Kaden hugged his cheek as the pain radiated across his jaw. The blond man just punched him! Sayori positioned herself between them in a fighting stance. The water ambassador grabbed the boy and shoved him back. He was a grown man tossing a teenage boy across the room.

Remni let out a hiss. “Not here. We’re getting looks!”

She swooped her arm under his and pulled him toward a staircase, scolding him the entire time. Laramee snapped at the rest of them and ordered them to follow. Someone in servant robes scurried away from them as they scrambled up the stairs and down various hallways.

“That was absolutely uncalled for. Who do you think you are?”

“I am a lord. You will unhand me,” he said as her death grip around his arm continued to pull him along.

“You sure don’t act like one!”

Kaden noticed the red-headed girl next to him averting her eyes from them as they all hurried across the building. The water ambassador skipped forward and swung open a door, revealing a decorated loft.

The center of the room had a few drop steps and a massive open window that led to a balcony that was overlooking the city. It was a place for dignitaries, or someone extremely important. Kaden was afraid of touching anything. Even the chairs looked extremely expensive.

Remni tossed him into the center of the room, causing him to trip down the steps before falling. Catching himself with his hands, he whirled around to fight her, but she was instead crossing her arms at him, daring him to try something.

“What do you have to say for yourself, young man?”

“He made us look like fools!”

She raised her eyebrow and scoffed. “And you punching him in front of everyone was going to fix that problem?”

Kaden’s jaw was still sore. The guy could throw a punch. Rubbing it, he said, “I didn’t do anything.”

He just glared at him in response. Remni rolled her eyes, waving away his defiance. “You’re going to have to figure out how to get along. You could at least have the courtesy of fighting each other out of the eyes of the public.”

Laramee stepped up to Remni and whispered something low in her ear that Kaden couldn’t make out. He was still so confused about what was even happening. Sayori wasn’t waiting for any instruction and threw herself onto a fancy-looking lounge before peeling off her boots. He shook his head at her, and she gave him a shrug before pulling the second one off.

The quiet girl behind him, he thought he heard them say her name was Eve or something, was inching closer to him instead of the adults. She looked scared and meek. The door behind them burst open, flinging out so hard it slammed against the wall. The fire nation ambassador marched in looking angry.

The meek girl instantly dropped to her knees and bowed her head at him. He nodded to her, and she stood back up, her head still lowered. He had thought she was of the air nation and the angry guy was from the fire nation. Their interaction proved she knew more about their culture than anyone else, though.

“What is the meaning of this? You drag my rider off after a fight, I hear? Who was hurting her?” Malfor’s eyes settled on Kaden as he was rubbing his jaw, wide-eyed and confused. “It was that idiot water boy, wasn’t it?”

“Watch your tongue,” Ambassador Laramee said as he lowered his eyes at him. “No, actually. It was Kartok’s boy.”

“Heard my name.” Kartok said as the same aide Kaden had seen scurrying off before bowed as the Wind ambassador entered the loft. “This place got crowded quickly.”

Sayori was ignoring all of them and wandering around the loft, looking through things. The wind rider, as Kaden could infer, was now sitting on one of the fancy pieces of furniture. The fire girl’s body pressed closer to Kaden as she tried to shy away from the ambassadors.

Kartok pushed past the rest of them and went straight for Kaden’s assailant. “The hell are you thinking, Reese?”

His name was Reese.

“You are so arrogant, I swear. Such a shame we have such a hot-head rider. You, for sure, are going to get a fire blessing.”

Kaden heard Malfor protest against him, but Kartok ignored him.

“What were you thinking?”

Reese sighed and looked away from all of them, refusing to talk. Kartok dropped his head, turned around, and said, “Malfor, I am blaming you.”

“What did I do? It’s your fool of a rider!”

“If you didn’t act so ridiculously at the hearing, this boy wouldn’t be so angry. You knew just as the rest of us did that the train had been assaulted. And yet you put on a performance like this was new knowledge they were keeping from us. What was your goal? You riled up the crowd.”

