Chapter 37

Carry On, Wayward Child

Charla spent that night in Claris' room again. She hadn't been surprised when Orinthe had told her to. After all, she and Lance hadn't exactly made up. He'd tried to that evening, when she'd come back from the library and he'd returned from his apprenticeship. But Charla stonewalled his every attempt to speak to her.

The silent treatment seemed to work. He kept apologising, trying to coax something out of her, until her refusal to speak aggravated him too much. The last thing he'd said to her—or snapped, rather—was 'Fine, be that way.' And then he'd stalked up to his room with his shoulders hunched.

Charla tossed and turned for hours that evening, her head so full of Warfang and Lance and escape routes that she couldn't lay still. Claris eventually threw a cushion at her head.

"I'm trying to sleep!" she snapped. "Stop flopping around like a dying fish!"

Charla spent the rest of the night drifting in and out of slumber, and trying to be quiet whenever she rolled over. Luckily, she didn't wake Claris again.

She awoke in the dark hours before dawn, feeling like she'd had a familiar dream—of darkness and howling wind, and a distant voice calling her name. Even as she sat there, waiting for the first sign of sunrise to appear in the dark sky, she thought she could still hear it—a voice, distant and frightened, whispering on the wind that crept through the open window.

Charla... Help. Charla...

It was a long time before she got back to sleep.

The next morning, Charla woke feeling like she'd hardly slept at all. The sun was streaming through the window and Claris' bed was empty. There was a hollow feeling in her stomach, so she blinked the sleep from her eyes and stumbled out the door—but that was as far as she got.

Lance was standing in the hallway, leaning against the wall, as though he'd been waiting for her. As their eyes met, he straightened up and stepped closer. Charla hesitated.

There was no one else around. It was just the two of them. She tried to slip around him, but he blocked her way with a wing.

"We need to talk," he said.

Charla scowled and averted her eyes. She had nothing to say to him.

He sighed. "Kid, don't do this. Don't block me out. That's not going to help either of us. Please. You know I never meant to hurt you."

Somewhere deep inside her, she did know that. But still she said nothing.

"I'm sorry," Lance said, for what must have been the fiftieth time. He lowered his head closer to hers. "I'm sorry about the things I said to you. It was callous—it was tactless. I shouldn't have said them the way I did. I just lost my temper, and I'm sorry. I never, ever meant to upset you. Please believe me. Don't make me beg for forgiveness."

"You don't have to," Charla mumbled to the floor.

"What was that?" He sounded hopeful now, but she clamped her mouth shut and refused to say more. His shoulders fell. "Charla, look at me. Look at me, please."

She resisted, but only for a second. With a sigh, she raised her head and looked him in the eyes. She didn't want to fight with him, really. She wanted to trust him, to believe in him, like she always had. But she couldn't forget what he'd said to her. Looking at him now was like looking at a stranger.

"I'm on your side, kid," he said softly. "All I want is for you to be safe and happy. I'm doing everything I can to make that happen. And I'm sorry I hurt you. I'm sorry I was careless with my words. I really am."

His eyes searched her face anxiously. "I just want you to think about what I said to you. Not about the argument—about the...the thing I asked you before that. Just think about it, alright? That's all I ask. And whenever you're ready to talk...I'll be here. Okay? Can you do that?"

Charla held his gaze for as long as she could, but his fretful eyes were too much. She looked away. Her chest ached. She wished he had asked her something else. She wished he would just keep the promise he'd made to her when they'd first met. She wished he hadn't tried to change her mind.

"I'll think about it," she mumbled, even though she knew she wouldn't.

There was nothing to think about. She would never go to Jordguard—not if it meant giving up on the Well of Souls and abandoning Jayce and Silverback. She could never choose Lance over Jayce. Nothing could change that.

"Thank you," Lance murmured.

He leaned forward and made to touch his muzzle to her forehead, but Charla sidestepped him. Without another word, she slipped past him and headed downstairs, feeling worse than before.

