Chapter 25

Here Be Dragons

It was a dragon.

For a short, terrifying moment, Charla thought Cynder had found them. A second look proved that thankfully wrong. It was too small to be Cynder, and definitely too blue. Sunlight glinted off its luminescent white wings as it swooped around the craggy peak, blasting the rock with what looked like spears of ice. Charla gaped stupidly, until a distant scream jolted her back to her senses.

Meredy and Nuala were up there.

Before she'd so much as opened her wings, Lance was already airborne, his tail whipping past her snout as he rocketed into the sky. Charla staggered back as the wind buffeted her in his wake, then flared out her wings and leapt after him. Her heart beat a violent drum roll against her ribcage as she forced herself to fly faster, fixing her sights on the blue dragon above her.

She caught up to Lance in seconds and heard him yell something, but the wind whipped his words away before she could make sense of them. Whatever he'd said didn't matter. She'd just caught sight of Nuala darting out of the way of the blue dragon's ice spears. A pulse of fiery anger bled through Charla's chest and she pulled ahead, beating her wings harder. Flames rose in her throat.

With a raw, throaty yell, she spat out a fireball that arced through the sky, whistling shrilly, and slammed straight into the blue dragon's shoulder. It exploded in a burst of flame, and the dragon shrieked and pitched sideways, its scales smoking. A rush of satisfaction flooded Charla's veins. She flew up level with the stranger, who whirled on her with an audible snarl.

The first spear of ice streaked past her cheek with hardly a hair's breadth to spare, and Charla felt its ice-cold touch on her scales. She choked in a gasp and jerked backwards, beating her wings desperately. The blue dragon snarled at her, bearing a brilliant set of white fangs, but then seemed to hesitate. A look of great confusion passed over its face and, in the ensuing pause, Charla realised it was a dragoness. A second later, she was forced to dive out of the way of another ice-spear, but this one shot far over her head like it hadn't been intended to hit her.

"Stay out of my way!" an unfamiliar feminine voice shrieked somewhere above her.

Charla twisted and righted herself again, heart in her throat, and looked up in time to see the blue dragoness swoop towards the mountain peak once more. Her head darted from side-to-side, like she was searching for something, and Charla looked wildly for Nuala and Meredy. She spotted Meredy first, cowering under an overhang further around the peak. But as for Nuala...

Another shriek rent the air and Charla yelped as a great javelin of ice exploded against the rock-face above her.

"Where is it?" the blue dragoness yelled. "Where did it go?!"

Charla gritted her teeth and darted upwards with a few quick flaps, another fireball forming in her throat. If this dragoness didn't stop soon, she was going to hurt someone—if she hadn't already. She drew herself up, sucked in a breath through her nostrils, and fired. Her second fireball whistled by the blue dragoness's head, just close enough to scorch one of her long yellow horns. The dragoness whirled around, eyes blazing, and Charla flinched backwards as a piercing roar assaulted her eardrums.

For a split second, it looked like she was going to charge at Charla, but she never got the chance. Lance dived out of nowhere, with little warning but for an almost silent beat of his wings, and slammed forepaws-first into the centre of the stranger's back. With a scream and shriek, both of them plunged towards the face of the mountain in a tangle of green and blue. Charla uttered a wordless yell and shot after them, cold fear racing up her spine.

The blue dragoness writhed and squirmed as they fell, managing to twist herself around to face Lance and almost throwing him off in the process. He snarled and beat his wings, propelling himself into her chest. Charla gasped as another spear of ice fired from the dragoness's jaws, but it missed Lance by inches and shot high up into the sky. Charla had to dive to the side to avoid it. She righted herself just in time to see Lance and the dragoness about to collide with the mountainside.

Moments before they struck, Lance gave a great kick of his hind legs and leapt backward, disentangling himself with only seconds to spare. The blue dragoness twisted lithely but couldn't catch herself in time. She hit the mountainside hard on all fours and keeled over, rolling and twisting over the rocky earth, until her body came to a stop in a crumpled heap amongst the sparse vegetation.

Charla hovered in the air and stared down at her, breathing heavily. Lance moved back with a few beats of his wings, his eyes on the crumpled stranger, waiting for her to get up again. As Charla flapped to his side, he turned his head.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Yeah..." Charla said, breathlessly. "She didn't hit me."

