Chapter Twelve

 

If I was nervous five minutes ago, it was nothing compared to how I felt when I saw Spear standing by the campfire. There were also many more people than I had previously met. They, like Spear, must have come from the houses in the village. With Ash by my side, I tried to hide my fear as I entered the circle of dragons. He’d managed to get them into some semblance of order and now the stone circle was filled with people all looking his way. I took the opportunity to sit toward the back in the hope that no one would see me.

  The sound of sobbing still surrounded me but the chaos from ten minutes ago had subsided. 

“Right!” said Spear. “I think everyone is here so I shall begin. As you all know, a courageous young man died last night...”

“He was murdered by a slayer, you mean,” shouted someone although I couldn’t tell who. I pushed myself farther back on the rock in an attempt to hide. 

A couple of people jeered at his words.

“He was one of our very best,” continued Spear, ignoring the man who had heckled him. “He will be sorely missed by all of us, but especially by Eleanor, Tom, and Ally.”

An older couple stood next to Ally, presumably the twins’ parents. The woman was crying into her husband’s shoulder. My heart went out to them.

“Do you want to say a few words about Stone?” asked Spear to the couple. The old man set his mouth into a grim line as he shook his head and held onto his inconsolable wife. Ally pushed into the circle, taking Spear’s place.

“I want to talk about my brother. He was my twin and my best friend.” His voice cracked with the pain of speaking. “Everyone thinks that twins have this unique connection and it’s true. It does exist. When Stone scraped his knee, I felt the pain in my own knee. When I fell out of a tree at the age of eleven and broke my arm, he went home complaining of a sore arm way before he knew I’d hurt myself. We knew what the other was thinking. He was half of me.”

He broke down into loud sobs but didn’t give up speaking. I could see that he needed us all to understand just how special Stone was, but I had a feeling everyone already knew.

“I can still feel him! How can that be if he’s dead? How could I still feel him so strongly within me?”

A young woman I didn’t know came up to him and threw her arms around his neck and gave him a tight squeeze. 

“I’m sorry, Ally. I was out there with him. I saw them kill him. He’s definitely dead.”

“But I can feel him,” he pleaded to the young girl before descending into uncontrollable crying. She led him away from the circle so that Spear could take his place again.

He began to talk about how connected they all were to this land and how they could never leave, but something about what Ally had said resonated within me. Of course, he could have been in denial about his brother’s death and the weird twin connection thing could mean nothing, but what if he was right? What if Stone was out there somewhere? The woman had said that she had seen him die, but if his soul was trapped within the slayer’s sword, then maybe that was why Ally was so sure he could still feel his existence. Because he wasn’t dead at all. His soul was just not inhabiting his body.

Once the thought entered my mind, I couldn’t shake it. Was Ally still alive out there somewhere? I thought of my own sword that I’d left in the bedroom in the cliff house and how it was supposed to be filled with the soul of a dragon by now. My father’s sword was said to be filled with the souls of a hundred dragons. Before I’d come here, it had been nothing more than an abstract thought that didn’t really mean anything. Sure, I knew the souls strengthened the swords, but I’d thought that dragons’ souls were worth very little, that they didn’t mean anything. The thought of a hundred or more of them trapped within my father’s sword was enough to bring bile up my throat. It was worse than death, the thought of being trapped forever within a metal object.

I looked across to Ash who was listening intently to Spear speak. He was still talking about the connection they felt to the land and to each other, and how they could never leave, despite the danger on the other side of the cliffs. It became clear to me just why they felt so connected. The souls of their ancestors, their fathers and their brothers, were still here, albeit trapped at the other side of the cliff and they didn’t even know it. The way Spear was talking about it being a spiritual connection was right. I had to tell someone! If it would bring Stone back, I’d stand in front of the whole crowd and speak myself. 

I opened my mouth to tell Ash when I suddenly realized what telling them would mean. It wasn’t as simple as getting the dragon souls back. They’d have to go to my village and take them back. By force.

Most of the villagers were trained dragon slayers. They’d fight to the death before even knowing who the dragons really were. Causalities would be high on both sides and then maybe it would be Jasper or my father that would get killed. Maybe it would be Ash.

“Come on,” I heard Ash say, breaking me away from my thoughts. The people were beginning to disperse. It seemed the meeting was over. “We need to get you out of here.”

I followed him silently as we ran behind the people into the cave house and shut the door. Firecracker came bounding over, her tail wagging enthusiastically. 

“At least someone likes me,” I said, giving her hair a friendly tousle. 

“I like you,” said Ash, coming toward me. He gazed at me with such concern in his eyes but something else too. It wasn’t happiness. It was warmth and safety and friendship and something else I couldn’t quite decipher. I couldn’t look at him without the tears welling up. I couldn’t help it. My eyes stung and I knew that if I held his gaze just one moment longer I was going to cry. He pulled me into a hug and the dam finally burst. I sobbed onto his shoulder, wetting his outfit. The hug could have lasted two minutes or two hours, I couldn’t tell, but it was interrupted when Edeline and Lucy walked through the door. 

“We’d be better stay indoors today,” remarked Edeline. “I think a storm might be brewing. We’ll eat away from the others in here.”

I glanced out the window. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The storm she was talking about had nothing to do with the weather.

The day passed slowly. I hung out with Ash up in my bedroom, and we sunbathed a little on the terrace. He tried to engage me in conversation but I was so distracted with thoughts of the slayers’ swords that I wasn’t much of a conversationalist. We ate dinner there until great black clouds blew in. Maybe Edeline was right after all. When the first big, fat, heavy drops of rain began to fall from the sky, we moved indoors. 

“Are you okay?” he asked as he closed the door to the outside. “You’ve been quiet all day.”

“I’m sorry. Today has been hard. I just need some space.” His face fell as I said the words but it was true. I knew he was hurting too, and I had the feeling that he’d been glued to my side all day because he needed company, but my company wasn’t worth much at the moment. He’d been wonderful to me but the truth was I felt guilty about getting him into this. He shouldn’t be inside with me; he should be outside with his friends so they could all share their grief. “Goodnight then,” he said, kissing my cheek sadly. 

I watched him go, leaving me alone with only my own misery for company. It was early but I flopped onto the bed, listening to the hammering of the rain against the window. Usually, I loved the sound. 

I tried sleeping but the thought of those dragons locked within the swords was haunting me. Guilt had me lying awake for so long that it was completely dark before I eventually got to sleep. I couldn’t have been asleep long before a huge roll of thunder rattled the windows. I sat up in bed, fearful of the noise, before I realized what it was that had woken me. 

Someone needed to find out if we could get the souls back from the swords. I jumped out of bed and put on the warmest clothes I could find. I also attached my armor and sword, not because I thought I would have to fight anyone, but because I wasn’t sure if I’d make it back. 

I crept quietly through the house, only disturbing Firecracker who was her usual exuberant self. Thankfully, she didn’t bark as I let myself out into the night. The rain was pounding down, making it difficult to see, but I only had to follow the cliff to get to where I’d seen the stairs cut out of it earlier. I had no idea if they would lead me up over them, but I had to try. I couldn’t bring myself to look at the circle where we had trained only a day or so ago. It only reminded me of Stone. 

By the time I came upon the steps, my clothes were soaked and I was freezing cold. It was too late to turn back though. Someone had to save those dragons and that someone had to be me. I placed my foot on the first step and looked up. The steps seemed to go on forever. It was going to be a long and arduous journey but in my heart, I knew it was one I had to make. I whispered a goodbye to Ash and started the journey up the cliff face.