There were no classes that day, which meant Charla could do whatever she wanted. In a stroke of daring, she went straight to Madame Orinthe after breakfast and asked if she could go to the library on her own. To her surprise, she wasn't immediately shot down.

"I suppose it's time I trusted you to go off on your own," Orinthe said, if somewhat reluctantly. "But make sure you're back by midday. I'll send Lance to pick you up if I have to."

So Charla donned her satchel, dodged the electric triplets who were playing tag on the stairs, and headed out the door. She expected Lance, who wasn't at the dojo today, to follow her—but he didn't. Instead, she marched off into the city alone for the first time, well aware that he was watching her from the window.

She felt a strange sense of importance as she made her way through the streets on her own, passing dragons who only glanced fleetingly in her direction. It felt to her like she could go anywhere she wanted. She could go down into the second district and see the refugee housing where Chelcie lived. She could find her way back to the door to the underground city, to see if it was possible to get back out that way. She could even go down to the enormous city wall and look out over the army of apes spread far and wide across the fields beyond.

But then a flash of armour caught her eye, and she remembered there were guards patrolling everywhere. They'd probably snatch her up the moment she made to leave the first district.

So, as much as she would have liked to go on an adventure, she arrived at the library without any unexpected detours.

The first thing she did was head to the service desk. Solaea was there again, talking to an older dragoness over the counter. Charla scanned the nearby area, saw no sign of Chelcie, and fell into line behind the older dragoness, fidgeting. As soon as she left, Charla stepped up to the desk.

Solaea craned her neck to look at her. "Oh, you're Chelcie's friend! I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name yesterday."

"Charla," she said, swishing her tail. "Is Chelcie around?"

"She's just shelving books over in the fiction section," said Solaea, gesturing to nearby shelves. "You can go see her if you want."

"Thanks."

She headed over to the bookshelves and soon spotted Chelcie halfway down an aisle, pulling a wooden trolley by her tail behind her. Charla skipped over to her and ducked around the trolley. Chelcie almost dropped the book she had in her paw.

"Charla!" she exclaimed. "You startled me! What are you doing here?"

"I came to see you," Charla said, grinning up at her. Chelcie was wearing a yellow sash across her chest, like Solaea.

Chelcie blinked at her and scanned the otherwise empty aisle, looking perplexed. "...Are you here alone?"

"Yep!"

A smile split Chelcie's face. She deposited the book she was holding on the shelf and swept Charla into a one-winged hug. "You were let out all on your own? Aw, my little Charla is growing up!"

Charla laughed and wriggled out of her grip. "I have to be back by midday, though."

"Still better than nothing," Chelcie said, turning back to her trolley. It was stacked with books. "Want to help me put these back? I'll show you where they go."

"Sure," Charla agreed, because she hadn't really thought further than 'go to the library, find Chelcie, and somehow learn more about the archives.' She figured spending time doing anything with Chelcie was as good a start as any.

They passed a good half hour returning all the books to the shelves. It was a very precise procedure. Charla put them in the wrong places several times, and Chelcie kept having to fix them up. But she seemed happy to have help, however hopeless that help was. They worked and talked at the same time, and Charla managed to sneak in a few questions.

"Have you gone into the archives yet? I mean, since you work here now."

"Not yet," Chelcie told her, with an exaggerated sigh. "Since I'm only volunteering, I'm not allowed to go in there on my own. I'm not even allowed to carry a key for the archives. If a customer wants something from there, I have to direct them to someone else."

"Oh," Charla mumbled, a little disappointed. A few minutes later, she tried again. "So... You said the guards got you out of the underground city through a secret door, right?"

"Oh, yeah," Chelcie said airily, as she slipped two books into place on the shelf. "I wouldn't have known it was there if they hadn't opened it. It just looked like a part of the wall opened up. I think it can only be opened from inside the archives."

