For a moment all Peri could do was sit there speechless, lamenting at the universe for being so utterly unfair. Of course Dareth had to be in league with the 'good guys'. A dozen different scenarios flashed through her head, most of them involving Dareth getting beaten unconcious in some way, but her limbs refused to obey her brain's commands. Then abruptly she scrambled to her feet, knife appearing in her left hand, and stalked closer to the fire. She vaguely heard a warning hum come shivering across the bond between her and Datia, but her mind was too bent on making Dareth suffer to pay attention. The elf sat leisurely in the light of the fire and watched her approach with lamp-like eyes, the dancing flames reflected in their timeless depths.
"You." Her hatred rang through in that one syllable, but Dareth didn't seem concerned. In fact he looked smug, and that only served to whip Peri into a fury. Her hand tightened on her knife and she had fully made the decision to stab the elf in the chest when suddenly he stood.
"Me," he agreed, coming around the fire to meet her. With each step he took closer, Peri could feel the tension rising another level. The anxious faces of the other Riders regsistered in the back of her mind, but her focus was on Dareth, the beast that had tried to kill her and did God knows what to her best friend.
"What are you doing here?" she spat. "I would've thought you'd be putting out your camp, seeing as it's on fire. Did you miss that memo?"
"Clearly you thought wrong, seeing as I am here," Dareth countered smoothly, stopping a foot away from her and watching her casually. "You do have a habit of getting things wrong, don't you?"
"Says the one I left unconcious in the woods," Peri shot back. She wasn't sure how that related to here and now, but she wanted to rub the fact in Dareth's face, knowing he would hate it. And she was right, as his cool demeanor suddenly grew dangerous in the firelight.
"That is irrelevant," he said through clenched teeth, making Peri smirk.
"Only because you don't want to admit a petty thief got the better of you," Peri said, determined to drive the dagger of her words home.
"But your friend didn't, now did he?" Dareth said, a devious look coming into his eyes. Immediately Peri's expression grew murderous and she took a threatening step forward.
"You shut up about Nick," she hissed, moving forward until she was face to face with the elf. "Where is he?"
Dareth grinned, his pointed teeth glinting cruelly, and turned away from her to walk back to his place in the circle. Peri watched him through narrowed eyes, waiting for him to speak. He seemed to be enjoying her position, the way she had been enjoying humiliating him in front of the assembled Riders, but unlike him Peri didn't have the control of an elf. Once the silence stretched on too long she stomped over to face him, glaring down at him with all the fire of Hell in her eyes.
"Maybe you didn't here me," she growled, only able to restrain herself from screaming by imagining the way Dareth would writhe when she cut that pretty little face of his in half. "Where is Nick?"
"I don't think that's your business, now is it?" Dareth said, meeting her fiery gaze with an icy stare. "He's a prisoner of the Riders, for being part of a plot to overthrow our order, and any information regarding him is strictly classified."
"He was just trying to help me," Peri argued, suddenly fearing that the Riders had killed him. The thought sent an icy dagger plunging into her stomach, but she forced herself to stand rigidly. She took strength from her bondmate, who was standing a little ways behind her. "He's done nothing."
"Even if that can be proved, he's still wanted by the law for murder, treason, need I go on?" Dareth looked mockingly at her, daring her to say anything. When silence ensued, he nodded and continued. "Either way, your friend is in no way innocent, and therefore shall be treated as such. His punishment is now up to the Riders, not a girl who got mixed up with the wrong crowd."
"But if his punishment is 'up to the Riders', I should have access to that information," Peri said, finally spotting a lifeline and seizing it. She extended her right hand and the silver patch in its center glinted brightly in the light of the bonfire. Dareth seemed vaguely interested, examining the mark for a moment before sitting back. As Peri watched, a cruel light came across his features, and that made her more nervous than a thousand Smokes. She almost flinched when he opened his mouth, certain she wasn't going to like what came out.
