CHAPTER 6

Jerrath found himself in a grassy field, the warm sun felt great on his scales and the sky was a soft shade of blue. There was nothing but more grass and rolling hills for miles, except for what looked like a temple in the distance. Before he could move, he was transported to the front doors. He was greeted by an unfamiliar black dragoness, and a purple dragon who seemed familiar to him, yet he couldn't place where he had seen him right off the top of his head. The female was quite attractive to him, even though she appeared to be a few years older than he was.

"Who are you?" Jerrath asked

"My name is Spyro. This is my mate Cynder." The purple dragon said bowing. Jerrath bowed in return.

"What am I doing here? What is this place?" He asked

"This place is the old dragon temple. The very first ever built." Spyro said

"You must find this place, if you want to save your sister from the darkness that is slowly consuming her Jerrath." Cynder said knowing a thing or two about being consumed by darkness.

"What? How do you know about Ria?"

They glanced at each other and continued.

"Trust us. Find this temple if you want to save your sister from a fate worse than death..." Spyro said as they began to fade away back into darkness. Jerrath woke up in his own room, only an hour having passed since he slept. The face of the purple dragon in his dream was so familiar...then he remembered where he had seen him before. He grabbed his Draconic Heritage scroll and opened it the appropriate length. He was the purple dragon in his book and from his heritage classes! He had lived so long ago, no one had known his name, only the fact that a purple dragon had saved the world from destruction. What was the hero of the dragon race doing in his dream? He was just some kid in a hole-in-the-wall town out in the woods. He shrugged off his dream as just that and exited his room.

He left his cave without so much as a word to his parents, who weren't anywhere to be found anyway. He flew to the temple and tried to get in to see his little sister.

Two enormous guards crossed their spear shaped tails and blocked his way.

"I want to see my sister, let me through!" He demanded.

The guards smiled and smugly replied

"No one may enter while the high inquisition is in session."

"My sister is the one on trial!"

"Then you must wait for her to be released."

"But no one is ever released from a heresy trial!"

"Then I guess you'll have to see her in hell!" The largest one on the right said.

This infuriated the young dragon, and he snapped at him and caught hold of his forepaw. He growled and threw Jerrath through the ground and then beat him harshly until he was near unconscious.

"Now get out of here!" The smaller one shouted as Jerrath limped away. Try as he might, the biggest in his class was nothing compared to the biggest in Megaton. He made it to the outskirts of town and rested on a grassy hill to lick his wounds. He laid on his back and looked up at the still blue sky, hating having been defeated and wondering what to do next.

xXx

The shackles around Rias ankles, forepaws and neck were cold as ice as she was led down the dim hallway by her five guard escort. Overkill would have been a good word to describe how massive the guards transporting her were. The elders must clearly be convinced of her guilt. They stopped at a door with torches on either side. The front guard knocked nine times, and someone from inside rapped on the door three times, the he knocked once more. The door was opened, and the first guard and the one at the door gave some secret word and embrace as to allow entry. The customs used in a heresy trial were ancient and unchanged.

Ria was poked by a spear from behind and she jumped with a small yelp. Apparently she was supposed to enter. The room was dark except for two candles sitting beside Trias, whose seat was raised, and he was flanked by two elders on each side. They wore black robes with necklaces bearing the symbol of the creator, a circle made of the glowing crystals the town was built around. The guard remained at the door and Ria stood alone before the council of elders.

"Ria, Daughter of Xenith, you have been accused of heresy by practicing dark magic, and gaining such malevolent powers by fornication with the Devil. How do you plea?"

Ria barely understood what Trias said, as those words were not in her vocabulary yet, but she grasped the gist of his sentence. Through crippling fear, she almost whispered

"I-Innocent..."

"Bah! Lies!" A voice from behind her scoffed. She was startled and looked back to see Gafron standing by the guards.

"Silence Gafron!" Trias insisted.

"Witnesses had seen a display of your dark powers this morning resulting in the injury of a girl your age. What say you to this?" Kairo asked

Ria was still scared stiff, but managed to speak nonetheless.

"...She was being mean to me, and Mr. B said it would be ok if-"

"Mr. B is it?! Thats ludicrous, she's guilty!" He cried again

"I will have your silence or you will be removed from this court!" Trais growled.

"This Mr. B is only visible to you?" Kairo continued

"Yes...He says he only wants to be my friend..."

"And yet he was the one who gave you dark powers and told you to use them on another child?"

Ria stayed silent as the answer was obvious.