"With a key?" Charla asked, trying to sound casual.

"I think it was just an elemental door." Chelcie shrugged. "I saw one of the guards breathing fire to close it after we all got in."

"That's cool." Inwardly, Charla celebrated. That was her first piece of useful information. As long as she could get into the archives, getting into the underground city should be easy. She could just open the secret door with her fire breath.

Of course, that was provided she could find the secret door in the first place.

"Did you see much of the archives when you came in?" she asked, several minutes later, as Chelcie slipped the last book into place.

Chelcie shook her head. "Not really. The guards were herding us pretty closely. I think we must have been a few levels down, though. We went up, like, three or four stairways." She turned back to the empty trolley. "All done? Let's take this trolley back."

Thinking hard about what she'd heard, Charla trailed after her. That was something, at least. She was sure she could find her way once she got into the archives. It couldn't be too hard... What she really had to worry about was actually getting in. Somehow, she needed to get her paws on a key.

She had no idea how she was going to do that.

For the next few hours, she shadowed Chelcie around the library as she went about her duties. It was dreadfully boring. All she did outside of the service desk was put books back and tidy the shelves—the rest of the time, she was stuck behind the counter serving customers.

Impatient and feeling fretful, Charla eventually wandered off on her own. As much as she wanted to go look at the door to the archives—in the feeble hope it would magically fix the problem—she knew she wasn't allowed down there. Instead she wandered through the aisles, trying to translate book titles written in draconic runes, and wondered what to do.

It was as she was coming out of one such aisle that she heard it. A whisper of wind had swept through the nearby window and made her shiver in her scales. With it came a distant voice.

Pyreflight... Charla... Help.

A chill raced down Charla's spine. She spun around and stared down the aisle, but it was empty—and the voice was gone. Her paws prickled. Uneasily, she scanned the library around her, but there was no one nearby who looked like they might have called out to her. There was no one who looked scared and desperate, like the voice had sounded.

Charla flexed her claws and moved on, glancing over her shoulder. Was she going mad? She was sure it was the same voice as the one she'd heard in her dreams. But she wasn't asleep now. Was she imagining it?

And who would be calling out to her for help, anyway?

It didn't sound like Jayce. It was too soft, too feminine. Besides...there was no way he could be here, in Warfang.

Brow furrowed, her mind choked with thoughts, Charla hardly noticed when her wandering paws took her into the geography section. It wasn't the first time she'd come here. Every now and then she came back to stare at the atlases and think about how, once she got out of Warfang, she would get to the Well of Souls.

Now, however, as she looked up at the row of glossy books, her thoughts came to a different destination.

Pyreflight.

She reached up and pulled down Terranos' Atlas of the Dragon Realms,the only book she recognised. As she set it down, it fell open at her feet, and the heavy pages came to rest on the double-page map. Charla sat down and traced her claw over the inked parchment.

Pyreflight wasn't all that far away. It was almost directly north of Warfang, at the edge of the Great Eastern River, teetering on the border of a deep grey area labelled 'Concurrent Skies'. She stared at it for a long time.

It wouldn't be hard to get to Pyreflight. If she escaped through the library archives, she would pop out in the canyon—and then it was just a matter of following the Great Eastern River up north. After that...

Charla let her eyes drift west. The easternmost curve of the Serpens River lay on the other side of the Pyria Grasslands. If she followed it, it would take her to the western coast. And then all she had to do was head south, to the Well of Souls.

It wasn't a bad route. In fact, as Charla stared at the map, she thought it might have been the better route.

Going through the Valley of Avalar sure looked quicker, but...it was on the wrong side of Warfang. To get to it from the canyon, she would have to skirt around the great dragon city. She would have to cut around the coast, whose waters were surely patrolled by ape vessels, or circle around Warfang through fields choked by a besieging ape army. She didn't think either was a good idea.