"Oh, that's right. You're a Rider now, oh dear me." The way Dareth spoke was mocking and childish, the way someone spoke to an infant, and it made Peri's stomach burn with hatred. "So you should know all about our plans. Well, here you are. Nick is imprisoned, I imagine somewhere horrible, no doubt being tortured for information, until someone gives any other orders."
Peri immediately felt sick, and she wished there was some way Dareth could be lying. But she knew, with a horrid, agonizing instinct that he was speaking the truth. As if on cue, countless images of her friend being brutally beaten, cut apart, or nearly drowned paraded through her mind, making her feel even worse. And she knew he wouldn't give away a thing, because he was the strong one, the loyal one in their bond, while she was the weak link. If she was in his position she wasn't quite sure if she could handle it. She might blurt out everything she'd ever learned about her friend, just to put off the inevitable pain for a little while. And to be honest, Nick shouldn't even have been out that night. He should have been holed up in his house, riding out the chaos she had caused, but now he was off somewhere being tortured. Because of her.
My fault.
"Not what you were wanting to hear, was it?" Dareth's voice cut off the gruesome images that were flooding her, but she wished he would just shut up. "Well, I can't stand the thought of poor Nick in pain if, as you say, he didn't do anything."
Peri lifted her eyes to Dareth's, foolishly hoping that perhaps there was something human inside of him. The look in his eyes brought her hopes crashing down to the jagged rocks below.
"I think it would be kinder to, well, put him down. That is what you humans do, when your animals are too old or injured?"
(For whatever reason, I can't put *s to symbolize a time-skip anymore, so this is my replacement.)
Peri woke with a splitting headache and no memory of how she'd gotten where she was. It felt like dragons were dancing around inside her skull, slamming their tails and snorting fire as they tried to break their way out into the world. There was a strange ringing in her right ear and each breath felt like it was going to split her ribcage right open, but the first thing she thought of, instead of the pain, was Datia and where she was. Reaching out through their bond, she found a strange sight: her bondmate was flying, and all around were dragons of all shapes and sizes. When she looked down the ground was flying by too fast to make anything out, and the way Datia's mind felt, Peri could tell she was relaxed. But not for long. After a little while, the midnight blue dragon began to slice through the air faster and faster, and all around her the other dragons responded. Peri got the impression of a race, but it didn't take long for the other dragons to fall away and spiral to the earth, leaving Datia flying alone. Well, almost alone. One other dragon had managed to keep pace, an slender, whip-like dragon with royal purple scales, and for a long moment the pair flew alone. And then vanished. Peri tensed and was fully ready to go fight off whatever had attacked her bondmate, just as a sleepy thought crept sluggishly into her mind.
Morning.
Peri smiled, despite the throbbing in her head, and realized Datia had been dreaming.
Good morning. Is it morning?
Yes, Datia responded, with a strange tone to her mental voice. Peri wondered briefly what that meant, but her head hurt too much for her to think to hard.
Where are you? Peri asked, unwilling to open her eyes and look around. The light would almost definitely make her headache worse, something she wanted to avoid. From her past experiences with headaches, this one fell into the 'head injury' category, and those were usually the most sensitive. Joy.
Datia sent her a quick image of a field, spotted with other dragons in various stages of wakefulness, and in the distance Peri could see the tents of the Rider camp. Suddenly one of the dragons, who had previously been curled up in a hollow in the ground, rose up on four legs, and Peri recgonized him as the last dragon from Datia's dream.
Who's that? she asked, focusing on the serpentlike dragon as he slipped away towards the camp. She sensed an adoring awe come creeping over Datia, and Peri's curiosity rose.
Ebrithil, Datia answered briefly, but the tone of her thought spoke louder. She clearly idolized the dragon, for some reason or another. Peri could have laughed in amusement if her head and, well, everything else didn't hurt so badly.
