Jaax took a deep breath and sighed.
“Is everyone ready?” he asked.
The other three dragons nodded and Jaax climbed to the edge of the precipice. This one was even steeper than the cliff top he’d slept on earlier that day.
“May Ethoes grant us another successful night,” he said solemnly.
The four dragons quietly mumbled an ancient blessing in their own dialect of Kruelt. On Jaax’s signal they launched themselves off the mountain, their giant reptilian bodies invisible against the black of night.
Don’t worry Jahrra, Jaax thought as they crossed over the Oribiy River, the moonlight sparking off its surface far below, I’ll stop them, I won’t let them find you.
As the miles fled by, Jaax found his thoughts returning to his nightmare once again. He felt so helpless in that world, unable to move, unable to shout out a warning to Jahrra, unable to confront the demon who attacked her. But he wouldn’t let that world become reality; he wouldn’t allow his nightmare to take form in the world of the living. He would fight, fight to the death if he had to in order to keep Jahrra safe. With a renewed vigor, Jaax set his teeth and felt the flames building deep in his chest as the weak firelight of a large camp came into view. Someday he would defeat the Crimson King, but tonight he would simply delay him.
-Chapter One-
Advice from a Mystic
“Jahrra! Be careful, that plant–”
“ARRGGGHHH!”
Jahrra released the stubborn weed the second it spewed a noxious cloud of gas into her face. She fell to the ground and immediately started coughing, waving at the green mist in an attempt to rid herself of the horrible smell.
“I was going to say, ‘that plant is called Bog’s Breath for a reason.’”
Jahrra glared up at Denaeh, her youthful expression showing amusement. She had her sleeves rolled up and her face was shaded by a wide straw hat. Dirt and mud covered her hands and forearms, but she didn’t seem bothered by it at all.
“You could have warned me before hand,” Jahrra grumbled as the awful odor of Bog’s Breath finally floated away.
“I’m sorry, I forgot, until I saw you tugging away at it. You have to be cautious of the leaves. If you press them too hard the sack underneath will burst, and well, you know what happens then.”
It was obvious that Denaeh was trying very hard not to laugh. Jahrra sighed and stood up, brushing herself off in the process. It’d been months since the strange Mystic had helped her frighten Eydeth and Ellysian, and she was determined to make it up to her, even if it meant weeding a garden that was full of gas-spewing plants.
Jahrra gave her newest friend a weak smile and got back to work, tugging and yanking a little more cautiously now. As she pulled on stubborn weeds and listened to the sound of fog dew dripping to the forest floor, Jahrra thought about her summer. Now that it was nearly over, she would be starting school again and facing the evil twins once more.
A grin suddenly split Jahrra’s face. Earlier that spring she’d been dared to enter the dreaded Belloughs of the Black Swamp in the Wreing Florenn to find the terrible witch that lived there. Despite the rumored dangers and her own fear, Jahrra had done it, all to win back her favorite retreat, Lake Ossar. The horrible Resai twins had taken a sudden interest in the lake and in doing so had forced Jahrra and her two best friends, Gieaun and Scede, to find another place to hide from them. When Eydeth had challenged Jahrra to enter the Black Swamp, she’d made a deal with him: he and his sister had to stay away from Lake Ossar for good. The only hitch had been that Jahrra needed to prove she had found the witch, and until she discovered the Mystic Denaeh, she had no idea how she was going to prove it. In the end, the Mystic pretended to chase Jahrra out of the forest, terrifying all of her waiting classmates in the process. Eydeth and Ellysian hadn’t bothered her since.
“Drat!”
Jahrra jerked her hand back and drew her palm to her mouth to subdue the new wound. She loved to help Denaeh with her chores, but the Mystic had a knack for growing strange and sometimes painful plants.
The Mystic looked up from her corner of the garden and smiled.
“Don’t worry, that one isn’t poisonous.”
Jahrra glowered at her, the edge of her hand still in her mouth. The day after Jahrra had met the Mystic Archedenaeh, she had been given a warning about the strange woman. At least she thought it was a warning. Gieaun and Scede were suspicious, naturally, and cautioned Jahrra to stay away from her new acquaintance.
“She’s too odd, Jahrra! She could be anyone at all!” Gieaun had said.
Scede merely nodded grimly in his usual, quiet fashion.
Because of her friends’ apprehension, Jahrra hadn’t told Hroombra about Denaeh. Master Hroombra would never approve of any of this, Jahrra reminded herself. She glanced about the misty Belloughs deep within the dreaded Wreing Florenn and imagined what the great Korli dragon, huddled over his manuscripts, would say if he knew where she was just now.
Jahrra shivered and dashed the thought from her mind. She hated keeping secrets from her guardian, but all too often she found it necessary. Since Hroombra knew nothing of her new acquaintance, the warning about the Mystic hadn’t come from him, nor had it come from Phrym, her loyal semequin. No, it had come from someone she had only met in her dreams. Someone who was more of a stranger to her than Denaeh, but more familiar to her than anyone else she knew. He had shown up, shrouded in his green cloak, drawing her away from the unicorn she had followed to the Belloughs of the Black Swamp in her dream world.
For a few days Jahrra considered heeding her cloaked stranger’s silent warning, but in the end she decided that Denaeh was too intriguing a person to ignore. Besides, Jahrra reassured herself, I owe her my thanks for dealing with the evil twins.
Jahrra pulled her sleeve down over her wounded hand and attacked the spiny weed with a renewed vigor. With a terrible ripping sound it finally pulled free from the rich soil and joined the pile of other strange debris. Jahrra sighed and searched for a new enemy to tackle, secretly dreading the end of the week.
“Why so quiet?” Denaeh finally asked, running her forearm across her brow.
Jahrra looked up and blinked. Denaeh was much closer than she had realized. She sighed again and grumbled, “School starts next week.”
“Is that all?” Denaeh answered, laughter dancing in her amber eyes.
“You know what that means!” Jahrra snapped, standing up and brushing away an annoying wisp of hair that had escaped its braid. “Eydeth and Ellysian. I can avoid them during the summer, but once school starts . . .”
Jahrra donned a disgusted face and shivered.
“Come now, they wouldn’t dare mess with the girl who faced the Witch of the Wreing and survived to tell the tale!” Denaeh hunched over and wiggled her fingers.
Jahrra couldn’t help but smile. She did have that wonderful memory to dwell on, but something told her it wouldn’t work forever.
Before she bent down to pull at another weed, she mumbled in Denaeh’s direction, “You don’t know the evil twins.”
Ignoring Eydeth and Ellysian at the beginning of the school year was easy at first. With the combined effects of Viornen’s and Yaraa’s training, the recollection of her escape from the Witch of the Wreing still circulating the school ground, and the somewhat therapeutic visits to the Black Swamp, Jahrra wondered if she was safe from the twins’ jibes for good. But of course their cold silence was only temporary. A mere few weeks into the school year the twins started spreading stories of what really happened in the Wreing Florenn. They claimed that Jahrra invented her adventure story because they’d invented the evil Witch-Hag of the Black Swamp, and that their father and uncles had hunted in that swamp for ages without seeing hide or hair of such a creature.