The lightning crawled across his skin, pricking it like needles pushing into his flesh. It wasn’t as intense as the magic that trapped Zuma so many days before. He wouldn’t be left scarred and broken as they had been. Laying there helplessly under the magical netting, the woman posed her spear, ready to drive it down into him.

In a flash, claws and scales blurred above him as the azure dragon took a chunk out of the woman. Her bloodcurdling scream didn’t last long before she was silenced forever. Claws pulled at the netting, pulling it off him enough that he was able to squirm away from its magical barrier. Zuma stood overtop him, protecting him from any more assailants who dared to attack him again.

Sayori’s head popped up over the edge of the trailer as she climbed to join them. Her body was less tense as she reached down to help pull him out from under his azure dragon companion. He saw Taldor’s own head peek up over the side to check on Kaden as well. He couldn’t help but let out a relieved chuckle at their behavior.

“Are you hurt?” she asked as she pulled him to his feet.

Rubbing his shoulder, he said, “mostly just stunned. Not sure what that net did, but I couldn’t move while underneath it.”

“I saw. That type of net is only ever used in the dragon games. I’m surprised to see it out here.”

“Dragon games? I don’t even know what those are.”

She was bent down and began pilfering through the robes of a dead rebel. Looking back to him, she said, “you don’t even know what the dragon games are?”

“I mean, I think I may have vaguely heard of them. They’re mock battles or something, right?”

She pulled out an ornate pin that was shaped in the form of a serpent from deep within the robes. “Ahh, they were House of the Serpent Rebels.”

“House of the Serpent? There are robed serpent lovers or something?”

Ignoring his latest inquiry, she moved to another body to see if she could find anything else. “The dragon games are a type of sport. Each nation holds their own assortment of events and then every few years the nations compete against each other. It’s a lot of fun. I’m surprised you don’t know about them. You should see the Earth Kingdom’s coliseums! Maybe we’ll check them out when we go to visit.”

“Okay, but who is the House of the Serpent?”

She pointed to the dead bodies around them. “They’re these guys.”

The fact that she was so casually discussing any of this after the fight they just had baffled him. They killed people. He killed people! Sayori was discussing sports and sightseeing like nothing had happened. She was casually talking about an entire rebel organization. It reminded him how little he knew of the woman.

The incredulous look he gave her made her sigh. “They’re a known rebel group.”

“I don’t know of them. I don’t know of any rebel group.”

“Yeah,” she said as she kicked a rebel’s leg out of the way, “but you don’t seem to know anything.”

He motioned to all the dead bodies strung out across the battlefield. “How is anyone supposed to be prepared for this? I didn’t even know what other countries’ sigils looked like a week ago!”

She rolled her head, and he felt a bit of shame as he could see her frustration. “Look, I know you’re just a poor farm boy, but I am just a poor mining gal. Yet, I’ve tried to learn about the world I live in. You seem to just be bumbling through it.”

His head fell in shame.

“You have been thrown into the…” Sayori let a smile creep on her face before saying, “viper’s den.”

The pun wasn’t lost on him as she rolled the serpent pin in her hand.

“I don’t know what it’s like in the water kingdom these days or how it is wherever you came from in that kingdom. Maybe it’s all sheep’s wool and honeysuckles, I don’t know. What I do know is that this is the actual reality of the world we live in now. You’re about to be sent across it all to witness that first hand. I know things are new and frightening, but I need you to step up. I’m not always going to be around to pull you to safety.”

His eyes fell to the ground, and he muttered out a weak, “thank you.”

She closed the gap between them and took his head in her hands, pulling his face up to meet hers. “This is likely to happen again. I know you’ve never been in a fight like this. That’s obvious. I know it was intense and horrible. I know. But I need you to be aware. I need you to help protect my own life so I can get back to badly baked pies and praises from my father, okay? You’ll be alright, you just need to learn and be prepared as best you can for any incident. So stop acting like you know nothing. Stop acting lost and confused and start demanding answers instead.”

He took a deep breath and said with a firmer tone, “Are these rebels causing issues in the Earth kingdom?”