He huffed and crossed his arms, nearly smacking the red-headed girl beside him as he did so. Kaden wasn’t fond of any of these people. None of them knew how to communicate in constructive ways. They all were trying to win at conversations. It was irritating him to know the people who led his entire world couldn’t even constructively talk without angering one another.

“They broke the law, Kartok. They need punished!”

Every other ambassador gave me an annoyed look. Remni flicked her wrist at him. “You didn’t have to bring up all the grievances you’ve had about our nations either, Malfor. What was the point of that? Was it because we finally had a decent sized audience? You wanted to show them how tough you were?”

Sayori had found some type of hard, seasoned bread pieces in a bag and was taking loud, crunchy bites as she sat down on the couch. She leaned over toward the wind rider and offered him some. Kaden watched him let out a small laugh before taking a handful from her. They both started crunching away as they watched the ambassadors argue. They were right to let the adults squabble. There was more happening here than any of them knew about.

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Grabbing the fire girl’s hand, he led her to the couches with him and she eagerly followed. The adults didn’t even notice the two of them leave their little circle. They were bickering back and forth, yelling about this and that. Kaden didn’t even know half of what they were even talking about.

Sayori held up her bag toward them, and the girl grabbed a few pieces without hesitation. They all shared an awkward look with one another before pulling their eyes back to the ambassadors. It had been a wild few months for Kaden. He learned that pretty much every person in a position of authority was likely to scream and yell at each other at the smallest provocation. The only high-ranking person who treated him with respect so far was the Lord Commander. Everyone else was just playing at honor.

Sayori held her hand out to the girl. “My name is Sayori. What was yours?”

She hesitated for a moment before shaking it. “Evonne.”

“Nice to meet you, Evonne.” Turning to the wind rider, she held her hand out again. “And what was your name?”

He squinted at her, finished chewing the snack she had given him before saying, “Reese Manderby, son of Anton Manderby, Lord of the Southern Isles.”

Shaking it firmly, she said, “so are you like, some prince or something then?”

He sighed. “Something like that.”

Kaden stuck his hand out to him. The look he gave him bore into Kaden’s soul. Taking a deep breath, he finally shook it, squeezing firmly. “My name is Kaden Bertoff, son of some farmer you wouldn’t know. I’m not a prince, and I don’t even know where the southern isles are, but I’d love to hear more about them.”

Reese’s eyes went wide and Kaden could tell he swallowed his words before pulling his hand back. “We will have to visit them when we go to the wind nation. I will show them to you all.”

These were his companions then, Kaden realized. They were going to have to travel the world together. What a strange way to start a relationship. Were they the people he saw in his visions? The ones he had been laughing with. He didn’t want to think too hard about it, lest he start having one in that moment.

“They aren’t what I thought they’d be,” squeaked out Evonne as they all looked at the arguing ambassadors.

All three of them burst out in laughter, causing the ambassadors to take notice and stop talking. The earth ambassador shook her head as she saw Sayori passing around more snacks. Kartok was snickering as the four of them were lounging on the couches, watching the scene.

Laramee cleared his throat. “This has been a difficult day. We are not ourselves.”

“Clearly,” said Reese in a mocking tone.

Kartok raised his eyebrow at him and Reese sunk back into his seat. Kaden didn’t know anything about any of their cultures, but if Reese was some type of princeling, then their relationship was probably more than that of a rider and an ambassador.

“Your rider needs to learn manners,” chided Malfor.

“I could say the same about you, Ambassador,” snapped Kartok.

Sayori offered her bag of hard bread toward Kaden as they started into each other once again. He took a handful and stuffed it in his mouth. Sayori started snickering as their voices were raising again. “They really don’t like each other, do they?”

“Oh, you don’t even know,” said Reese as he took another handful. “We’ve been here a few weeks now and every time it’s like this.”

Kaden took another handful and said, “you should have seen ours when we first came in. If it wasn’t for the Lord Commander, I would have thought they would have come to blows.”