Lance just grunted by way of response and started to descend towards the mountainside. With one more suspicious glance at the blue dragoness, who remained slumped in a heap, Charla followed. Shale crunched under their paws as they alighted not far from the dragoness, and the sound seemed to bring her back to her senses. With a groan, she lifted her head.

At first her eyes looked unfocused, but they sharpened as they came to rest on Charla and Lance. Her lip curled and she twisted around, wincing and snarling at the same time.

"Why did you attack me?" she growled, staggering on the uneven ground. There was something indignant about her anger, like she thought she hadn't done anything wrong.

Charla stared at her in disbelief. "You were attacking my friend!"

A flash of confusion passed over the stranger's face, but it disappeared quickly in the wake of her anger. "What are you talking about? I was hunting!"

"Hunting?" Charla frowned and, somewhere above her, a shrill, furious voice echoed the same word.

"Hunting?!"

Nuala came darting down the mountainside towards them, her eyes blazing and her face full of a fury Charla had never seen on her before. She pulled up with a sharp jerk of her feathered wings and glared at the stranger. "You were hunting me?! How dare you!"

The blue dragoness stared wide-eyed at Nuala, like she'd never seen anything like her before. All the anger seemed to have dropped suddenly from her bemused face. "You...can talk."

"Of course I can talk!" Nuala shrieked, gesturing wildly with a paw. "What did you think I was, some common flying rodent?!"

"Well..." The stranger eyed her cautiously, her tail twitching. "Yes."

Nuala drew in a sharp breath through her nose, and Lance chose that moment to intervene.

"She's a vulpala," he said, a hint of disdain creeping into his voice as he stared the dragoness down. "You must be starved if you're trying to hunt another sapiens."

Charla shot him a quick, curious look, and the blue dragoness's eyes widened, her face twisting into a mask of mortification and confusion.

"I would never—" She seemed to choke, her panicked gaze darting to Nuala and back to Lance again. "I thought vulpala were extinct!"

Nuala's eyes almost bugged out of her head and she darted towards the dragoness with wings spread wide. "Do I look extinct to you?!"

The stranger jolted back, wide-eyed. "Okay, okay! I'm sorry! Jeez. If I'd known you were a vulpala, I wouldn't have tried to hunt you in the first place."

A snarl rumbled in Nuala's throat. "Oh, I hope that's the truth, you beast. If you ever try to hunt a vulpala again, I hope you get what's coming to you."

With an angry snort in the blue dragoness's face, she wheeled around and fluttered back to Charla and Lance, her expression like thunder. Charla stared at her, but Nuala didn't meet her gaze. She'd never heard her sound so vehement before—so dangerous, even. It made the back of her neck prickle uncomfortably.

The blue dragoness looked equally startled, and maybe even a bit shaken. For the first time since she'd showed up, Charla let herself relax. Whoever this dragoness was, it didn't seem like she'd meant any harm—she'd just been looking for something to eat. She was young, too; at little more than a head taller than Lance, she was not yet full-grown.

The stranger unsteadily pushed herself upright, slipping a little on the gravel. Charla felt Lance tense up beside her, but she saw no threat in the dragoness's movements. If anything, she looked drained and exhausted. Apart from the small burn-mark on her left shoulder where Charla's fireball had struck, there was a half-healed slash-wound cutting across her flank that couldn't have been caused by their little tussle. Charla frowned.

"Where did you kids come from, anyway?" the stranger asked, eying them cautiously. "What are you doing out here in the mountains on your own?"

"We could ask you the same thing," Lance said, his voice cool. "You're not that much older than I am."

She fixed him with a scrutinising look, her amber eyes narrowing. "I'd say I'm at least four years older than you are. And even if I wasn't, I'm not alone."

Lance's eyebrow rose and Charla perked up.

"You're not?" she asked, her voice rising a little in excitement. "Are there other dragons with you?"

The stranger grinned at her. "Yeah, a few. They're not far from here. I just went off hunting on my own."

"How many is a few?" Lance asked with a frown.

"I can show you, if you'd like." The blue dragoness glanced down the mountain, towards the narrow valley below, before looking back at them. "You should come with me. My uncle will be interested to meet you. And besides, it's not safe for a bunch of kids to be wandering around in the wilds like this."

