Page 57 of Redeeming the Dragon

Obediently, I lifted my eyelids, at the same time leaning forward and straightening my spine.

I’d not been lying down, as when I wakened in the Wastelands with the Simathe First. Instead, I was sitting up with my back against the wall of a wooden hut. Before me was a blindingly white wall of stone. Braisley’s mountains had been white, capped with snow. These walls were every bit as white but boasted a smooth, pearlescent sheen.

Like the stone the Simathe had given me.

That must have been why he’d bidden me use it. I had—and it had brought me to the place of its origin.

“You be well?”

My gaze snapped from the canyon before me to the speaker on my right. I was gazing at everything through the wispy, translucent veil she had cast over my head. Regardless, I could see quite clearly.

A face, wrinkled and aged, the lines like the squiggles of my father’s sea charts. Deep, dark eyes, brownish-green, like the deepest depths of the ocean. Dark skin, the color of the rich, warm soil in the jungles of my home island. Hair gone grey-white from age, braided and coiled around her head in a living crown.

“Who are you?” I asked, twisting my body to face her fully. I’d never seen her like. Still, as with the Simathe, Isensed she offered me no danger. Also, I deduced that the Simathe would not have sent me here if there were any danger.

“I told you,” she said, rocking back on her heels, “you be in the home of the Jearim.” She grinned at me, her white teeth contrasting sharply with the deep hue of her skin. The gaps between her teeth offered a friendly air. “Someone sent you here,” she observed. “No Blinded find the Jearim unassisted. Who sent you?”

“I—he was a Simathe,” I stammered, desperately trying to collect my wits. “The First, he called himself. Who are the Blinded? I am not blind.”

“Weren’t you?” she chuckled. “All be blinded by Brightstone at first.”

Brightstone. Blinded.

Tearing my focus from her, I glanced about the area once more. The brightness of the rock appeared to come from within, much like that of the sun itself, albeit I figured the light was not actual light, but rather the reflection of the sunlight on the white stone. Also…yes, I’d been temporarily blinded until she threw the veil over my face.

The names made sense, once I placed them in context.

“Ah, the First.” The old woman’s voice drew me back. She nodded sagely. “It would have to be him. Or Contrey. One of the old ones.”

What didoldmean to an immortal warrior?

“Who is Contrey?” I asked that question instead.

The woman flapped a wrinkled palm, shooing the question away. “One of the deathless. No matter. Well, child, can you rise? Can you stand?”

My strength was returning as I settled into another realm so different from my own that my brain reeled to accept it. I’d rarely dreamt of visiting other portions of Aerisia, being content with a quiet life on my home island. Now, I’d seen the impregnability of the fairyqueen’s mountain home, glimpsed the lifeless and barren Wastelands, apparently lived in what I’d been told was the heart of Aerisia itself, and now found myself in…

I nodded at the older woman, my movement shaky, but braced myself on the hut to push myself upright. My legs were weak and shaky. Too much magical jumping from place to place, I supposed.

“You can stand. This is good,” the woman crowed, rising with an audible creak of her knees. She wore a simple wrapped dress of bright colors that passed over one shoulder and left the other bare. Feet in rope sandals peeked out from beneath the hem, and she wore colored pebbles, strung on leather strands, about her neck and wrists as jewelry. More colored pebbles were embedded in her braid, like jewels in a crown. Her brown-green eyes gleamed with interest.

“Child, tell me,” she said, patting my arm. “It has been long since you ate?”

“It’s been…”

I stopped, the veil swishing slightly over my face. “I cannot say,” I finished with a helpless laugh. “I have been traveling all over Aerisia. But, aye, now that you mention it, it’s been quite some time.”

“I thought so. Follow me, girl.”

She turned, scuttling away, her back slightly bent from the length of her life, leading me from the hut and into the heart of a village. I followed, gazing about in awe, wondering where in the depths of Aerisia we were. Huts crisscrossed the valley in zig-zagged patterns, fires surrounded by stones were planted at intervals among the huts, and a few trees here and there waved their leaves in the breeze. Amid the huts were also several barns, sheds, lean-tos, and even garden plots. These folk, the Jearim, were an orderly and self-sufficient people.

“Come, come,” my guide beckoned when my steps slowed. “Not time for gawking. Time for eating.”

Obediently, I quickened my pace, but how did I not gawk?

Soaring around me on all sides, save one, were cliffs of pearlescent white stone thrusting themselves proudly into the blue sky. Having looked about, I could see I was in a vast canyon whose opening appeared more a pinprick of light than a true entrance. The white stone was indeed blinding, dazzling, especially beneath the sunshine. Growing up in a tropical, ocean area, I’d supposed myself accustomed to bright sunshine. However, sunlight shimmering on golden sands was far different than sunlight reflecting on white canyons. I wondered how the folk here survived—not only the blinding light, but the dry heat—then supposed they were simply used to it.

“Here, girl, Sit. Sit,” ordered the woman, and I halted just in time to avoid running into her.

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