But if she went to Pyreflight... She would avoid all of that. She could skirt safely around on the northern side of the Igneous Basin, and the Dark Army would never know.

Of course, there were the apes at Pyreflight itself to worry about, but it wasn't like she had to go into the city. She just had to get closer, to catch a glimpse. And maybe then she'd know why the voice was calling her there.

Her claw trembled over the map. Was that a good plan? She didn't know. Going to Pyreflight was a detour she hadn't intended to take. It would extend her journey by who knew how long. Days? Weeks?

Was it worth it? Just because she was hearing voices in her dreams—and now outside of them too... She wasn't even sure that the voice was calling to her Pyreflight. It could have been warning her to stay away.

But, no... It was asking for help. Her help. But who was it? Was it even anyone she knew?

Charla sighed and stared down at the map. She didn't know what to do. Hearing a disembodied voice a few times wasn't exactly a good reason to plan such a drastic detour. And yet...

She wished she could have asked Lance's opinion. But she couldn't. This was her decision now, and her decision alone. She just hoped she would make the right one.

That afternoon, after saying goodbye to Chelcie and heading back to the orphanage, Charla found Lance half-heartedly flicking through a book in the common room. He kept glancing at the window, as though waiting for something, but stopped when he noticed her come in. As their eyes met, she paused. He looked awfully lonely sitting there all by himself, surrounded by abandoned cushions. From the sounds of it, most of the other orphans were out playing in the back courtyard.

Charla's shoulders fell. Looking at Lance now, she realised she missed him. And not just a little bit. For so long, since way back in that lonely forest on the shore, he had been beside her. How long had it been since then? It couldn't have been much more than a month, and yet it felt like years. And now she'd hardly spoken to him, hardly been near him, for two whole days.

She missed his company. She missed relying on him.

So, despite her lingering bitter feelings, she went over and sat beside him. He didn't seem too surprised. For a moment, both of them sat in silence.

"So, where did you go?" he asked as he closed his book.

"The library," Charla replied, matter-of-factly. "Chelcie's working there now."

Lance's eyebrow rose. "She is? I thought you couldn't get a work permit for Warfang until you'd lived in the city for at least a month."

Charla shrugged. "She's volunteering."

"Right…"

Awkward silence fell upon them. It was an unusual thing. Charla could remember being quite happy to sit in silence with Lance before, just knowing that he was there. He wasn't much of a talker in the first place. But this awkwardness… It was new and strange, and she didn't like it.

Maybe Lance noticed her discomfort, because he spoke again. "So, what were you doing there? At the library."

"I just went to see Chelcie," Charla mumbled, even though that wasn't entirely true. "And, you know… Look at stuff."

Lance grunted. As the awkwardness started to descend upon them once more, he let out a sigh.

"Are you still thinking about leaving Warfang?" he asked quietly.

Charla scowled at her paws. "What if I am?"

He said nothing, but Charla could sense the tension in his body. She held her breath.

"I'm just trying to look out for you," he finally said, meeting her eyes. "I don't want you to get in trouble—or worse, to get yourself hurt. I've already told you that what you're trying to do is… It's not possible. I just don't want you to get hurt."

She tore her eyes from his and kneaded the cushion under her paws, almost piercing it through with her talons. "…You're really not going to help me, are you?"

He shifted slightly. "Charla, we talked about this…"

"No we didn't," she muttered, glaring at the floor. "You just yelled at me."

"Well, you're not exactly innocent of that, either," he growled, and she winced.

Against her better judgement, she looked up at his scowling face and caught sight of the scratches she'd torn low in the side of his jaw. They'd scabbed over by now, but the sight of them still made her squirm. She hadn't meant to hurt him. It had just happened. Stomach clenching, she dropped her gaze.

"Sorry," she mumbled.

There was a pause. "…Me too, kid."

In the quiet that followed, Charla saw his wing twitch, as though he was going to drape it over her but had thought better of it. She kneaded the cushion more, until her claws got stuck in the fabric.