A spike of annoyance flared in Charla's gut at that, but it was feeble and faded quickly in the wake of her eagerness to meet other dragons. She'd certainly never expected to find any in the mountains. She glanced quickly at Lance, half expecting him to argue but hoping he wouldn't.

For a few seconds, he just stared at the blue dragoness like he was trying to see through her. But then he shrugged and said, "We seem to have survived so far. But fine, we'll go with you. I'm interested to know why there are dragons here in the mountains."

The blue dragoness snorted. "For the same reason you are, I bet."

In the brief silence that followed, the sound of shale and vegetation crunching underfoot caught Charla's ear. She glanced further up the mountain slope in time to see Meredy picking her careful way down towards them. Nuala hovered in front of her. Charla stared; she hadn't even noticed the vulpala leave. Meredy looked unharmed, at least, if a bit shaken.

The stranger raised her head, too, a little more sharply than Charla, like she expected an attack, but then her eyes fell on Meredy and she looked like she'd seen a ghost. Her mouth opened and closed wordlessly a few times. Then, with a snort, she shook her head.

"Alright, now this is just getting weird," she said, staring at Meredy. "Are you a sky serpent? What are you doing on the ground?"

Meredy hesitated on her next step, meeting the stranger's eyes nervously. Before she'd had a chance to open her mouth, Nuala glared at the blue dragoness and snapped, "None of your business."

The stranger raised an eyebrow. "Alright, fine. Just asking." Her eyes slid back to Charla and Lance, questioningly. "You're a pretty weird bunch, aren't you? Teslan's gonna be really interested to meet you."

"Teslan?" Charla echoed.

"My uncle," the blue dragoness said with a grin. "I'm Chelcie, by the way. Sorry about the whole 'attacking you' thing. I thought you were trying to steal my prey."

Nuala snarled, but Chelcie didn't react. Charla returned her grin. "I'm Charla. That's Lance, Nuala and Meredy."

"Great," Chelcie said, her gaze sweeping over all four of them. "A bunch of names to remember. Super." She twitched her wings and started to unfurl them, looking back down to the valley again. "How about we get going, then? Everyone's gonna start wondering where I am if I don't get back soon."

"Wait a sec!" Nuala yelped as Charla nodded and started to spread her wings. "Who said we're going with you?"

"I did," Lance growled, fixing her with a steely look. "Got a problem with that, fox?"

Her lip curled. "What if I do, big guy? Maybe I don't want to go with the beast who tried to hunt me to meet however many smelly dragons she's travelling with. Sounds like a bad time to me."

"Nuala!" Meredy hissed under her breath, just loud enough for Charla to hear.

Chelcie barked a sharp laugh that made both Charla and Meredy jump. She was grinning at Nuala, her eyes ablaze with amusement. "Like to hold a grudge, huh? I can respect that. But your friends clearly want to come with me, so what are you gonna do about that?"

Nuala snarled at her, but she soon turned her narrowed eyes on Charla. "Really, Char? You want to go, too? She tried to hunt me!"

"But that was just a mistake," Charla said with a shrug. "I want to see more dragons. C'mon, Nu."

It wasn't the first time she'd used Meredy's nickname for the vulpala, but Nuala seemed a little caught off guard by it. She turned her face away, her lower jaw jutting out sulkily, and didn't say anything for a moment. Then she grumbled and, almost inaudibly, muttered, "Oh, fine then. Whatever."

Charla grinned. "Thanks, Nu."

Chelcie spread her wings fully, their white membranes reflecting the sunlight almost blindingly. "So? Let's go!"

Without waiting for an answer, she took a running leap off the mountainside and soared into the sky, her long tail whipping out gracefully behind her. Charla hesitated just long enough for Meredy to clamber onto Lance's back, then flapped her wings and jumped after her, rising on the wind.

"This is a few?!"

Lance's yell was almost whipped away by the wind as, minutes later, they began their descent towards the far end of the valley. Charla could only gape at the throng of dragons gathered amongst the trees below. There had to be at least thirty of them—maybe even forty. She tried to count them as they descended, but kept losing track. Questions burned in her mind.

