I left them inside without another word. "Stormfly. I need you to guard the house. No-one goes in unless you know them and no-one goes out until I get back."

Her egg was also inside a secret hiding place beneath the hut so she had extra incentive to guard the house besides wanting to protect my children, her niece and nephew.

"I will be back," I told her, although it was really more for myself than for her.

I ran through the streets and I spotted Ash following close beside me.

She leapt down in my path a nod of her head was all the permission I needed to jump on her back.

She took off in the direction of Osmund.