This one still sticks quite closely to the actual story, but it will start to steer off a bit during this chapter and definitely later :)
To these words, Mezza fell asleep. But Amanda couldn't sleep. She knew what had happened to Salamander and, even more important, what would happen the next morning. Frankly speaking, she had always wondered what this character in her book looked like, even considered that he might be beautiful; never had she dreamt that he would be as handsome as he now was. She knew that she had fallen for him and by reading the book she knew that he had feelings for her as well.
That was what spurred her to make a decision. She had to make sure that Salamander was able to survive the act in the morning. Therefore, she rose and carefully crawled out of Mezza's warm embrace, standing a safe distance away before she dared contacting her with her mind.
The golden dragon came to life at once, scrambling up to her feet. Amanda thanked herself for being cautious.
"What's wrong?" Mezza asked. "Are there Meradan around?"
Amanda shook her head.
"It's Ebañy", she said. "He's in danger."
"Da's with him", Mezza said.
"No, magical danger", Amanda quickly responded. "Please, Mezza, can you take me to him? It will take us a few hours, but please, I need to help him."
Mezza considered this for a few moments.
"You love him, don't you?" she said and flashed her pointed teeth in a grin. Amanda blushed.
"I don't know", she managed to send back. "I really, really care about him."
Mezza laughed a silent, rumbling laugh as to not wake her siblings in the cave.
"Climb onto my back, we'll find them."
Rori lay on the rocky outcrop, watching his brother moving in trance while he controlled the huge image of Alshandra that drifted through the valley. The dragon still remembered Amanda's warning; something dangerous was about to happen. Therefore he refused to fall asleep in the rising sun. Every muscle in his body made him ready to fly down and divert the enemy's attention from his vulnerable brother.
Therefore he heard the beats of Mezza's wings long before anyone else. He turned his head and spotted his golden daughter in the sky, a sign which made her land some distance away, out of sight from the Horsekin. Rori then noticed how a figure jumped down from Mezza's back and ran forward to him.
"Amanda, by every God, what are you doing here?" he asked in his mind.
"The iron, Rori", she answered as she climbed up the cliff. "The iron of the falcatas is draining Salamander. If he does not return now he'll die!"
"I'll take flight, see if he can notice me", Rori responded and rose his massive wings, flapped them a couple of times to gain height before he swooped down towards the disoriented mass below. He saw Amanda run down to Salamander's trembling body and vaguely heard his brother scream in pain, before he turned to focus on the task at hand. He wanted a horse for breakfast and Mezza was doubtlessly hungry as well.
Salamander managed to sit up and saw how the free image of Alshandra drifted away through the valley. He was too drained to call it back, too drained to even sit up to tell the truth. He leaned back, waiting for the cliff to form a rest for his sore body, but instead a couple of warm arms caught him and forced him to lie down once again. His tired eyes blinked towards the shape of a human, he heard a soft muttering and then felt how a hand pressed a piece of cloth against his nose. The burning feeling told him that his quick return to his physical body had burst a vein and that he was bleeding.
The muttering continued as his strength gradually returned and he was able to focus on the one who was taking care of him. He managed to smile when he saw that it was Amanda, but she didn't smile back. Her face was like a mask of worry, her eyes were blank and he realized that she was blaming herself for not warning him; that she knew that this would happen.
"It's alright", he mumbled. "I'll be fine."
Even though she did not understand what he was saying, she quickly shook her head and said something in the Alban tongue. By the tone he guessed that she said something like 'it was my fault'.
As the nosebleed gradually came to a stop, she helped him sit up and handed him his water bottle. He drank it all, despite it tasting meaty thanks to the blood that he had in his mouth. Amanda kept biting her lip as if forcing back the tears.
"I do not blame you", he said softly. "You couldn't do anything; you would have changed the outcome of all of this."
She didn't turn to look at him. Instead she looked up in the sky where Rori was, the sound of his wings growing louder as he circled down to land close by.
"What happened to you?" he asked as he put the horse down.
"I made the entrance too quick, it's just a nosebleed", Salamander answered.
"And two black eyes, and according to Amanda you are going to see more injuries in the following days", Rori said sharply. "I'm glad you managed to get back in time."
"I need to wash off in the stream, I…" Salamander begun, staggering to his feet.
"No, you both need to get onto my back", Rori interrupted. "The wretched Meradan are climbing up the cliff-side, I'm going to roll this horse down on them."
Amanda quickly grabbed onto Salamander and helped him sit down between the two usual spikes, before she climbed in behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist to steady herself. If his body wasn't so sore, he would have cherished that moment even more. Now his hands ached as he grabbed onto the rope in front of him and in a few places they started to bleed.
"Let's go, then", he said. With those words, Rori took flight, grabbed the horse and tossed it down the cliff. Salamander felt how Amanda turned her head as to not see the animal break into pieces.
Not until then he noticed Mezza rising from the other side of the cliff and joining them in the air.
"She brought Amanda here", Rori said, answering his unspoken question as they headed back to the lair. Salamander only nodded, then decided to focus on staying awake.
When they landed next to the old watchtower, Amanda jumped off first and managed to help him get down safely enough. His body ached even more after the flight and for a while he only lay on the ground, panting. When he looked up again, Devar had joined them while Mezza had flown up to her older sister, doubtlessly telling her what had happened.
"Is Uncle Ebañy hurt?" the small dragon asked.
"No", Salamander answered and slowly sat up. "Or rather, yes, I am hurt, but not dying."
He meant to say this to both Devar and Amanda, but the later was focusing on getting his bedroll and saddlebags down from Rori's back.
"Amanda says that you need to rest", Devar said. "She blames herself…"
He quickly shut his mouth when Amanda glared at him. The sight made Rori laugh a bit.