"Nothing further your excellence." He said allowing Trias control of the court once more.

"There is only one way to test weather darkness dwells in her soul. Bring the staff of truth."

A clergyman entered from the shadows and presented elder Trias with a five foot gold staff with the same ring on the top as was around their necks. Its eerie glow cast a green light on the aging head elders face as he walked and stood in front of Ria.

"Gaze upon the symbol of the Creator. Should this emblem burn your flesh, then in your heart, darkness resides." He said.

He lowered the end of the staff with the glowing ring closer and closer, approaching her right hind leg. She whined in fear as she watched it get closer to her hindquarters.

He pressed it to her scales and she cried out as he held it there for two seconds and removed it. The evidence was indisputable now. A circle was burned onto the top of her right leg near her tail. Tears flowed from her eyes but she bit her lip to stop from crying aloud. Elder Trias sighed heavily. He knew what this meant, and it was out of his hands now.

He handed the sacred staff back to the clergyman and resumed his place at the head of the chamber.

"The council will deliberate on a verdict." The four elders went behind a curtain and cast their vote. The head elder only voted in the event of a tie, but this was not likely to happen. As a matter of fact, it never has.

Gafron had all the elders in his pocket, for him, the verdict was already known.

The elders reappeared from behind the curtain and set a box in front of Trias. Inside were the votes that he would tally and announce. He opened it and read through the four ballots. He put them away and faced the young defendant.

"Ria, daughter of Xenith, this coucil finds you guilty of heresy. By law, your punishment is to be cleansed by a mighty fire at dawn." he said in an ominous voice.

Her tears hadn't stopped flowing since he had burned her with the staff. She wasn't even sure what he had said, but she was then taken out of the dark chamber and put back into her cell. She tried to lick her burn but it hurt too much to even move. Mr. B was gone again, and no telling when he would return to rescue her like he said he would. She clutched the charm on her necklace and prayed for him to come quickly.

xXx

As Jerrath lay exhausted on the hill, he heard a distant bell toll, which made him sit up in fear, but not disbelief. The bell was rung when a heretic was uncovered.

He thought about the dream he had shrugged off earlier...

'Where the hell could that temple be? And how do they expect me to find it?' He thought as his mind drifted to the terrible things done to heretics.

He got up slowly and limped into the woods on nothing more than a hunch and a prayer that whatever waited for him at this temple would help him save his sister.

xXx

Xenith was in a daze, staring into the fire he had created to keep the cave warm when he heard the death bell toll. It snapped him out of his trance as he looked toward the sound with tears in his eyes.

"No..."

His wife Herra stepped into the room, her face red and eyes swollen as if she had been crying.

"You heard that? That's Gafron. Killing our daughter while you did nothing!" She screamed at him in rage.

He looked at his wife, then back into the fire as before. The once headstrong politician with an aim to save his town from Gafrons insanity was now a broken shadow of his former self. His rival had finally beaten him. Not through force, but through evil cunning. Herra had been hysterical since the morning, and she showed no signs of calming down.

"So thats it? You give up?" She snarled and waited for an answer.

None came, just a vacant stare into a fire, like the one that would be consuming his own flesh and blood by dawn tomorrow.

She said not another word and fled the cave, never to be seen again.

Xenith didn't care, about her or anything anymore. His daughter would be killed by that bastard Gafron, and there was nothing he could do about it. He was only one dragon, he couldn't take on the temple guard by himself. He was powerless.

He raised his tail to his face and looked at the reflection in his shiny tail tip. He loathed what he saw, a weak, fool who gave up his only daughter so as not to upset the elders. He further examined his bladed tail. It looked sharp...very sharp, and why wouldn't it be? All males were taught to keep their claws and tails as sharp as possible since they were hatchlings. He pressed the cold blade to his neck and thought to himself

'I wonder if its sharp enough to cut scales...'

It was.

xXx

Jerrath traipsed through the dense forest his sister loved so much as a light snow began to fall. The snow burned his cuts as they fell on them getting further lost in the woods. He walked for what felt like hours until he came to an old rope bridge. the first board was broken and it didn't look very stable, so he stretched his wings and glided over the misty canyon and onto the other side. He was greeted by a strange land shrouded in dense fog, as well as snow. He looked around and wondered where he was to go next. As he sat, a tunnel of clear air revealed itself and show him the way to the door to the temple from his dream. Seeing this gave him hope as he stepped towards it as the sun set. He was Rias last hope.

What awaits jerrath in the temple? find out next chap!