Solsticetide and Jahrra’s birthday flew by so quickly that she barely had time to grasp that she’d turned sixteen. Hroombra gave her an entire set of books containing the folktales of Oescienne. Jahrra beamed at the leather-bound books and only did her smile fade when she saw that they were written entirely in Draggish.
“Now you have a reason to learn my language well,” the old dragon told her, his eyes twinkling.
Jahrra slouched, feeling suddenly deflated, despite her initial excitement at the gift. She hoped that someday she would be able to read them all.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” the great dragon said suddenly. “Something came for you several months ago, but I wanted to save it for your birthday.”
Hroombra walked to the storage room behind the fireplace and came out with what looked like a large wadded, tattered quilt hanging from his mouth. He set the bundle down in front of her, and Jahrra approached it cautiously but with great curiosity.
Once she finally peeled back the folds of the old blanket, her heart skipped a beat. It was a brand-new, four pommel saddle. Jahrra knelt down and ran her fingers over the finely worked leather, admiring the intricate oak leaf pattern and inlayed silver. On each corner of the saddle, below each pommel, there was a plate of polished silver with a finely etched dragon upon each surface.
“It’s beautiful!” she finally said when she found her voice. “How ever did you pay for it?”
Jahrra looked up at Hroombra with misty eyes. The saddle was obviously very expensive and she wouldn’t have wanted him to spend so much.
“Now, what makes you think it’s from me?” Hroombra asked, grinning unflappably.
Jahrra furrowed her brow. Who else could it be from?
“The saddle is from Jaax, Jahrra.”
Hroombra went on once he saw the bewildered look on Jahrra’s face, “I wrote to him many months ago and told him about your progress with Yaraa and Viornen. He was very pleased with this news and he figured you might need a decent saddle for everything you did atop Phrym.”
He smiled down at her once more, but Jahrra didn’t smile back. In fact, she pulled her hand away from the saddle as if it were red hot.
“Oh,” she said simply. “I didn’t know that you had written to him.”
It was a lie, of course. Jahrra knew that many of the letters her mentor received had been sent by the Tanaan dragon, she just didn’t want to acknowledge it. She sometimes secretly hoped that Jaax had forgotten about them.
Jahrra wrapped the saddle back up and hoisted it off the ground.
“You must write back to him and tell him that I am grateful for it,” she said, more to fill in the silence than to express her gratitude.
She loved the beautiful gift, but she couldn’t bring herself to enjoy the fact that it was from Jaax. Hroombra frowned after her as she carried it into her room, but he said nothing. He only wished that Jahrra would have grown to know and understand the Tanaan dragon as he did. But one cannot force roots to grow towards the sky. The old Korli dragon sighed, realizing that Jahrra would always see things her own way.
Solsticetide passed and Jahrra took a deep mental breath, plunging into the remainder of the arduous school year. The twins still kept their distance from her, but they no longer had that look of sheer panic in their expressions like before. Instead, they donned a look of concern, something that appeared very strange on their usually sour faces. On some days, Eydeth would brag enthusiastically to his friends as Jahrra walked up the path into the schoolhouse, but as soon as he spotted her, he would stop talking in mid-sentence, a worried look clouding his pale brown eyes.
This frightened Jahrra even more than the looks of fear. Eydeth and Ellysian, concerned about me? She would shake her head in bafflement when she thought about it. She didn’t really think that they could honestly be distressed about her well-being, but their expressions were clear and the truth was apparent; she was lucky she got away from that stranger in the woods outside Lensterans. Who on Ethoes could he have been? she would think in fear and frustration. The Crimson King himself?!
Spring’s gentle weather was a relief when it finally arrived. The long, rainy winter brought an abundance of flowers, and Jahrra’s garden looked better than ever. The pond was brimming with water lilies and reeds, and the birds were building nests in the vines and shrubs along the crumbled wall. The warm air and sunny days turned the fields of Oescienne from a sea of green to a sea of pastels, and as the season progressed, the weeks once again grew nearer and nearer to examination time.
“Ugh, I swear we just had exams!” Jahrra exclaimed to Gieaun and Scede one spring day after Professor Tarnik handed out the study guides in class.
“Yes, Jahrra, five months ago!” Scede said, wondering if his friend was having an anxiety attack.
“Honestly Scede, it feels like it was only a couple of weeks ago!”
Jahrra had been so busy with all of her other lessons that she hadn’t noticed the days passing by so rapidly.
“Maybe you just need to relax,” Gieaun offered kindly. “Exams are in two weeks, why don’t you take a break this weekend and we can go do something other than study. I know, let’s go to the Eight Coves! It would be nice to go somewhere else besides Lake Ossar, and it’ll help you ease your mind, Jahrra.”
Jahrra pursed her lips, her blue eyes sharpening with thought. The Eight Coves were a network of small inlets situated along a lengthy stretch of rocky coast running from the mouth of the Raenyan River north to meet the western tip of the Elornn Mountains. Although the southern, sandy beaches of the province were often crowded with people fishing, collecting seaweed and driftwood, or merely spending a day at the beach, the coves to the north rarely had such visitors. They were isolated and almost inaccessible, and many people avoided them out of shear inconvenience.
“That sounds like a good idea,” she finally said, smiling.
“Tomorrow then?” Gieaun prompted. “Let’s ask if Pahrdh and Rhudedth want to come too.”
As the dawn approached the next morning, Jahrra lie quietly awake in her small bed in her tiny room. She watched the walls grow lighter as the sun’s rays poured in through her little window, and she thought of the dream world she had just left behind and the dream that had awoken her several minutes before. She now sat in mild frustration, wracking her brain, trying to remember when she’d last dreamt of the hooded figure.
Suddenly she remembered; it had been in Denaeh’s cave in the Belloughs of the Black Swamp over a year ago. It was then that the red-cloaked stranger so rudely entered her subconscious world and tried to do harm to her familiar friend. This newest dream had been vivid, but to her great relief, the red-hooded intruder had not paid a visit. The landscape had been foggy, as it always was, and the rows of trees had disappeared into the hazy sky. Jahrra remembered stepping silently over the leafy ground, detecting the faint fragrance of apple blossoms made heavy by the cool dampness of the dew. She was wandering through the orchard, looking for something, and for a brief moment, she thought it might be Abdhe and Lynhi she was searching for. She remembered long ago, just after their deaths, how she had always sought them in her dreams, but she couldn’t remember how long ago that had been now. This is ridiculous, she had told herself in the dream. My mother and father have been dead for almost nine years. I won’t find them here.