What were they doing there? Where had they come from? Where were they going?

Angling her wings, she pulled ahead until she was right on Chelcie's tail. Chelcie didn't seem to have heard Lance's cry; she just led them down towards a large clearing where the majority of the dragons were, not saying a word. As they approached, some of the dragons on the ground jolted and spun around, like they expected an attack, but seemed to relax when they saw Chelcie. They kept watching, however, and Charla could almost feel her scales burning under their curious looks.

Once they'd passed below the treetops, Chelcie folded her wings and dropped gracefully to the ground. The dragons there backed away to make room. Charla followed her, unable to keep from staring at them. They were all adults, as far as she could tell—Chelcie was easily the smallest amongst them—and they all looked tense, tired and wary. She even spotted a few bearing half-healed injuries, just like Chelcie—a torn membrane here, a slash-wound there. Charla almost didn't manage to tear her attention away from them in time to land.

In her distraction, she hit the ground harder than intended and had to jog forward a few steps to keep from keeling onto her face in front of everyone. When she righted herself, the surrounding dragons were all staring at her. Instinctively, she shrank closer to the dragon next to her—only to realise, upon bumping into a slender foreleg, that it was Chelcie, not Lance, she had ended up beside. Heat rose to her face and she quickly sidestepped away again, hoping she hadn't noticed. To Charla's relief, Chelcie started to walk forward without even looking at her.

"I'm back!" she called to the surrounding dragons, her voice ringing in the unusual silence. At that, mutters and whispers began to spread.

Charla looked uneasily over her shoulder, but relaxed when she saw Lance right behind her. Meredy was just slipping from his back, looking even more nervous than Charla felt. Even when she was standing on her own four paws again, she still stuck close to Lance, and his shadow all but engulfed her. Nuala hovered in front of them, scowling up a storm, like she was daring the surrounding dragons to so much as look at her.

"Chelcie?" a voice called from somewhere ahead.

Charla turned her head forward and hurried to catch up, falling into step alongside Chelcie. Ahead of them, a huge muted-yellow dragon had just stepped out of the throng. He looked older than most of the other dragons there; the line of his mouth had started to wrinkle and he even had a short white beard curling tightly off the tip of his chin. When his eyes fell on Charla, he stared.

"Great ancestors," he breathed, his eyes—amber, just like Chelcie's—going wide. "What on earth is this about? I thought you were going hunting, not..." He hesitated, like he couldn't find the word he was looking for.

"Yeah, the hunt didn't go exactly as planned," Chelcie said, shrugging her slender shoulders. She grinned down at Charla. "But I did find these kids hanging about. Figured I should bring them back here."

"Yes..." the yellow dragon said slowly, his eyes fixed intently on Charla, "that was probably wise."

"What are a bunch of children doing in the mountains?" muttered a dragon behind him, and he grunted in agreement.

"I would also like to know," he said, his gaze finally lifting from Charla when Lance stepped out from behind Chelcie. Then, upon seeing Meredy and Nuala, his eyes widened even more. "Goodness me. A sky serpent and a vulpala? What a strange group you are... And here I thought vulpala had gone extinct."

Nuala hissed through her teeth, but she seemed to refrain from spitting out the retort that was no doubt on her tongue. The other dragons were still muttering incomprehensibly around them, and Charla's scales prickled. She could feel their eyes boring into her from every direction, like she was some kind of rare, interesting artefact they'd never seen before. She edged closer to Lance.

"So then," said the yellow dragon—who Charla had a sneaking suspicion was actually the uncle Chelcie had spoken of. "Perhaps you might enlighten us."

Lance shifted his weight and Charla had the feeling that he was trying to stand as tall as he could. Beside these dragons—these huge, fully grown dragons—he suddenly didn't look so big. He was little more than half this yellow dragon's height. "How about you enlighten us first."

The yellow dragon raised an eyebrow and more whispers broke out amongst the dragons nearby. Then he huffed out a sigh and his face softened. "I suppose all this attention must make you uncomfortable. Chelcie, if you could explain what you know to everyone else, I will speak to our young friends here alone."

Chelcie straightened up, her eyes widening. "What? But I don't know anything! I'm coming with you if you're going to speak to them."

