Dnara inhaled deeply, trying to calm her own nerves in the hope it would calm the wind, too. Her heartbeat had yet to find a pace unhurried by memories of the beast’s roar and the blank dead-eyed stare of Ren across frozen blades of grass. Closing her fist around the mark on her palm, she recalled the brilliant stars and their promise of hope. She clung to that memory and found bravery to face an unwanted truth.
“This is not the first creature to come after me,” she said. “I don’t know what they want with me, or why, and I swear I didn’t know another would come after we wounded the first.”
“We?” Aldric asked.
“I had help the last time,” Dnara replied. “Friends, who I now believe are better off away from me. It seems all those I come to call friend end up in danger, like Ren, even though I don’t understand the reasoning behind it. I never would have dreamed of a raven hunting me, much less a dragon.”
“A raven?” Aldric shook his head as if all she said only brought more questions than the answers he sought.
“Yes, her name is-” Dnara’s throat closed around the word and her tongue refused to move. The same spell that afflicted Athan, Dnara had little doubt. “It doesn’t matter. She’s dangerous, and powerful, but wounded. Though, perhaps not as wounded as I believed. This creature may be connected to her. She’s directed others to search for me, but nothing like a dragon. I thought... I thought I could be safe, that I was doing the right thing in following your squadron into Carn. Now, I’m not certain of anything.”
Aldric stared at her for a quiet moment before removing his hand from the hilt of his sword. “You can be certain of my word to see you safely to Carn to stand before the king.”
“But I am putting you all at risk,” she argued, frightened but open to the idea of going the rest of her journey alone.
“It is a risk we have all sworn to take, in the name of the king, to protect the kingdom of Carnath and its people, be they farmer or noble.” He placed a finger upon the rune marking her palm. “Or mageborne.”
His oath rekindled the hope in her heart to chase away the fear shrouding it, but a tear escaped and slid down her cheek as she met his unwavering gaze. “Commander, I’m not certain what I am.”
His stoic gaze broke apart for just long enough to reveal a heart of compassion beneath his granite skin. She had borne witness to the truth of Ren’s words; Aldric was a great commander, and Dnara believed him to be an even better man. As his strong fingers wrapped around her marked hand and gave it a gentle squeeze, it felt as if she could lay all her troubles at his feet and he would help her to carry them without question.
“There may be answers to that for you in the red city,” he said.
“I hope so,” she replied. “If I can make it there. More things may hunt me.”
His fingers opened her hand so he could look at the mark on her palm once more, an idea coming to his intelligent gaze. “To hunt something, you must be able to track it, be it footprints on the earth or scent in the air. I wonder how these creatures are tracking you?”
“Well, my footprints are no different than another’s, and I don’t think I smell like anything but mud and river water,” she said, earning the hint of a smile from his lips.
He glanced to her neck where the white ring could still be seen even under flickering torch light. “You have worn a collar before. Did the creatures hunt you then?”
“No. The creatures, these shadows, are as new to me as the magic and-” She stopped and looked down to the rune. “The magic,” she whispered, connecting it all together. “The raven said she had to wait; to wait for me until I had lost the collar and left the grove. I didn’t have magic, I didn’t have the wind, until I lost the collar. And now the dragon... It will come back. It will hunt me all the way into Carn, and it will find me, because it’s following the magic.”
Commander Aldric’s expression told her he had already reached that conclusion for himself, but he had wanted her to speak it first. “If this is so,” he spoke with the unhurried accent of the Orc’kothi, lending wisdom to his words that extended well beyond the years he had lived. “Then to hide you, we must hide the magic.”
“How?” The word trembled past her lips, because she already knew and feared the answer.
He reached behind his back, to a place on his belt kept covered by the embroidered cape of red, black and gold. A click rebounded into her thumping heart as he unhooked something. He kept his gaze even with hers as he brought the object around to his front. Even without looking, she knew what he held.
The wind knew, too, and it rushed around him to show how it felt about the collar he offered. His red plume danced in an angry breeze. Pine needles and dead leaves slapped against his armor. A few of the men shouted in alarm as the wind circled around the blockade they had formed. Overhead, treetops swayed between moonbeams, and ashbirds flew from their roosts in a rush of beating wings. In the center of a growing maelstrom, Aldric’s gaze remained steadfast.
“I will not force it upon you,” he