“Yes.”

“Have you fought them before?”

“Yes.”

Her answer shocked him. He hadn’t thought she had actually been in such a violent fight before. Here he was having only fought off weather and wolves. He felt even more out of place with someone who should be his peer.

Gulping hard, he said, “what do we do now?”

A few wounded but alive wind mages were heading their direction. She motioned toward them and climbed down the trailer while saying, “we tend to our wounded.”

There were a few of them still intact. He hadn’t realized how many mages it took to power the train and with how hectic the battlefield had been, he didn’t know who had even survived. The magical users clearly came out on top with the massive amount of rebel bodies that were strung across the battlefield. Kaden had never been in a real battle, never even been in a fight outside of scuffles with his brothers. The only death he saw was in his hunts, or a cruel natural fate on the farm.

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His eyes fell down onto his hands. They had helped him produce daggers of ice that shredded his opponents. Their lives were in his palms and he ripped their souls away with a mere flick of the wrist. The power was horrifying. A lurch in his stomach forced him to cover his mouth. He had killed people. His skill in death now extended to the lives of humans.

“The train is absolutely inoperable,” said a disheveled wind mage.

Another motioned toward the dragons as Kaden and Sayori approached. “They came for them! People are dead because of those damned dragons!”

The disheveled mage sighed, her eyes falling to the ground. “They came to cause as much destruction as they can against the empire.”

“Then why were they tying to steal the dragons?”

“Because whoever controls them controls the empire, you dunce!”

Sayori shook her head and interjected their bickering. “This isn’t the first time they’ve tried such a thing and it won’t be the last. Feel lucky that they didn’t do more damage.”

The disgruntled mage flicked his blond hair dramatically toward her and said, “how much more damage could they have done? The train is destroyed, the track is too, and our friends are dead on the ground!”

“You could have been in the dirt with them.”

The man huffed and stomped off. The disheveled mage gave them an apologetic look before saying, “they’re not wrong though. This is going to be a big issue. This track is the main one into the capital city. It’s going to take some time to get it going again. It’ll impeded traffic and trade for weeks.”

“Then we probably weren’t the targets after all,” said Kaden. “They probably just got lucky we were traveling there as well.”

“But they had the tools to restrain your dragons!”

Sayori chimed in and said, “no they had the runes to do so. Cloth straps? They would have been better suited to using chains. At least that way they wouldn’t break so easily. No, I think he’s right. I don’t think we were the target. We just were a lucky coincidence.”

“Do you know who they were?”

Sayori handed over the pin to the wind mage. “House of the Serpent.”

The wind mage stared at the pin for several seconds before saying, “did they capture anyone? Did you two see any of our mages being captured?”

Kaden shook his head and said, “we only saw their deaths.”

“With runed weapons. They were cutting away our magic. I’ve never seen such a thing before.”

“They’re getting smarter and bolder, that’s for sure.” The wind mage took a deep breath in and held it for several seconds before pushing it out slowly. “At least no one was stripped while alive this time.”

“Stripped?” Kaden was confused.

The two of them shared a knowing glance with each other before Sayori spoke again. “We need to get to the capital. We don’t know what their plan was or what has changed since they failed. Us being involved will not make the rest of you any safer. There are a lot of wounded, and we need healers here quickly.”

The wind mage shifted their weight and said, “you’re not wrong, but I think it’s a bad idea what you’re suggesting.”

“It’s the only way in now.”

“You know they may accidentally kill you, right?”

Kaden was utterly confused. His eyes darted back and forth between the women. “Why? Why is that a concern? What are you talking about?”

The wind mage crossed her arms and said, “she wants to fly into the capital city.”

“And why is that a bad thing?”

The wind mage squinted at him, curling her lip up in confusion. “Because without clearance or notification that you’re even coming, it’s considered an act of war by your nation?”

Kaden shook his head in surprise. “Act of war? For flying into the city?”