Wincing, Peri forced her eyes open, and even the dim light of the tent she was lying in made her head throb. She forced her eyes to remain open, however, and looked around, hoping for something that would give her a clue as to what had happened. Perhaps Smoke had attacked and she'd taken a blow to the head during the fierce battle that had undoubtedly ensued? She didn't see anything in the murky light that showed signs of a fight, and there was no lingering scent of smoke in the air from dragonfire, but she had not idea how long she'd been out. So she asked Datia.
Three days, was her bondmate's reply, and the strange tone was back. However, Peri was distracted from the question forming in her mind by a rustle, and then a familiar boyish shape appeared on the edge of her vision.
"Hey, you're awake!" he exclaimed, his words like knives stabbing into her head. He immediately looked concerned, then guilty, and Peri guessed she must have flinched. "Sorry," he continued in a softer voice. "Here, let me fix some of that."
Before Peri could move, Hadin had placed his hands lightly on her skull and closed his eyes. After a long moment of tense silence, the pain in her head, back, and ribs began to fade away and his arms dropped back down to his sides. Peri thought she could see a slight gravity pull at the boy's face, like he'd suddenly had some of his boundless energy sucked out of him, but his normal expression of buoyant happiness soon returned. He grinned at her in a sort of prideful way, either not seeing or ignoring the look she gave him that said she didn't need his magic, and gave a mock bow, which making her smile a bit. Now that her headache had been reduced to a dull throbbing and her ribs barely twinged, she felt able to sit up, so she struggled gingerly up onto her elbows, glaring at Hadin when he tried to help. He backed away with his palms raised in surrender, watching while she fought her way to a sitting position. For a moment all the blood rushed out of her head, and black spots crowded her vision, but soon they faded. Peri blinked the last of them away and blew out a breath.
"Ouch," she muttered to herself, pressing a palm to her head for a moment. Looking up at Hadin, she thought she saw a pitying look in his eyes, but if there was he quickly squashed it when he saw her looking, so Peri couldn't be sure. "What the hell happened?"
All her theories ran through her head, but none of them matched up with the awkward, uncomfortable expression on Hadin's face. Surely if she'd been knocked out during a battle with Smoke he wouldn't look like he was choking on a lemon? Suspicious now, Peri felt her face morph into a hard mask as she looked at him.
"Well, you see… um, when we got back after the raid…" Hadin broke off with a nervous laugh. "How much do you remember?"
Peri bit back a biting comment about how she wanted an explanation right now, and she said shortly, "Not much. We got back, I saw Datia, and then Dareth decided to show his ugly face."
"Yeah, how much of the Dareth conversation?" he asked, wincing at her tone.
"Um, we were talking about… camps, how I thought he should have been in Smoke's. What happened after that?"
Hadin, if possible, looked even more uneasy.
"Well, y'all started talking about a friend of yours, looked like a touchy subject from the way you were going at it, and you wanted to know what had happened to him, right? Well, Dareth told you, about how your friend was locked up in Hljödhr Andlát," Peri tried not to look suspcious as she grabbed hold of the name and stored it for later, "and then, um, well, he was all like 'He's suffering so we should, uh, put him down'."
Hadin's voice dwindled away as he looked at her, an almost fearful expression on his face, but Peri wasn't paying attention. At his words her memories had gradually trickled back, and her memory of the confrontation was back, albeit a little fuzzy. She looked down at her hands to find they were clenched into fists, so tense that the knuckles had gone white. Her gut told her to go find Dareth and strangle him, but she forced herself to sit still.
"What happened next?" she said through gritted teeth.
"You kind of went off the edge a little bit and tried to kill him," Hadin offered pleasantly. It appeared he didn't like Dareth any more than Peri did. "Of course, you took a punch to the head and kind of hit a rock when you hit the ground, but it was pretty funny. Not you getting smacked, but someone finally going after Darth like that," Hadin added, raising his hands to ward of her coming protest. Peri huffed out an irritated breath aimed at Dareth and swung her legs back up onto the bed, ready to sleep away the rest of her existence. She couldn't believe that stupid elf had gotten the better of her, even though his reflexes far outshone hers, and any other human's, for that matter. However, Hadin's hand prevented her from lying down, and she found herself heaved to her feet.