The yellow dragon eyed her sternly for a moment, but he conceded with a weary shrug. "Oh, very well. As for the rest of you..." He glared around at the throng of dragons in the clearing. "No eavesdropping."

With that and a flick of one huge golden-brown wing, he beckoned for Charla and her friends to follow. "Come along, then, you four. Chelcie, too. We'll have a more private chat elsewhere."

Charla looked at Lance, but he just shrugged and started after the yellow dragon. With one more glance back at the other curious dragons, Charla hurried to keep up.

They walked a short ways through the trees, Chelcie behind them and the yellow dragon ahead. At length, he stopped in a large enough clearing and gestured for them all to sit down, which he did with his back to the trunk of a pine tree.

As they all eased themselves down amongst the shed pine needles, he smiled at them. "We should have more privacy here. Let's start again. My name is Teslan, and I see you've already met my young niece here. Chelcie?"

She waved a paw as she stretched out on the ground nearby. "I've already introduced myself."

Teslan nodded once and turned an expectant look on Lance, like he'd pinpointed him as the leader of their little mismatched group. Lance shrugged.

"I'm Lance, and this is Charla," he said, nodding his head towards her, then gestured pointedly at the others. "And that's Nuala and Meredy."

Teslan eyed the two non-dragons with great interest, but his gaze soon came to rest on Charla again. She had a feeling he was somehow fascinated by her, for whatever reason.

"You're so young," he murmured, and she wasn't sure if he meant all of them or just her. Then he blinked and looked at Lance again. "How long have you been here in the mountains?"

"I'm not sure," Lance replied slowly, carefully. "A few weeks, at least. We've lost track of time."

Charla looked at her paws to hide her surprise. He was lying. Why? They had only been in the mountains for a week; she was pretty sure Lance knew that. He wasn't that bad at keeping track of time.

"I see." There was a frown in Teslan's voice. Charla glanced up and couldn't help staring at the beard on the end of his chin. He had to be the oldest dragon she'd ever seen—but that wasn't saying much, given the amount of dragons she had seen. "And how did the four of you end up here alone? I can only assume you must have been driven here by the Dark Army, but what of your parents? Your guardians?"

"The Dark Army attacked our home," Lance said, his voice grim. "We managed to escape, but I don't know if anyone else did. We've been hiding in the mountains ever since."

A flash of pain and sadness flickered across Teslan's face, and Charla couldn't help but be impressed by Lance's lie. It was so easy to believe—probably even more so than the actual truth—and nothing about his posture or his expression belied that he wasn't being truthful. Teslan didn't seem at all suspicious of him, at any rate.

"And your friends here..." Teslan gestured at Nuala and Meredy, a frown on his face. "They lived in your village too?"

"No," said Lance immediately, like he'd been expecting the question. "We met them in the mountains about a week ago, I think. We've been travelling together for protection."

That much was almost true, at least. Charla glanced at Meredy and Nuala, wondering what they thought of Lance's lies, but Meredy was staring at her paws and Nuala's face was impassive, leaving their thoughts a mystery to her. Teslan nodded slowly.

"That answers the bulk of my questions," he said, his gaze coming to rest on Meredy and Nuala again. "Which leaves, of course, the question of what a young sky serpent is doing on the ground so far from home. The vulpala—Nuala, was it?—I can understand. But you, my dear..."

Meredy shuffled her paws and looked up at him from under her lashes, but she didn't speak. Nuala had stiffened, her wings and tail twitching, like she either wanted to fly away or tell Teslan to bugger off and keep his questions to himself. She said nothing, however, leaving Teslan no choice but to start making guesses.

"We're quite far from any sky serpent settlements I know of," he said, frowning. "Zephyr, perhaps, is the closest—but even then, it's quite a way to the west. Unless you're from some outlying settlement..."

Meredy just shook her head, dropping her gaze again.

Teslan's frown deepened. "No? Zephyr, then?"

Meredy's shoulders trembled and she clenched her paws in the pine needles, but she managed an unsteady nod. Charla flicked her tail uneasily, wishing she could say something to help. But Meredy had only told her so much about what had happened at Zephyr—and if she wasn't willing to even tell Teslan that much herself, Charla didn't think she'd appreciate her doing it instead. Nuala's tail was swishing dangerously, scattering the pine needles behind her.

