Something caught my attention near the edge of the tree line. I squinted for a moment, trying to make out just what it was I had seen. “There,” I said, pointing.
The horses trotted along , though Adela tossed her head— as if annoyed with the direction we headed— as we followed the road until we reached the edge of the forest. Once there, the stench of ash and whatever had burned began to fill my nostrils. This was what I had seen. I didn’t know what it was, only that I could smell it.
“What do you think was burning here?” Joran asked, climbing out of his saddle as he made his way along the road, guiding Wind.
I patted Adela on the side, getting down from the saddle. I swept my gaze around, looking along the road. “I don’t know. But it looks like it was something big.”
“Whatever was here either completely burned away, or someone moved it,” Joran said.
I nodded, crouching down along the side of the road. There was a dark streak along the ground. I ran my finger through it, tracing the ash. Bringing my finger to my nose, I breathed in carefully.
It stunk, a strangely pungent odor. “Maybe this was nothing more than a lightning fire,” I said. I looked up to the clouds. Every so often, the lightning dancing within seemed to pause, as if one of the gods decided to take a break from their merriment.
“The storm is moving in this direction, not from ,” Joran said. “Besides, we haven’t seen that much lightning.”
Fires, overall, were not uncommon when it came to the significant storms that moved through. Most of them were caused by a potent burst of lightning, leaving nothing but a smoldering ruin of whatever had been struck. Usually, it was little more than a crater where the lightning bolt erupted. There was no sign of that here. No sign of anything here.
“What else do you think could have done this?” I asked.
Joran looked over at me, shaking his head. “Really? You’re asking that question?”
“What are you getting at?”
“What I’m saying is that there was a time when you would have been the one offering the alternatives.”
“What alternatives?”
“Look at this,” Joran said, sweeping his hand along the road. “We have at least a twenty-paces-long section that’s burned.”
I studied the road for a moment. It was a little longer than twenty-paces. Maybe twice that. But within that section, there were streaks of what looked to be the same dark ash that coated the road. There was nothing else that burned here.
“And?” I asked.
“And the smell is strange. This doesn’t smell like any fire that I’ve ever been around.”
“Which is why I suggested it was a lightning strike,” I said.
“And I’m telling you I think you’re wrong,” he said, shaking his head. “What lightning fire would run along the road like this?”
I shrugged. “I suppose you’re going to tell me.”
He started laughing, looking up at the sky, frowning as he stared at the clouds. “I didn’t see anything, but maybe it was…” He trailed off , his voice getting softer.
“Maybe it was what?”
“A dragon. What else do you think this could be?”
“It couldn’t be a dragon,” I said to him. We’d seen dragons. Everyone in the kingdom saw dragons every so often, but only from a distance and rarely up close. It was how he solidified his rule. The dragons were the reason he had been able to expand his lands, and the reason that our home, including Berestal, had been claimed. Were it not for the king, we might have ended up under the Vard’s control. With both of the dragons and the dragon riders, he could ensure his influence. The Vard had no magic of their own, not like the king and his dragon mages who could control the magic of the dragons. “If it had been a dragon, we would’ve seen it.”
“I’m not so sure you would have,” Joran muttered.
“What’s that mean?”
He shrugged. “It means you’re so focused on the farm, that I doubt you would have seen anything.”
I started to smile. “I think I would’ve noticed a dragon flying around.”
“Maybe ,” Joran said.
“Let’s just say you’re right. Let’s say this was a dragon. What do you think the dragon attacked?”
If this was a dragon, and I wasn’t at all convinced that it was, it would’ve had to have attacked in order for it to have left everything burnt like this.
“I don’t really know,” Joran said, waving his hand. “Maybe my father was right and the Vard were moving through here. The king could have sent one of his riders—or better yet, a dragon mage—to take care of them.”
I paused at the end of the charred area, marching along the road to count how many paces it was. I had been wrong in my initial assessment. It was more than twenty-paces. It had to be at least sixty-paces.
Some sections were darker than others, and the ash and soot that coated the road was denser in those sections. I found nothing else. No evidence of what had been here.
It was possible that what we were lookingat was nothing more than the remains of someone trying to make it look like a dragon had been through here. The only people who would want to make it look that way would be the Vard.
Before Berestal had been claimed by the king, the city had had a heavy Vard connection. They lived in the lands far to the south, beyond an uninhabitable stretch of land known as the Southern Reach, and had warred with the kingdom for decades over territory. Berestal had remained out of the fighting, until the king had claimed these lands in