"Have you thought about…what I asked you?" Lance murmured, after a while.

Charla shifted uncomfortably. Why did he have to ask that?

"A little," she lied, picking her claws free from the cushion.

He was silent. She could only assume he was waiting for her to say more, but she had nothing else to say. She wasn't going to Jordguard with him, but she couldn't tell him that. She didn't want to start another argument—she didn't think she could handle another fight with Lance.

His paw brushed hers and she quickly looked away. Quietly, he murmured, "You can talk to me whenever you're ready."

Charla just nodded. There was nothing she could say to him—nothing that would fix this. How could she change his mind? Nothing she'd said that night, during the argument, had gotten through to him. He knew what getting to the Well of Souls meant to her, and still…

A shiver traced her spine. Well, Lance was wrong. Jayce and Silverback were definitely still alive, and she would find them. They weren't dead. Lance was wrong.

And if she couldn't get him to see that, then she had no choice but to leave him behind.

That evening, Charla moved back into Lance's room. They hadn't exactly made up—not in the way Charla wanted them to—but at least they weren't arguing or avoiding each other. Madame Orinthe seemed to think that was enough.

Charla was relieved. She didn't want to be apart from Lance anymore, and she certainly didn't want to spend another night with Claris throwing cushions at her head.

But the trusting relationship she'd had with Lance, the feeling that she could tell him anything and everything, was all but gone. Now, she was sneaking around him, making plans that he couldn't know about, and trying not to say things that might set off another argument. It was not how she wanted to act around Lance. She wanted to trust him again. She wanted his help. She wanted to fix what had gone wrong.

She just wished she knew how.

But the more the days passed, the further they seemed to drift apart. Lance fell back into his habit of mentioning Jordguard at every second breath, as though that would convince her to go with him. And Charla, as casually as she could, spent as much time as possible at the library.

Chelcie's newfound volunteering work was something of a stroke of luck, especially since she'd befriended Solaea. Through the both of them, Charla learned more about the library than she ever needed to—including the archives.

She learned that there were five levels in the archives, and that most of the secret passageways branched off from the third level. She learned that every full-time employee at the Warfang City Library carried a key to the archives, and that they were kept locked up in the library offices during after-hours. She also learned that nobody except library employees could get into these offices. The doors were locked by special gems, which only reacted to the elemental magic of dragons who had 'imprinted' on them. Not even Chelcie could open them.

So the problem became, for Charla, how she was going to get her paws on one of those keys. It was the only problem, really. She could see quite easily how to do everything else. All she had to do was sneak into the library at night, when no one was around except for the security guard, get into the archives—and she was free.

The problem was, getting the key to the archives seemed nigh on impossible.

Charla puzzled over this conundrum for several days, and the stress and frustration was almost enough to make her forget the worst thing. Which was, of course, that she would have to leave Lance behind. It lingered in the back of her mind like a bad memory, but she brushed it away every time it tried to rear its ugly head. Sooner or later, she would have to confront it, but not now. She wasn't ready to face it yet.

One morning, Charla was awoken early by some sort of commotion outside. Still groggy, her head full of that same dream—the one with the voice that called to her on the wind—she rolled onto her stomach and stumbled over to the window. Bright morning sunlight streamed into her blurry eyes. Blinking rapidly, she rubbed the back of her paw over them and looked out over the street.

A sizeable crowd of dragons and moles had gathered in the courtyard outside the temple. They were all talking at once, their voices rising over one another, creating a kind of indecipherable din that was entirely too loud so early in the morning. Charla rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and hung her head and forepaws out the window, wondering what it was all about. As she did, she caught sight of someone standing almost directly below her.

Madame Orinthe was outside the orphanage's front door, her head craned towards the crowd and the temple. Charla blinked a few times. Something was going on.