"Goodness me, how did you end up so far from home?" Teslan asked, his expression caught somewhere between bemused and pitying. "Alone and on the ground, no less..."

A visible shiver travelled down Meredy's spine and she whispered, barely audibly, "I got lost. And... I can't fly."

Teslan drew his head back, his frown deeper than ever. "You can't? Whyever not?"

When Meredy made no attempt to respond, Lance did it for her. "There's a problem with her element. It's blocked."

Nuala glared at him like he'd just spilled one of Meredy deepest, darkest secrets, but he ignored her. Teslan looked at a total loss.

"Well, that sounds like it sucks," said Chelcie, who'd been listening in silence the whole time. "That explains why Lancey here had to carry you."

Lance glared at her, no doubt because of the impromptu nickname. Charla tried to hide her smirk. Chelcie had given them a strange look during their short flight together, but she hadn't asked why. Maybe she'd expected Nuala to snap at her again if she asked.

"I suppose you must be headed back to Zephyr, then," Teslan said after a moment, still frowning. "Though I can't imagine how you ended up so far away from there in the first place..."

"We're not," Nuala said sharply.

Teslan looked at her in surprise. "Not...?"

"Not going to Zephyr." Nuala met his eyes with a glare that looked almost sharp enough to cut. "We're going to Mistral."

"Mistral? The northern sky serpent city?" Teslan's eyes had gone wide. "My dear, that's very, very far away. It would take a week or two at least to fly there, but on foot..."

"So what?" Nuala snarled, her forepaws clenching. "We're going there. It doesn't matter how long it takes us."

"Why, though?" Chelcie asked. "Zephyr's a heck of a lot closer. Heck, we could take you there. We're going to Warfang, and it's not far from there at all."

Charla sat up straight, a sudden thrill of excitement racing down her spine. "You're going to Warfang?"

Chelcie and Teslan both looked at her in surprise, before Chelcie grinned and said, "Yeah, we are."

Charla trembled as a bubble of excitement swelled in her chest, but then Lance's paw pressed down on her back and pulled her down beside him again.

"We'll talk about this later," he muttered in her ear, and she knew it wasn't the right time to argue.

For a short moment, the others were silent, but Teslan soon turned his attention back to Nuala and Meredy.

"As Chelcie said, there isn't much reason for you not to head to Zephyr," he continued, his brow still furrowed. "And you'd have the added safety of travelling with us, at least until we reach Warfang."

"Well, we're not going to Zephyr," Nuala growled, "so who cares? Nothing you say is going to change that, so just stop trying. Jeez."

She snorted and tossed her head, averting her eyes from the dragons. Teslan frowned at her.

"You're a real snarky piece of work, aren't you?" said Chelcie, but there was a grin on her face.

"We're only trying to help," said Teslan.

Nuala turned her glare on him again. "Well, you're not helping. We're going to Mistral and that's final."

"There's..." Meredy's voice was almost quiet enough to disappear into the whisper of the wind, but Charla heard it—and so, too, did Teslan. He turned to her immediately, and Meredy quickly dropped her gaze back to her paws. Her voice trembled when she spoke, but at least it was louder than before. "There's nothing for us at Zephyr... Not anymore."

She lapsed back into silence, and Teslan considered her with confusion and a hint of worry in his eyes. "Nothing? What do you mean?"

At that, Nuala had finally had enough. With an almost soundless beat of her wings, she jumped into the air and rose to Teslan's head-height, glaring straight into his eyes. "What do you think she means? There's nothing at Zephyr! It's gone! So quit asking your stupid questions and leave us alone!"

With a jerk of her head, she whirled around and flew back to Meredy, almost slapping Teslan's muzzle with her tail in the process. He stared after her, his eyes glazed with shock and the first inklings of horror. Chelcie's face was the perfect picture of startled amazement.

"Gone?" Teslan breathed. "Zephyr is...gone?"

Charla watched as the confusion on his face slowly gave way to disbelief. Then, when Meredy managed another nod, his whole body seemed to shudder and he closed his eyes, sighing deeply through his nostrils. Chelcie gave him a worried look. Nuala muttered under her breath, but Meredy just stared at her paws, her eyes half-closed. Charla shifted uncomfortably and wished they were talking about something else.

