“You can’t be serious,” Jaxtor exclaimed while rubbing his temples.

Iratoi groaned at the revelation, swiping Eloise’s book from her and comparing it with her own. Her eyes fluttered back and forth, comparing what Eloise had and what she had scribbled down from the trap. She let out another groan and tossed the book back to Eloise.

“She’s right, it’s got all the Loratyk flourishes. It’s too recognizable.”

Kaden just blinked at them, watching them have a conversation he knew nothing about. They were showing a side he had yet to see. Not only did they defend Zuma in a way he had never seen before, but they also discovered and pinpointed who was setting the rune traps in mere moments.

Eloise angrily stuffed her notebook back into her pack. “If it is from his house, you know what that means, right?”

“I don’t want to know what that means,” Jaxtor said in a gruff voice.

“This could be war. These are the King’s dragons. Why would he trap them?”

“The dragons don’t belong to the king,” muttered Kaden.

All three pairs of eyes darted over toward him. They forgot he had been there as they had deciphered the runes. Iratoi’s palm met her forehead. She walked over and put a hand on his shoulder.

“Everything in this land belongs to the king. That is the rule of law in the water realm. When we say that the dragons belong to the king, we mean they are under his protection,” she sighed. “To lay traps like this and openly capture, and possibly harm or kill them, this is a direct declaration of war to the throne.”

He hadn’t thought it was that serious. Kaden had assumed it was just some noble trying to catch a dragon to get blessed or something. He didn’t realize by the act of someone actively trying to catch one that it meant war.

“The Loratyk household is extremely large. It might be nothing the Lord directly knows about. It could just be some lower noble trying to make moves. We don’t know it’s the lord. We don’t know anything,” Eloise tried to explain the situation away to herself.

“We know more than anyone else. The fact that it was just out here, not even that far off the road, that is extremely bold and concerning,” Iratoi said, vocalizing her thoughts.

Jaxtor groaned again and said, “that means they were getting more desperate. These runes aren’t even hidden well. A dragon would have had to be stupid to not see this setup.”

Eloise’s attention went to Kaden, and she said, “the trap you found Zuma in, what was the set up there?”

He tried to recall what he had seen. At the time, he had no idea what the trap was or what it could do. He just knew it was similar to smaller ones he had seen for wild game. The clearing he had been in had been covered in more grass, more limbs.

“There was a lot of brush and grass around. Once the trap had been triggered, it seared the ground with the barrier, but not far from it was heavily wooded forest and the ground was covered with grass and underbrush from the dense vegetation.”

Eloise put both her hands on her cheeks and rubbed them around. Squinting her eyes as she smooshed her face, she said, “so this one is, yeah, more desperate. That sounds like they hid it well. Maybe they haven’t been able to catch any dragons. Maybe they are running out of time or something. Why be this bold? We’re in Enderton’s lands. This isn’t even close to Loratyk’s. Ugh!”

“This is not for us to figure out,” snapped Iratoi. “We have a new mission. We have to alert the temple as fast as we can. If they are this desperate now, that means something is about to happen and we don’t want the temple, the king, to be surprised when it does.”

They all nodded in response to her orders. Kaden knew then that she wasn’t just the oldest of the group, but she was their leader. He could see how, in that moment, she was the one to dole out the commands and take charge.

“Tie your things tight. We will be making a run for the next village. Once there, we are going to be commandeering horses. We will not be stopping. When the horses start to get tired, we will get new ones. You will not be sleeping. You will be riding. We have to get to the temple and warn them. Something may be brewing.”

Kaden nodded right along with them and was soon tying everything he could down tight. That way, it couldn’t fall off and be lost. Iratoi pulled out longer, sturdier straps and gave them to Kaden.

“Call Zuma down. We will be running faster than you can, you’ve not been trained to harness the magic to fuel the body in such a way. We cannot have you slowing us down. You will need to ride Zuma above.”

Jaxtor pulled out a few crystals and was placing them not far from the runes behind the two of them. Eloise was scribbling her own runes in the dirt that connected to them. They were attempting to break the rune trap.

"It is going to be uncomfortable for you and I only have these straps for you to hold on to. So I apologize about that. Zuma can fly far faster than we can, so just try to keep us in view." She handed him the straps and nodded.

"How long will it take us to get there?“

A pop and sizzle was heard behind them, and his attention snapped to the other two. The barrier came down, and the crystals were glowing brightly on the ground, having absorbed its magic. The two of them used pieces of thick leather hides to grab the crystals and pack them away.

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Iratoi never looked back at their work. “Even moving by horseback, it’s going to take us at least three days. We don’t plan on stopping, so you can’t either. You cannot sleep. We cannot stop to help you fight the dreams. If you choose to rest, we will not be there this time to help.”

“Can I just fly ahead and arrive at the temple ahead of you? Maybe I can tell them what’s happening,” he suggested.

She paused in thought. He could see it rolling around in her head before she shook it away. “No. You don’t understand the context, you don’t know where you’re going, and you wouldn’t even know who to speak with. They wouldn’t be likely to take your word and it could start a war, so it’s best if you wait for us.”

“Don’t you think that if I am coming in on the back of a dragon, that might give me more credibility?”

“No,” she scoffed. “You’d be surprised how little that gives you in the inner ranks. We’ll reassess this the closer we get. We may be able to have you reach them when we’re within the day’s ride out. When we get closer, we'll discuss it.”

