Mel hurried up the path to Falden, walking in quick steps but not breaking out into a jog. She smiled at the people she passed and tried to make her face relax. Some people stared at her in a strange way and Mel could feel how disbelieving they were about her fake-calm appearance.
All she wanted was to sprint inside the dorm and bang on every single door to catch Gabs, Clara, and Brandon’s attention. But Mel forced herself to at least try to look relaxed and in control. She forced herself to open the door into the dorms in a gentle motion and then she snuck inside the hallway.
Mel walked inside her and Gabs’ room and found Gabs sitting by her desk, examining the staff she had received from Austin today. She had thrown it across the wooden surface and the red pattern glowed brightly. Mel closed the door fast behind herself and the staff flickered out, turning into a dull gray color.
Her face was full of shock, and redness had spread to her cheeks. She clutched her chest and stared at Mel for a while before she broke out into a smile. She released her hand back down to rest on top of the staff.
“Mel, you scared me,” she said. “I thought you were someone else at first. Someone who had caught me with a magical item without permission from the governor. You almost gave me a heart attack.”
Mel didn’t smile back, and she saw confusion spread over Gabs’ face. “We need to leave, now.”
“What do you mean?” Gabs asked.
“Our plan, it’s been leaked,” Mel said. “They’re planning on catching us tomorrow morning by the wall. We need to leave right now or forget about going out into the wastes and see Bahlan. Will you come with me?”
Gabs looked at her, mouth slightly agape, and seemed to consider Mel’s proposal for a moment. Then she stood up from her chair and picked up the gray metal staff from her desk. She swung it around to her side and wrapped the whole thing in a long, slender green cloth with twine circling around it.
“Let’s go,” she said.
Mel caught the backpack Gabs threw at her. She attached it over her shoulders and felt around her pant lining after her dagger. It was still there. They grabbed the three other backpacks full of supplies and headed into the corridor again. Gabs snuck up to one of the dorm rooms further down the hall and knocked carefully on the door.
Brandon opened up, wearing nothing but a loose fitting undershirt and pants. Mel looked at him with a skeptical expression until she saw Clara standing with her back to them, buttoning her dress. Mel felt heat rise to her cheeks and her eyes landed on the floor.
“We need to leave now,” Gabs whispered.
“Why?” Brandon asked.
“We’ve been compromised. Our plan has been compromised. We need to leave right now or not at all. You with us?”
Mel lifted her gaze from the floor and watched as Brandon looked back at Clara, who was now turned toward them. She didn’t say anything, she just nodded to him and picked up her sword from the desk nearby. It was already wrapped in cloth and attached with twine, just like Gabs’ staff.
Brandon took their backpacks and together the four of them headed out toward the Falden grounds. When Mel opened the door out from the dorms, they heard a voice behind them.
“What are you doing?” Flavio asked.
The entire group spun on their heels, only to find a dressed Flavio standing with a gray cloak wrapped around his shoulders. Mel felt her face growing pale and her heart thumped in her chest. He was going to rat them out. He was going to have them caught before they even had a chance to enter the wastes.
“We’re leaving,” Clara said.
“Where?” Flavio asked, his voice becoming more shrill the more he spoke.
Brandon and Clara shared a look.
“Tell me where,” Flavio said.
“We’re going out into the wastes, right now,” Gabs said, and Mel felt her eyes rolling back in her head. “We’re helping Mel to get to the ruins of Bahlan to find out the truth about magic and the dragons.”
It wasn’t completely true what Gabs said. Mel didn’t think they would find any information about the dragons out there. More on magic and maybe a way to get rid of the black dragon that kept haunting Aldrion at night and maybe some information about her ancestor, Rowad Hellius.
“I’m coming with you,” Flavio said, taking a step toward the group.
“No,” Mel said. “You can’t. We don’t want you to.”
Flavio crossed his arms over his chest. “Either you let me come with you or I tell the guards all about your little plans. Make sure they catch you. Or maybe I will just follow you and scream the entire time to make sure the guards find you and question you.”
“What? Why would you do that?” Mel asked.
“Because I don’t want to be left behind. I’m one of you. I’m a part of the group.”
Mel heard a whisper in the back of her mind, a low, dark voice rumbling through her chest. “Kill him.”
Mel grabbed Gabs’ hand and squeezed it, looking at her with wide eyes. Gabs nodded and seemed to understand that the dragons were speaking to Mel again. Gabs turned her gaze to Flavio.
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“Stop being petty,” Gabs said. “You can join us, but no screaming or telling people about our plans. If you come, you carry your own weight out there and you follow our orders. Okay?”
Flavio stared daggers at Mel and snorted at Gabs’ comment. “I’ll come with you, but I’m not following anything she says.”
Mel felt an icy chill running down her spine. “Kill him,” the voice inside her said again.
Mel swallowed hard and turned to the door. She opened it up wide and the last rays of sun streamed in through the doorway. They needed to make it down to the wall now. The night was already coming. She could either do what the dragons told her and kill Flavio. She really wanted to at this moment. But that would make too much sound. That would draw attention to them.
It was better to just let him join. Let him come with them into the wastes and hope he didn’t do anything stupid. Easier said than done when he was Flavio. Mel knew that. But it was all she could do right now. She needed to make it down to the gates and meet up with Austin before he left without them.
“Let’s go,” Mel said, stepping out of the building and into the evening.
