Page 46 of Power of Draken

“Can you stop doing that?” she mutters, the blowing wind carrying the scent of her embarrassment toward me. Stars, she gets flustered easily. I like it. The honesty of it. The openness.

I blink innocently at her. “Stop catching you?”

“Stop making me trip.”

“All I did was?—”

“No.” She points a finger into my chest and glares, which is adorable since the top of her head barely reaches my shoulder. “Do not say it.”

I hold up my hands in surrender and bite my tongue, but my eyes say everything my mouth doesn’t and she blushes again.

We press on in companionable silence for a while after that, the weather turning inconveniently worse as the day continues. By mid afternoon, the wind is howling through the trees, driving the icy rain into our faces like tiny daggers. The water seeps through the seams of our cloaks, chilling us to the bone. If the checkpoint wasn’t less than half a mile away, I’d change course entirely but we are too close to give it up now.

Still, I watch Rowan like a hawk. I don’t like how her teeth are chattering, or the sheer effort it’s taking her to hunch her shoulders against the biting cold and trudging on. But she isn’t complaining. I respect that, but I worry about it too. I need to know what’s happening inside that head of hers.

The last approach to the checkpoint is the worst. Mud sucks at our boots as we make our way down the hill, sliding as often as walking. By the time we reach the marker—which is a metal box nailed to a tree trunk—the forest has turned into a dismal gray blur. The vibrant autumn colors are so leached away by the unrelenting rain that we might as well be walking through the Gloom.

“Someone was here already,” Rowan says over the wind, her hand shaking as she signs the ledger inside the box and moves to let me have my turn, protecting the parchment the best we can from the elements. "Is that…”

I look at the scribble that barely resembles writing and consider lying, but I don’t. I don’t want to lie to Rowan. At least no more than I absolutely must. But she isn’t going to like the answer. “That’s Logan’s signature. He’s been here already.”

“Oh.” There is no emotion in her voice. Just oh.

I want to punch Logan’s face.

But what I want suddenly matters very little as lightning flashes over head, followed without pause by deafening cracks of thunder and a gust of wind that snaps a tree branch as thick as my thigh off a nearby oak. I curse, drawing Rowan in as the growing wind buffets us from all sides, turning our cloaks into sails.

“We need shelter,” I shout at her, struggling to be heard over the howling wind. I don’t add that we need it fast, before this storm rips the forest to shreds with us in it. “Something on higher ground.” Given how low we are and how fast the rain is pouring, anything on this level is increasingly likely to go for a flash-flood swim.

There are some old ruins northwest of you, about a quarter mile, Arianda informs me, her mental voice threaded with urgency as she adds a rough mental image to the message. The pressure of information is so painful that I bite back a groan of pain, but it’s worth it. I’m more sensitive than most to the draken emotions and images, which is usually an advantage—especially when it comes to coaxing injured ones back to flight before the Eryndor soldiers find and take them. But sometimes too much of a good thing hurts a bit.

Understood, I say, once I can breathe again. Take cover, Arianda. Not even you can fly in this.

I can feel the draken bristle at that even as I hunch over Rowan to half guide, half drag her back up the slippery slope.

Do not presume to tell me what I can and cannot do, rider.

I grind my jaw. Fine. Please for the love of stars, I beg ye. Do not -

My connection with Arianda goes silent in a way that I know means she’s put up her shields in indignation. There is only so much I can do about that right now though, not with the wind shrieking through the trees and ripping away leaves and branches to hurl them through the air like deadly missiles.

“There used to be a temple nearby,” I tell Rowan by way of explanation as I urge her back up the slope we’d so painstakingly descended just an hour ago. “We’ll shelter in the ruins.”

“Alright,” she answers with more bravery than I’d have in her shoes. I move to take the lead, holding my hand out to her. She grips me so tightly that her nails dig into my palm. I welcome the bite. It’s proof that she's still with me. Still fighting.

“Where are we going?” she shouts.

The storm clouds block the sun, but the lightning flashes illuminating the forest reveal glimpses of crumbling stone walls. “There.” I point as another strike of lightning hits, and we can see the vine and lichen covered stones rising up from the forest floor, like bones of an ancient beast. “Not too much farther now.”

We stagger forward, leaning into the gale that’s doing its bloody best to pluck us off our feet. Another hundred yards and our refuge is in sight. Thick granite blocks, weathered and pitted but still standing strong, formthe shell of what must have once been an impressive structure. Now, only a few partial walls remain, but they look solid enough to provide some protection from the weather’s latest attempted murder.

“Pretty,” Rowan says, pointing to the massive oak tree that has fallen against one side of the ruin. Its gnarled branches now form a tangled canopy over a section of collapsed roof.

I can’t stop my grin. “Aye. It is.” It's far from perfect, but right now it's the most beautiful sight in the world.

We stumble the last few yards and climb into the small sheltered alcove the fallen oak has created within the crumbling walls. Thick, twisting roots form a dense lattice overhead, shielding the space from the worst of the rain. And beyond it, there seems to be a section where the original roof is partially intact. Finally, a bit of good fortune.

The effect of the shelter hits us the moment Rowan and I clear the low hanging branches. The sudden absence of wind is a shock, and for a moment we just stand there, gasping for breath and dripping rain water onto the leaf-strewn ground. The air is heavy with the scent of damp earth and decaying wood.

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