Soundlessly, she tiptoed past Lance's snoring form and squeezed through the door. It didn't creak, thankfully. Holding her breath, she crept down the dark corridor and down the steps to the entrance hall. The orphanage was very quiet and still. No one else was awake.

As Charla headed for the front door, which was open, the noise from outside got louder again. She slipped through the door and came up behind Madame Orinthe, who was still watching the crowd.

"What's going on?" Charla asked.

Orinthe gasped and flinched so violently that she almost struck Charla with her wing. Charla quickly backed up a few steps.

"Oh, Charla," Orinthe breathed, holding a paw to her chest. "Great Ancestors, you scared the living daylights out of me. What are you doing up so early?"

Charla waved a paw in the direction of the crowd. "They woke me up. What's happening?"

"Ah… They are being very loud, aren't they?" Madame Orinthe frowned briefly at the chattering crowd. "It really isn't anything you should worry about, dear. Why don't you go back inside and try to sleep a little more? You have class today. Can't have you dozing off on Professor Boralis, can we?"

Charla huffed. "I'm not sleepy. And I want to know what's going on."

She raised her head stubbornly and stared into Orinthe's eyes. Orinthe looked down at her for a brief moment, the line of her mouth thinner than usual. Then she returned her gaze to the temple.

"If you must know… Earlier this morning, one of the monks came racing out of the temple like the Dark Master himself was on his tail. He returned a short while later with General Galanthus and a few officers of the Warfang Armoured Forces. They've been in there for a while now."

Charla frowned. "So, why is everyone crowding there?"

Madame Orinthe hummed grimly. "They're all anxious about what it means. It could be a vision. It must be something to do with the war, or there's no reason for the general to be there."

"A vision?" Charla echoed, wide-eyed, thinking of the Pool of Visions that Chelcie had taken her to see only days ago.

Orinthe hummed in agreement, her eyes glazed with thought. For a long few minutes, she said nothing more. Charla stayed quiet, listening to the chatter of the crowd, which was steadily growing as more and more dragons took notice of the commotion. She couldn't decipher anything they were saying, and soon she began to fidget with impatience.

Nothing was happening. She was bored. And she was getting hungry, too.

Then, all of a sudden, the great temple doors slid open. The crowd, instead of growing quiet, raised their voices to a deafening volume. Charla wrinkled her muzzle. A tall blue dragon stepped out of the temple and stopped at the top of the steps, his silver armour glinting in the sun. She recognised him.

"Quiet! Quiet, please!" General Galanthus roared over the crowd, spreading his wings as though to gather everyone's attention.

Steadily, the crowd fell into silence. Charla held her breath and listened hard. Beside her, Madame Orinthe seemed to do the same.

"First," the general began, his voice ringing loud in the sudden quiet, "you will all be pleased to hear that it is good news. Secondly…it was not a vision."

Murmurs started spreading through the crowd, but Galanthus called for silence once more.

"This morning," he went on, "the Temple of Warfang was contacted, through the pool of visions, by a dragon at the Southern Temple. That dragon was Ignitus, the Guardian of Fire."

There was a collective gasp. Some dragons in the crowd started talking quickly, loudly, and even Madame Orinthe muttered under her breath, "Great Ancestors…"

"Quiet, everyone!" General Galanthus called again, but it took a moment before the crowd went silent. He surveyed them for a short moment. "I know this news comes as a shock to all of us. Most of us believed the Fire Guardian had abandoned us, or met his end somewhere in the wilds, alone. It would appear that we were wrong.

"Ignitus has informed me that he has…formed an army, of sorts. A group of renegades who have made their base at the Southern Dragon Temple. Their mission"—he raised his voice over the crowd, who were starting to chatter again—"has so far been to rescue the other Guardians from the clutches of the Dark Army and the Terror of the Skies. So far—quiet, please!"

The chatter of the crowd, which had grown deafening once again, slowly quieted. Galanthus eyed them all with great severity.