"You shut him up just like his mother does", he said, then turned towards his brother.
"I'm going to hunt, I'll bring you back some venison."
"My thanks", Salamander said, then rose and managed, with a bit of help from Devar, to get to the spring and fill his water bottle. When he returned Amanda had laid out his blankets and beckoned for him to lie down once again.
"It wasn't your fault", he said softly as he did so. "Really, it… it was… me…"
The last sentence was cut off as he fell asleep.
Amanda sat still beside the sleeping elf, her arms wrapped around her knees as she watched him. It had been too close. She didn't doubt that Salamander would be able to see that the cord binding him to his body had grown thin because of the iron – he had done that in the version of the book before her interference – but she knew from reading the new text that he had been thinking about her a lot during his earlier flight with Rori. Her presence might have disturbed his concentration.
Devar was still on the ground, lying close to his uncle, his dark eyes focusing on Amanda's troubled face.
"Uncle Ebañy will be alright, you know", he said silently. "And he does not wish you to worry about him like this."
"It was my fault, whatever he says about it", Amanda answered. "I could have warned him… he could have… could have done it differently if I…"
She wiped away a few tears with the back of her hand. The sound of her friend crying made Mezza float down from the cave and land beside her, then wrapping Amanda in her long neck as if embracing her.
"He will be alright", Mezza assured her as she cried against the golden scales. "He will have bruises, no doubt, but he'll still be alive. Maybe thanks to you."
"See?" Devar said and seemed to grin. "You saved him, you should be happy."
Amanda forced a smile, but she doubted that it looked anywhere near a smile, more like a grimace.
"Medea is off to get you some firewood", Mezza continued. "I know that you cannot eat meat right off the bone like we can. Honestly, you should try, it tastes a lot better."
"Our stomachs can't handle it", Amanda muttered, then shared a quiet laugh with the two dragons because of the mere comment. Then they sat in silence until the last of Amanda's tears had dried up. By that time Medea had dropped an entire pine tree, dead by the looks of it, into the roofless tower. Amanda rose and stretched.
"I'll go and pick some of that wood for the fire, you can go back up to the cave and wait for your father", she said. Mezza touched her face to hers for a brief moment before she raised her wings and flew back up. Devar, however, stayed on the ground.
"I'll stay with Uncle Ebañy", he said firmly. Amanda thought of him as a human boy of about seven or eight years, considering his way of speaking. He was almost like a little brother to her, a thought that made her smile as she walked into the tower.
Salamander woke abruptly, feeling a few drops of sweat falling down his back. He had, in his dream, seen the Horsekin camp, as it was now, but somehow the vision had also involved Amanda. She had been captured by their enemies. He had seen how the soldiers had grinned towards him, as if seeing him, then how one of them had cut Amanda's head off with his falcata.
The reality of the dream caused him some trouble when it came to remembering where he was. It was the vinegar smell of dragon that made him realize that he was by the dragons' lair and that Devar was lying close by. The young dragon was looking at him.
"Are you truly well, Uncle Ebañy?"
"Well enough", Salamander answered and sat up. "A bit hungry. How about you?"
"Very, but Da will bring us something good", Devar said and sounded confident. "He always does."
Feeling guilt sweep down on him because of that the hatchling did not know that they were trying to break Rori's spell, Salamander quickly decided to get a vision of the army that was truer than his dream.
"I need to scry", he said. "Do you know what that is?"
"I do, Mama does it every now and again", Devar answered. "I'll be silent, I promise."
Salamander blinked in surprise at the fact that Arzosah knew how to scry, before he lay back down and used the clouds above as focus.
Once the vision had ended and he had ensured himself that Amanda was not among the dead bodies in the Horsekin camp he was exhausted, and noticing that the clouds had now turned pink told him that Rori would show up any minute with his prey. Sure enough; as he sat up both he and Devar heard the beating of wings coming closer. When the silver wyrm came into sight Devar leapt to his feet.
"Dinner!" he shouted and shook his wings, ready to fly up.
"You go eat, I need to find some firewood", Salamander said and managed to smile.
"Amanda's on it already", Devar said. "Medea fetched some and put it in the tower, Amanda's there right now."
Then he leapt into the air and soared up to greet his father. Salamander watched him disappear before he slowly got to his feet and staggered towards the old door leading into the tower. Amanda was standing with her back towards him next to an old pine that Medea had obviously dropped into the tower, by the looks of the dead bark, splinters and fallen off branches that lay around the place. Salamander felt like weeping with joy, because although he had ensured that she wasn't in the Horsekin camp he had been worried when she was not around when he woke up. He therefore strode up to her and embraced her from behind, making her drop whatever wood she had picked up. She stood completely still in his arms as he ensured himself that she really was there, that it had only been a nightmare.
As he slowly released her, though, she turned around in his arms to look at him. He noticed the red lines in her eyes and realized that she had been crying. Carefully he raised one of his hands and stroked her cheek with his thumb.
"I thought… I saw…"
He wasn't sure how to begin to describe what he had seen so that she could read the translation in the book later on. It felt so wrong to say something now and then wait for her to read what the book had translated it to.
Obviously she felt that too, because she shook her head and placed a finger on his lips. He wondered if he had ever felt such delicate fingers touch his mouth before, if anything so soft ever had. He got an answer a moment later when she reached up and kissed him. Never could anything be as soft as those lips were, gently moving against his own as to not cause him any further pain than he was already in.
The pain, however, did not matter to him anymore. All he needed to heal was her touch, her scent, the feeling of her lips against his. He let his hands trail up her back and into her hair and heard himself moan at the feeling. That caused her to break the kiss. She looked down onto the ground, biting her lower lip as she did, before carefully glancing up at him again.
"I love you", he whispered.
