Asher’s hand instinctively moved to the pinch he felt on his left hip. He could feel a rough scab but nothing else.
“You had a dagger in there,” Inara told him. “And besides the plethora of gashes and bruises, you also had a nasty cut on your head.”
“Why am I not dead?” he asked.
“The power of the elves,” Inara beamed. “My mother and a handful of her kin have worked through the morning to heal you as best they can.” Her expression was serious. “I saw the bodies in the stable. They were Arakesh.”
Asher nodded along. “They had been tracking me since Namdhor.”
“There were a lot of them,” Inara remarked.
“All of them, to be precise,” he corrected. “Veda is dead, and the last of the Arakesh with him. Nightfall is no more.”
“They’re all gone?” Inara enquired with disbelief.
Asher thought about that question. “All but one,” he said quietly.
Inara gripped his hand and squeezed. “You walked away from that path long ago, before I was even born. Yours is the way of the ranger now,” she declared with encouragement. “And I have to say, what you two can do together is… a little scary.” There was something in her eyes that reflected the horror the pair had left in that stable.
Asher hardly acknowledged her final words as something intangible tugged at his mind, drawing his gaze to the window. It looked to be a cold, yet cloudless, day outside. But it wasn’t the weather that had demanded his attention. He could feel Avandriell out there, waiting for him.
Turning back to Inara, the half-elf was displaying a knowing smile. “Would you like to see her?”
As always, Asher answered the question with action and immediately tried to get out of bed. There was no particular thing that stopped him but, by the time he reached the edge of the bed, everything hurt in some way.
“Easy!” Inara bade. “They stopped you from bleeding but they didn’t give you a new body.”
Asher groaned with frustration. “I thought Riders were supposed to heal fast.”
“We do,” the Guardian said. “But you’ve still got a way to go before then.”
Inara assisted the ranger in finding his clothes and, with a heavy fur added to his shoulders, Asher limped to the door. Inara showed him through to the foyer and the guest house’s main doors. Not one to have doors opened for him, the ranger went to the extra, and painful, effort of opening it himself.
The sunlight was blinding, though its heat did nothing to counter the bitter wind that picked up his green cloak. With all the haste his injuries could afford him, Asher hurried away from the building and into the gardens. His blue eyes scanned the heavens in search of his companion. He could feel her, up there in the sky, but she was moving faster than before, making it harder to track her movements.
Something cut through the sky behind him, but his wounds prevented him from turning around quickly enough to spot it. Despite the glare from the sun, concealing her approach, the ranger knew the dragon was finally flying towards him.
When Avandriell was close enough, her wings fanned out and eclipsed the sun. All four of her claws came up before digging into the ground in front of him. Asher’s mouth failed to close - he was in awe of her.
Avandriell maintained her regal stance, allowing the ranger to get a better look at her. The dragon now stood a head taller than a horse and at least twice that length. Her scales gleamed in the sunlight, a shade of bronze that no dwarven smith could ever achieve in his forge. Her claws were thick and her legs even thicker. She looked strong enough now to lift an ox clean off the ground. A long ridged tail swayed gently behind her, ending with an oval-shaped chunk of dark bone.
Perhaps the most noticeable difference, besides her increased size, were the spikes along her spine. Asher tilted his head to take in their new shape, noting how flat the majority of them were. Athis and Ilargo possessed similar protrusions along their spines, but both displayed sharp spikes rather than flat ridges.
“It’s a female trait,” Inara told him, watching his gaze. “They have flatter spinal horns, but they’re twice as strong as the spikes found on a male.”
Asher appreciated the information, though he was unable to tear his eyes away from the dragon. Following the flat ridges up to her head, he discovered a pair of small tusks either side of her jaw. They were small changes, but every one of them made her all the more fearsome and beautiful at the same time.
Quick footsteps came up behind them. Asher didn’t need to turn around to discover their owners’ identity, for Avandriell could see them with ease. The dragon’s knowledge was instantly his and the ranger knew that Reyna and Nathaniel had arrived with Faylen and a handful of elves. It was the most peculiar thing to know something with absolute surety without actually seeing it.
Inara held up a hand to hold them back. “We will give you both some time.” After offering Avandriell a polite bow of the head, the Guardian of the Realm walked away and took the others with her.
Once they were alone, Avandriell dipped her head a little lower and tilted it to one side. It must be so frustrating to only have two legs and no wings, she observed with a touch of humour to her voice.
Asher couldn’t help but grin like a fool. “So I didn’t imagine it. You did talk to me, in the stables.”
You need not use your voice, Avandriell reminded him. The bridge between our minds