"So far," he continued, "they have succeeded in liberating the Guardian of Electricity, and the Guardian of Ice. In the process, they have chased the Dark Army out of Tall Plains and demolished the ape forces posted on Dante's Freezer. As we speak, this army is on its way to Munitions Forge on the Isle of Boyzitbig, intending to rescue the Guardian of Earth."

"Incredible," Madame Orinthe murmured under her breath.

Charla glanced at her but said nothing. She didn't quite understand what the general was talking about.

"Once they have succeeded in their mission, Ignitus and his renegade army, along with the other Guardians, intend to rejoin the fight here at Warfang," Galanthus told the whispering crowd. "Until such a time, we can only hope for their safe return."

He drew himself up, so that the sunlight glared off his silver breastplate. "The war has not beaten us yet. Our Guardians, long thought lost, will soon return to us. Have hope. The Dark Army will never prevail. Now, please, return to your business and do not bother the monks with your questions. They can tell you nothing more."

The crowd chattered incessantly as General Galanthus walked down the steps towards them, flanked by his officers. As the gathering dragons parted ways to let him through, Madame Orinthe murmured, "The general must be relieved."

Charla looked up at her. "Why?"

Orinthe eyed her with a little surprise. "Well, because the Ice Guardian is his elder brother, of course! He has been thinking Cyril dead for months—we all have. And now, to know that not only is Cyril alive, but also his fellow Guardians… It's more than we could have hoped for."

"Strange, though," she added, while Charla watched General Galanthus take off into the sky with the other armoured dragons. "Where on earth did Ignitus find enough able-bodied renegade dragons to form an army strong enough to rescue the Guardians? Not to mention to liberate Dante's Freezer and Tall Plains from the apes…"

Orinthe shook her head. "But I suppose we shouldn't question our blessings, incredible as they may seem."

She looked down at Charla, who was still staring at the crowd and struggling to understand everything she'd heard. She knew of the Guardians, of course. They were the ones who'd been protecting the eggs at the temple, where the raid had happened. She'd never given thought to what had happened to them after that night. Apparently, everyone had thought they were dead. But they weren't.

"Well," Orinthe said after a moment, "I think that's all the surprises I can handle in one day—and it's not even time for breakfast yet! Let's go inside. The other children will be up soon enough."

She turned to go back into the orphanage, but Charla lingered for as long as she could, watching the crowd. Slowly, dragons began to peel away from the throng, still chattering to each other, some looking concerned and even sceptical, others excited and hopeful. Then Orinthe's tail tapped her on the flank, and Charla tore herself away. With one last, curious glance at the temple, she followed Orinthe back inside.

"You've been going to the library a lot lately," Lance said to Charla one afternoon, not long after what had happened at the temple.

"What's wrong with that?" Charla asked defiantly, jutting her chin out.

They were sitting in the common room by the fireplace, where flames were dancing merrily behind the grate. As winter crept closer, it had become a more common sight. But it also meant that Madame Orinthe or one of the other carers was always hanging around; probably to make sure the kids didn't set the whole orphanage on fire. Still, it was a welcome warmth—especially since the encroaching chill had brought with it a spate of winter illness, which had been making its way through the orphanage recently. Charla had so far been lucky to avoid it.

"Nothing," Lance replied. "I just don't know how you can spend so long there. What's there to do?"

"Read," Charla said distractedly, watching Umbra, a young earth dragoness, teaching the electric triplets how to set up the tiny toy train-tracks. They seemed more interested in whacking each other with the little wooden train.

"What, are you trying to read every book in the library by the end of winter?" Lance scoffed.

Charla scowled at him. "No. Just the things that interest me. Plus, Chelcie's there a lot and I don't get to spend much time with her otherwise."

Lance just shrugged and went back to fiddling with the weird wooden puzzle he'd found on the mantelpiece. He hadn't figured out how to do it yet.