At length, Teslan raised his head, his eyes sad and sunken. "It seems the spread of the Dark Army is worse than I realised. To target the sky serpents as well... Ancestors, is nowhere safe from them?"

Nobody had anything to say to that. A cold, brooding silence fell over them for several long moments, and Charla thought she could hear the muffled voices of the other dragons not far in the distance. For the first time, she wished she was back there with them instead. She pressed close to Lance and felt his wing twitch.

"Have you asked enough questions now?" Lance asked, and his voice sounded cold and angry in the silence. "How about you give us some answers for change. You owe us that much."

Teslan turned his eyes on Lance, a dark look replacing the sadness on his face. "Yes, I suppose I do. Chelcie, I don't suppose..."

"No way," she said, turning her face away, her voice tight. "You explain it."

He heaved a tired sigh and turned back to Lance, but he found no pity there. Lance just scowled at him, waiting for him to speak. Charla had to admit she was curious, too.

"Our story is not much different from yours, I'm afraid," Teslan finally said, his face grim. "The Dark Army raided our village little more than two weeks ago. Talon's Nook, it was called—I don't suppose you've heard of it. It was up north, on the western side of the mountains; it was a good, defendable position for a settlement. I'd wager that's the only reason we survived so long. But not this time... There were just too many."

Chelcie had dropped her gaze to her paws, her shoulders visibly tense.

Teslan heaved a sigh and shook his head. "Some of us managed to flee into the mountains where we reunited, but, as far as we know, we're all that's left."

Lance frowned. "Only you? How many of you are there? I didn't count much more than thirty when we arrived."

"Thirty-seven," Teslan murmured, lowering his head. "A mere fraction of the hundreds of dragons who called Talon's Nook home... Perhaps there are others who survived—but where they are now, I cannot say. We can only hope..."

Lance grunted in what sounded like agreement, and silence encroached upon them again. It didn't last long before Teslan spoke up again.

"But we should be grateful that any of us survived. We've been heading south along the mountain range ever since, and we should arrive at Warfang within a week or so. We'll be safe there, and our wounded can finally be treated." He eyed Charla and Lance with something akin to relief. "It's a good thing Chelcie found you when she did. Goodness knows how much longer you could have survived out here... What if the Dark Army had done a sweep of this area? Ancestors, I'd hate to think..."

A small shudder wracked his body and he shook his head again. "No matter, no matter. There is no point dreading what might have been. Now you are safe with us, and we will see you safely to Warfang."

He smiled at them, but Charla couldn't bring herself to do more than stare at him in dumbfounded amazement. It was like he'd just decided, without any indication from them, that they would be going to Warfang with him.

Had he read her mind? Had he somehow known she wanted to go to the great dragon city, too? Maybe it was her eager reaction when Chelcie had mentioned Warfang that had tipped him off.

But he hadn't even asked!

"I hope you're not referring to us as well," Nuala muttered.

Before Teslan could so much as look at her, Lance spoke up as well. "What makes you think any of us will be going to Warfang with you?"

There was something fierce and defensive about his voice, which made Charla look at him sharply. He was staring at Teslan, his eyes hard. Teslan stared back, the smile fallen from his face, looking utterly bemused.

"Why wouldn't you?" he asked, while Chelcie raised an eyebrow at Lance. "I understand the journey there will be dangerous, but I assure you you'll be safe with us. Better to take a risk in search of shelter than spend the rest of your days struggling to survive in the wilds, waiting for the Dark Army to find you. Don't you think?"

"We are searching for shelter," Nuala snapped back, her tail swishing again. "At Mistral. Not your stupid dragon city."

Teslan looked highly affronted that she would speak of Warfang so, but he drew in a slow breath through his nostrils and seemed to calm himself. "If you and your sky serpent friend are so adamant about going to Mistral, I suppose I have no right to stop you. But as for you two..."

Lance scowled at him. "We didn't plan on going to Warfang. And you have no authority over us."

Teslan's eyes flashed and he drew himself up, his paws tensing in the pine needles. Charla shrank back slightly and found herself glad that he hadn't seen fit to stand up as well—he would have towered over them. There was something fierce and almost dangerous about his expression that made her feel tiny, even though it was aimed at Lance.