“Your dragons are the ultimate weapon. They can kill swathes of people in mere moments. The treaty that all our nations agreed to, agreed that no nation is allowed to enter the skies of the capital city for everyone’s safety. It would be too easy to dominate the central government using only a handful of dragons.”

“They can’t really do anything to us if we just fly up to the gates and walk in, right?”

“They can and will kill you before you get that far,” said the wind mage.

“Why?”

The wind mage rolled her head and squinched her face up. “You are dense, young mage. What games do you think you’re playing? Do you not understand the tensions involved here?”

Sayori put a comforting hand on her shoulder and said, “it’s not his fault, he only became a water mage a month ago.”

“No….”

“Yeah, I know.”

“And he has a dragon already?”

“Right? Excuse his ignorance. I’m working on it.”

She sighed and said, “well, you two need to be extremely careful. You could start an international war.”

Sayori turned sharply away from them and started bouncing around. Jumping back from her sudden movement, he watched as she bounced and rotated her hands several times. As she turned toward him, he could see she was in mulling over their choices. Her thinking face was a thinking bounce.

Stopping abruptly, she clapped her hands. “Okay, so this is what we’re gonna do: We are going to fly in, but we will do it along the train tracks. That way, it is obvious we are following travel rules, just not on a train. Then we’ll tell whoever we can at the station what has happened. They will obviously be perfectly fine with that situation because we’re alerting them to the attack. Yes. That will work…. Right?”

The wind mage looked unimpressed. “I mean yeah, or you’ll still get in trouble for flying in. They might not outright shoot you down, though.”

Her shoulders slacked. “We can’t stay here. Not after that incident. They obviously planned the attack to happen right here. We can’t leave the dragons exposed like this. They’re both too young to handle too much action.”

“Agreed,” Kaden said with both women’s eyes darting toward him. He gave them a sheepish look.

It didn’t take them long to locate their missing gear before they were prepping the dragons for take off. Kaden wasn’t sure if it was that great of an idea, but he thought their logic was sound enough and wasn’t going to be challenging Sayori anytime soon. He could see what she was capable. Letting her take the lead was perfectly okay with him.

He knew he was out of his depth. Everyone constantly reminding him of that was starting to get irritating. It wasn’t his fault that he was isolated from the greater world. He knew leaving their nation so soon was going to cause him issues. He just didn’t know how bad those issues would be. Sayori was making him feel like he was useless. He saved her dragon and yet she made him feel like he couldn’t do anything.

Sayori pulled herself a top Taldor. She was latching herself in before looking up at him to catch him watching her. He blushed and went back to strapping himself in. Riding Zuma with a proper saddle was going to be strange. He had only done it one time at the water temple before they left. His hands fumbled over the straps as he tried to remember their order.

“We are going to try to stay somewhat low to the tracks,” he heard Sayori say. “That way, it is not an alarm that we are on our way in. They will be expecting our train any time now, so they’ll know something is amiss.”

“Won’t that make them even more likely to shoot us down?”

“Possibly.” He watched as she straightened her back and pulled her reins back. Taldor flexed their wings, and with little hesitation, jumped into the air, wings spread wide.

Shaking his head, he said to Zuma, “Well, we can’t let them make us look bad. Let’s go!”

Zuma was ready to fly. In a few short steps, they too were in the air. Taldor didn’t fly too far away from them, letting Zuma and Kaden catch up. The two dragons kept together, using each other’s wind streams to glide along from time to time.

The experience of flying with another rider was insane to him. Their wings dipped around each other without touching. He could see Sayori moving in and laughing as Taldor would cut them off, her hair flapping away in the wind. That couldn’t be good for it. Her smile was as large as his as they enjoyed the wind blowing them about, their dragons dancing along the train’s pathway. He was having fun despite the situation.

Suddenly his body was ripped to the side as a wall of flames tore the air next to him, Zuma having barely dodged out of its way. The flash of bronze scales glittered off the flames, and he saw Taldor pulling away, unharmed. His head whipped around looking for the source only to see three silver dragons swooping down from above, directly toward them. He lurched again as Zuma dodged another wall of flames as several dragons moved in closer, moving in for the attack.