Evonne grabbed another handful herself and said, “Politics.”

In unison, they all repeated, “Politics.”

Remni pushed herself through Malfor and Kartok toward the four of them on the couch. “This is your loft. You four will stay here together for some time. We have some… things to work out.”

“Obviously,” said Reese and she met him with a glare.

“You all will start your pilgrimage soon, but there will be a ceremony to send you off. It’s going to be a whole production, so please, please, please, can you four be on your best behavior? You all have already brought peering eyes on you and you haven’t even started yet.”

“We’ll be on our best behavior if y’all will,” Reese said in a mocking tone. Kaden’s eyes were bulging at how open he was with confronting them. He really didn’t have any respect for the ambassadors. After what they all had seen, he didn’t blame him entirely.

Scoffing, she shook her head at him. Through a forced smile, she said, “you are the first rider group in many years, so it’s kind of a big deal. Stop hitting each other in public and stop breaking laws.”

Kaden rubbed his head in embarrassment. It’s not like he meant to cause such issues. They were just trying to help. This was a bigger deal than he had even realized. There was so much more he didn’t know about the world and he was about to get a crash course in it.

All of them nodded to her, and she turned on her heel toward the rest of the ambassadors. “Alright boys, we need to give these kids space. They don’t need to hear you tell at each other all night.”

Shaken out of their focused arguments, they all stepped back and tried to compose themselves better. Remni didn’t even bother saying anything else before she marched out of the room.

Kartok turned to Reese instead. “If I hear about you punching someone else in the citadel, I am telling your father. I’m sure you don’t want that happening. Get it together, Sir.”

“Remind him how you talked to me and we’ll see how well it goes for you,” he said through a smile.

Kartok grumbled and left as well. Malfor came over and took Evonne’s hand politely. “Madam, I hope you bring honor to our nation and I look forward to hearing about your service as you make your pilgrimage. Please try not to filthy yourself with these other riders. You are fire nation, you are better than that.”

He looked at Kaden and pointed at him. “If you mess up again, young man, I will see you dismissed myself.”

Walking out, he pushed Laramee with his shoulder before slamming the door shut behind him. The man liked to slam doors. The water ambassador stood there awkwardly as all four of the riders waited for him to say something.

Kaden couldn’t stand it. It was embarrassing. “Where’s Zuma and Taldor?”

He jumped at the mention and it was like he went into a different mode. Walking over to the big windows, he pushed on the corner and it opened. He motioned for them to follow him and they all jumped up to do so. There was a balcony that had a set of staircases down the side of the building that Kaden hadn’t seen from where they had sat down. It wrapped around it, with a protective railing.

The wind hit them as they stepped out on it, following the water ambassador as he walked down the stairs toward a platform that jutted out. It was like it was a dock, floating out of the building itself. Kaden looked down, and he hadn’t realized how high up they actually were. Far below was a bustling city. One wrong move and they would all go tumbling over. Falling from that height would be instant death.

He pointed to the sky. They all looked up and there were dragons of various colors flying around. He saw a large tower reaching above them where the dragons were going in and out of. It must be their stables.

“This is your personal dock,” he yelled over the blowing winds. “Your dragons are up there somewhere. The lord commander already let them go. Call them if you need to. Just only three drakes at a time on the platform. It can’t hold that much weight.”

Sayori skipped to the edge before looking down, leaning over the rail. It made Kaden nervous, and he reached out and took a handful of her shirt, just in case.

Laramee bowed and said, “I’ll be back later, Kaden, with more suitable clothing for you. Get to know them. It’ll benefit us all.”

They were then all left on a windy platform with dragons flying above. He wondered if Zuma was up there playing with other types of dragons. Closing his eyes, he tried to reach out and feel their presence.

A cold shock hit him, throwing him to the ground. His arm had jolted and Sayori lost her balance. Time slowed as her body twirled around to look at him. The wind stole her scream away from them. Her panicked eyes grew as she fell over the edge of the platform.