"You are still children," he said, in a cold voice that brokered no argument. "Leaving you here would go against every fibre of my being. I assure you, I will do whatever it takes to see that our young ones are safe. Do not test that, young dragon."

Lance curled his lip and started to get to his feet, the muscles along his back rippling. Alarm shot through Charla's heart and she leapt upright before he had the chance. He hesitated when she darted in front of him and flared out her wings, blocking him off from Teslan as best she could.

"What are you doing?" she hissed. She could feel Teslan and Chelcie's eyes boring into her back, and suddenly she felt terribly self-conscious.

"Keeping them from making our decisions for us," Lance replied, not bothering to keep his voice down. His eyes were steely. "Or do you want to let them decide for you?"

"I want to go to Warfang!" she replied sharply, frowning into his eyes. "Or did you forget what we talked about earlier?"

Lance's expression wavered. He half raised a paw but placed it back down again, as though he wasn't sure what he'd been going to do with it. There was a deeply troubled look about his face. "I thought I'd changed your mind about that."

"Well, you didn't." Charla set her jaw and struggled to keep holding his gaze.

He looked so troubled, so reluctant, that she couldn't help but feel like she'd betrayed him somehow. But her ticket to Warfang was right within her grasp, and she couldn't let him take that away from her. Why was he so reluctant to go there, anyway?

Lance's shoulders fell, but he didn't turn his face away. For what felt like ages, they just stared at each other, silent, until Charla couldn't hold it any longer. She averted her eyes to the side and saw Nuala watching them impassively. Beside her, Meredy looked on with worry. Charla's face burned and she looked down at her paws instead.

"You're certain, then," Lance murmured. It was more of a statement than a question, and there was something flat and almost disappointed about his voice.

Charla couldn't bring herself to meet his eyes again, so she spoke to her paws. "Yeah. I am."

She heard him exhale heavily, but he gave no response. For some reason, she felt like she'd done something terrible to him, though she had no idea what. The silence that followed was almost unbearable.

"Well, then," Teslan said at last, "I suppose that's settled. I assure you, you'll be safe at Warfang."

Lance didn't say anything, but Charla could feel him still looking at her. She didn't have the heart to look up at him, so she turned away instead and faced Teslan. He was getting to his feet, as was Chelcie beside him.

"Shall we head back?" he asked. "Goodness knows everyone else has had long enough to wonder about you. How many do you suppose eavesdropped on us?"

He directed his last question at Chelcie, who snorted and rolled her eyes. "Most of them, probably."

Charla felt like she was supposed to smile, but she could only stand in silence as Teslan started to walk past her, beckoning with his wing once more. Lance, Nuala and Meredy made no move to follow him. Chelcie hesitated.

"You coming?" she asked, directing a raised eyebrow at Charla.

Charla looked around at her silent friends and saw Nuala and Meredy had started to whisper amongst themselves. An unpleasant jolt of realization surged through her. They wouldn't be coming to Warfang. And that meant they wouldn't be sticking around for much longer.

Exhaling slowly, she looked back up at Chelcie. "In a bit. I think there's some stuff we need to talk about first..."

Chelcie glanced around at the others. "Alright. Just come join us whenever, I guess."

With that, and a last smile that Charla struggled to return, she turned and picked her way through the trees after Teslan. Charla watched her go, feeling small and isolated for the first time in ages. The silence seemed suddenly cold and awkward. It felt like huge cracks had opened up in the earth between her and her friends, and she didn't know how to go about pulling them back together again.

Had she made a mistake by deciding to go to Warfang?

"Lance?" she asked quietly.

He turned his head and caught her gaze again, but the smile he gave her didn't quite reach his eyes. "It's okay, kid. But you're right. We've got a few things to talk about."

"Us too," Nuala muttered, and Charla turned to see both of them approaching. Nuala's face was grim, and perhaps a bit sad. "Looks like we're going to be splitting up sooner than we thought."

Something in Charla's chest clenched and a lump began to rise in her throat. She managed a nod. As the four of them sat down again in the pine needles, she braced herself for the conversation that was to come, filled with the realization that this could very well be the last day she spent with Nuala and Meredy.