Charla shot him a fleeting look. She had a feeling he was trying to worm a confession out of her. Maybe he suspected that she was spending all that time at the library looking for an escape route out of the city. He wasn't stupid, after all. But she wasn't about to admit it. She didn't know what he'd do.

Start another argument, probably.

"Chelcie's not at the library tomorrow, though, is she?" Lance asked suddenly.

"No, but I have class." Charla wrinkled her muzzle.

"Not in the middle of the day, though," he pointed out. "You've got three hours to do something. Why don't we all go to the bathhouse tomorrow? We haven't done anything together for ages."

Charla fidgeted a little uncomfortably. That sounded good, but…what if tomorrow was the day she managed to get her paws on the key to the archives? She'd intended to go to the library between classes, but she didn't want to tell Lance that.

"I guess," she mumbled.

"C'mon, we've still got time before dark. Let's go send her a message." Lance got to his feet and gestured for her to do the same.

With a sigh, Charla followed. She probably wouldn't be ready to leave tomorrow, anyway. She hadn't even decided what route to take to the Well of Souls yet. Nor had she had a chance to figure out how to say goodbye to Lance and Chelcie, for that matter. Or, dare she hope, try to convince Lance to go with her.

No, she definitely wasn't ready to leave Warfang yet. She could spare a day to go to the bathhouse with Lance. It could be their last chance to have fun together.

The next day, however, she regretted letting Lance and Chelcie into the same space as each other. Lance tried to be discrete about it, but Charla knew he was trying to wheedle information out of Chelcie—information about her. At the bathhouse, when he clearly thought she was occupied with the steaming fire pools, she managed to eavesdrop on part of their conversation.

"…hasn't been acting strange lately, has she?" Lance was saying, trying and failing to sound casual.

Chelcie gave him a weird look. "Strange how? You're not still fighting, are you? I heard you got into a serious argument with her or something a few days ago. She was pretty grumpy, but…"

"No, nothing like that. Just…" He shook his head and looked her way. Charla quickly pretended to be occupied with splashing around the pool. It was very pleasantly warm.

"…worry about her," she heard Lance say. "She's been through a lot, and I'm just afraid she's going to do something rash."

"Like what?" Chelcie asked, sounding unconvinced. "She seems perfectly happy to me. She loves reading and learning—she reminds me of me when I was her age. The library is the perfect place for her. There's nothing she could get into trouble with there, anyway."

"I guess not," Lance muttered. "Just…keep an eye on her, okay? If you notice something weird, tell me. I just want her to be safe."

"You sound like an overprotective father, Lance."

"Shut up. Have we got a deal?"

"It's not much of a deal. What are you offering me?"

"I dunno, I'll take you out for dinner one night or something."

"I think I'm a bit old for you, Lance."

"Chelcie. Please."

"Fine, fine, I'll keep an eye on her. But I still think you're being overprotective. Charla won't like you coddling her."

"She can like me as much or as little as she wants," Lance murmured, staring impassively into the ochre-red waters of the fire bath. "That's a small price to pay to keep her safe."

Charla sank into the water until only the top of her muzzle was above the surface. That was as much as she wanted to hear. Feeling strangely guilty, she turned herself around and paddled to the other side of the pool. The steam rising from the water was soothing to her scales, but not to her mind.

It would be okay, she told herself. She wasn't doing anything wrong. Lance had known, from the moment he chose to travel with her, that she was going to get to the Well of Souls or die trying. If he wanted to change his mind now, that was his problem. It was his choice to stay in Warfang, to break his promise, to refuse to follow her. He should have known she would never abandon her quest for him. He should have known she would never choose him over Jayce.

Yet her stomach still churned with guilt.

Charla closed her eyes and dived below the surface. The heated water engulfed her, body and soul, and chased the thoughts from her head.

It was his choice. She wasn't doing anything wrong.

A/N:

I'm extending the timeline of A New Beginning somewhat drastically for this story. It takes place over the course of about a month, instead of a day or two as it appears in the game.