"Oh, no you don't," Hadin said, fighting to keep her from flopping back down on her bed. "You've been lying around for days, now you've got some catching up to do."
"What on earth are you talking about?" Peri groaned as she was marched towards the entrance flap, not bothering to lift it out of the way. Hadin pushed her through anyway, and a shower of dust coated her entire face.
"You're a Rider now, Peri, and unless you want to get killed come next battle, you and Datia have some training to do."
As if on cue, Datia's deep blue scales glinted in Peri's peripheral, a mellow 'Hello' popping into her head. Peri smiled slightly and ran her fingers lightly along her dragon's back, some energy coming into her stride. Hadin let his hands drop from her shoulders and fell into step on her right, a relieved look in his eyes.
So what's this training he's talking about? Peri thought, glancing at her bondmate.
They're going to teach you sword-fighting and magic, and I'm going to learn flying and stuff.
I thought you weren't old enough to fly.
Well, yes, but when I am I'll be strong already, and fast.
Peri thought she heard a strange tenor on the last word, but she didn't ask. Instead she smiled wider and looked around, her left hand resting on Datia's back. It hit her suddenly that her bondmate stood just below her hip, but she wasn't too surprised. Datia had nearly doubled in size in just the first three days of her life, and the rate of her growth wouldn't just abruptly drop off. It was strange to think of her friend as one of the enormous reptiles that had attacked Smoke's camp, but that was certainly where she was headed.
"This way," Hadin announced suddenly, interrupting her thoughts to lead her out of the cluster of tents. Peri frowned at the sudden change in direction, as well as their apparent path into the forest, but she didn't speak her questions aloud. She would see where they were going soon enough, wouldn't she? Here the distance to the trees was only a few paces, and within moments they had vanished into the sprawling forest. Hadin glanced over at her with a devilish look in his eyes and said, "You up for a run?"
Peri groaned as a response, but Hadin shook his head and pressed his hand firmly to her back.
"It's part of training, so you have to," Hadin said, and the look on his face, like that of a war veteran's, told her that he'd had to suffer through this too. And he wasn't about to let her out. Groaning in complaint, Peri broke into a reluctant jog, her muscles immediately screeching at her in anger. Hadin ran easily alongside her, looking at her with an amused expression, and Datia bounded along on her other side. Peri returned Hadin's look with a glare, but soon she had to turn her gaze to the trail or else twist her ankle.
"You do know I'm a thief, not a courier," she panted, breathing hard. Oddly enough, now that adrenaline wasn't feuling her limbs and lungs, she already felt like she was dying. "Why is this necessary?"
"Because if you're being chased by Urgals or an enemy through the woods, you'll want to be able to outrun them until you can think up a plan or get help," Hadin responded, sounding like he was reciting from a book. "Besides," he added, his voice taking on a secretive tone. "Don't you want information on Nick?"
Peri shot him a wide-eyed look, almost disbelieving, and he gazed back with a straight face. Suddenly she realized he wasn't kidding and she stopped abruptly, one hand latching onto his arm tight. Hadin winced as she pulled him to a stop, but she didn't relax her grip.
"You tell me what you know and you tell me now," she hissed, leaning in close. Instead of answering her, Hadin yanked his arm free and stepped back. Datia touched her nose to Peri's hand in warning.
"Really? Three hundred feet from the camp, where dragons and elves with freakish hearing are listening for intruders? I don't think so. We've got to get at least two miles in before we're far enough away."
With that he set off again, and Peri exchanged an irritated look with her bondmate.
How am I supposed to know if he's telling the truth? she thought.
He is.
Peri held her bondmate's eyes, and for a moment she lost herself in their deep blue depths. Nodding, she broke back into a run and sprinted after Hadin, who was already half-hidden by the trees.