This wasn’t how he thought it would go. He had assumed they would be there to protect his mind from entering the darkness that was the nightmares when they rested, but now they were expecting him to stave off sleep for three days. He didn’t think he do that, but he had to try.

Kaden had a feeling he would need something to ride Zuma. He knew it. So he had packed a few extra straps and rope before they left. Pulling them out, he fashioned something that was more akin to reins. This time, he wasn’t going to have to seriously worry about falling off.

Zuma was still in the air, flying high above them.

“Bring her down here,” commanded Iratoi.

Giving her a blank stare, he said, “I don’t know how to do that.”

She sighed and dropped her shoulders before saying, “Will it. They will hear it. But you have to be firm, be strong. Make the call.”

Taking a deep breath, he readied himself and shouted her name. The other two’s heads turned up at him as they were still packing the crystals away. Zuma still flew around, and he gave them a sheepish look.

“No, will it. Don’t just yell at them.”

Shaking out his shoulders, he looked back to the sky. Kaden needed to just will her to come down. “Easier said than done,” he muttered.

He watched as Zuma flapped her wings around in a circle, every beat letting her glide for a time before another was needed. He didn’t know how to will anyone to do anything. It must have been something about their bond. He felt like he was getting the crash course in all things magic. These rune traps accelerated everything.

Closing his eyes, he tried to focus. Picturing their wings flapping far above their group, he let their image fill his mind. Kaden wasn’t supposed to actually yell at them to come there, he needed to will them to come down. Whatever willing even was.

The beating of their wings, the thundering noise of the wind pushing through the air. Their scales shimmering in the sunlight. Dragons were the embodiment of magic itself. They were magic. They represented more than a simple human could. Zuma was one of these manifestations; the world exploring itself.

He pushed his thoughts out into the world, into the skies. Kaden pictured the dragon clearly in his thoughts as he focused on the clearing they were standing in, putting pressure on the act of landing there.

Opening his eyes, he saw Zuma diving to the earth. It had worked. Zuma had heard him calling to them. He smiled broadly, proud of himself for figuring it out. Jaxtor shook his head at the goofy grin that colored his face. Embarrassed, he dropped his smile and acted as if he knew what he was doing.

“Welcome to the first lesson of dragon riding, apparently,” Jaxtor laughed.

Zuma came in hot, skidding across the dirt, covering the now defunct runes. Eloise coughed and threw her hands up, trying to push the dust away as she finished packing the last crystal. Waving the crystal in the air, Zuma’s eyes lit up and focused in on the glowing rocks they could now see open in her pack. Their pupils dilated into a dark abyss.

Iratoi noticed and said in a low voice, “Eloise, stop moving.”

Freezing in place, Eloise stopped waving her hands. The dust settled and Zuma took slow, calculated paces toward her. It looked as if they were stalking a prey. Their focus was entirely on the glowing crystals. The crystals were only glowing because they had been filled with magic from the runes, having sucked them dry.

Zuma was attracted to the magic.

“When Zuma gets close, toss them to the dragon,” explained Iratoi.

Zuma’s eyes were wide, their pupils dark and large as it inched near. He could see Eloise breathing heavily in freight. He didn’t know what was happening, but they were obviously concerned for Eloise’s wellbeing.

Tossing it in the air, high above Zuma, Eloise jumped the opposite direction, well out of the dragon’s way. Zuma caught it with precision and quickly swallowed it. Shaking their body he heard the hum that was so prevalent in the cave. Their chest started to glow as the rest of the group gave Zuma space.

Kaden didn’t know what he was witnessing. None of them made urgent movements. They all slowly just stepped away from the large creature. A flash of light blinded him. Tugging at his eyes, he pulled his head back while trying to rub the light away.

By the time his vision came back into focus, Zuma was standing in front of them, watching their reactions, tilting their head back and forth in confusion. The dragon had got remarkably larger in an instant.

Looking down at his rope, he was glad he had brought extra. The straps Iratoi had given him wouldn’t have wrapped around Zuma then. He just shook his head and made a wild guess. “Being magic incarnate, they’re attracted to concentrated magic in the stones.”

“You’ll make a fine mage if we can ever get you to a temple,” said Jaxtor as he quickly managed to stuff his pack of crystals far away into his own gear so Zuma wouldn’t notice them.

“Won’t they find that too?”

Iratoi sighed at the situation and said, “not when magic is in the stones. They can’t sense the magic then, for some reason. But if they see it, they know exactly what it is.”

“That doesn’t make sense, but nothing does anymore, so I guess I’ll just roll with it,” he said as he made his way to Zuma, who was looking pleased with themselves.

It didn’t take them long to get Zuma situated with the ropes and straps. They had to do some extra thinking with their new size, but he made it work. Iratoi instructed again that it was okay for him to stop if he needed to stretch, but to not lose them. She wanted him to always keep an eye on their location.

Zuma was more than pleased to get back into the air. It was a shock for him to lift off on them again. This time, he was properly strapped in. There was no chance of him sliding off like his first riding experience.

The wind rushed by him as they climbed further into the sky. He had to squint his eyes as they stung from the speed. Dragons were still a mystery to him. He didn’t think there would be a time when they weren’t, no matter how much he learned at the temples.

Once they reached a height, he looked back down below and watched as his companions ran back into the forest, in the direction of the road they had come from. It was going to be a long trip through the skies for him and Zuma. He couldn’t sleep, they couldn’t stop long. They had to make it to the southern temple and warn whoever it was they were going to warn that someone was plotting against the crown.

All in his first week as a magic user.