She didn’t wait for the others to confirm they were coming anymore. She didn’t care. Mel just wanted to make it down to the wall and the southern crack in it, to find Austin and make it out there beyond Aldrion.
The group of five made haste down the road to town square and the eastern gate. They walked swiftly along with the crowds, heading for the bunkers. No one seemed to even take notice of their hurried steps or their nice cloaks. They all probably just thought them nobles heading for the valley bunker.
Mel made it down a street and in the distance she could see the top of the warehouse where their bunker was located. For the first time since the dorms, she looked back at the group of people who had been following her this far. Gabs and the others seemed to wait for her command. Even Flavio watched her like a hawk.
Mel swallowed hard, speaking in a low voice. “We need to sneak past the entrance to the bunker and down to the alley to the east, then pass a residential area, now mostly torn down from the attacks, and make it further south.”
Gabs nodded. “Let’s avoid those guards, then.”
She pointed somewhere behind Mel and Mel turned around. She saw three guards coming toward them and Mel felt her heart thumping like a loud grandfather clock.
“Follow me,” Mel whispered.
She walked out from the shrouded wall of a building. She walked in slow steps toward the guards and that was when the bells started ringing. They cut through the night and the guards looked up toward the sky. They moved faster toward the group.
“Hey, you there,” the guard said. “Get inside a bunker, will you?”
Mel threw off the hood of her purple cloak and gave the guard a smile. “Our bunker is actually behind you.”
Mel pointed to the warehouse building, and the guard turned around. He spun back to Mel and his face was filled with disgust. He shook his head at Mel and watched the others with the same glance.
“You valley-people should just go home to where you came from.” The guard spit on the ground and his two friends did the same thing.
Mel gave him another smile. “Maybe after tonight. But right now, as you said, we need to get down into that bunker. I don’t want to be caught out when the dragon comes.”
As if Mel had cued it, a loud roar sounded through the sky and broke the steady rhythm of the bells for a second. The guards watched the sky and Mel could see how their backs hunched over and how they unconsciously cowered toward the walls.
“Just get off the street,” the guard said.
The three guards hurried past them, breaking out in a jog toward the eastern gate, and Mel waved for her party to follow her. Mel took them down into an alleyway toward the south. She changed direction after she couldn’t spot the guards anymore to the east and they made it into the residential area.
The group hurried down the abandoned houses close to the wall and before they reached the southern hole in the wall, a black shadow flew past them. Mel stopped, feeling her heart banging against her ribcage. The group watched the sky as the dragon filled up its belly with a red glow and Mel met Gabs’ gaze.
“Run,” Mel yelled.
The group broke out into a sprint toward the wall and Mel felt branches on people’s wild grown lawns ripping at the hem of her gray pants. Behind her, heat licked her back and Mel didn’t want to look that way. She focused her gaze at the wall reaching tall in the distance and when they had gotten to the broken section of the wall, Mel skidded to a stop on the dry grass.
She crouched down against the wall of the house next to the broken stone and the group followed her movement. She looked at the party, making sure they had all made it, and in the distance above their heads, Mel saw fire burning in the street. That had been a really close call.
She looked around at the backyard of the house, but no Austin could be seen anywhere around. Darkness had fallen and there was no light left around Aldrion. Mel swallowed hard and met Gabs’ gaze.
“We need to go,” Gabs said.
Mel nodded, but her feet were frozen to the ground. Her breath came in ragged bursts and she felt like she could have left them all behind except for Austin. She wanted him with her out there. She trusted him like she trusted herself.
Gabs kept staring at her, watching for Mel’s next move. But Mel just kept leaning against the house, breathing heavily.
“Mel, we need to go,” she said. “If we wait any longer, they might catch us. You said so yourself.”
Mel nodded. “I know. I just hoped Austin would make it here in time.”
She launched herself off from the wall, using all her determination to leave Austin behind in Aldrion. Mel climbed up the section of broken wall and jumped off into the darkness beyond. She landed in the grass growing outside, but she knew it wouldn’t take long before everything around them was only a wet, barren landscape.
Gabs followed and Mel crouched by the wall, waiting for the rest to get through. It was dark beyond and Mel stared out into the wastes, seeing nothing except for darkness. She counted until all five of them were gathered close to each other, feeling the wind rip at their cloaks.
Then a sixth body snuck up close to the group and Mel felt her entire body freeze. Her heart stopped and her breath caught in her lungs. Had they already been caught?
“I’m sorry I’m late.”
Austin’s voice came like a message of light from above, and Mel felt her heart finally beating again. Mel dragged in a deep breath and let it out with a sigh. In the darkness, she wrapped her hands around Austin and squeezed him tight. She felt his hands trembling around her and she could hear his heart beating fast, like he had run all the way here.
A couple of flashes lit the sky and in the distance, Mel saw magic coming from the eastern gate. The elemental warriors were there and Mel hoped Derek was fighting with them this night, keeping him occupied during their escape.
Mel released Austin from her embrace and he stared at her with a shocked expression on his face, only lit up once in a while by the flashes. She thought she saw a small smile gather on his lips, but Mel already felt like she had done something inappropriate.
Redness spread over her cheeks, and she cleared her throat. “Let’s head out. We need to try to get to the village as soon as possible.”
The group didn’t say a word, but she heard their footsteps following her in the night. She had used the wall to figure out east and now she just needed to keep a straight line until they reached the village. The hard part was walking in the right direction when everything around them was shrouded in darkness.