There were voices and people moving about in the tent. Mel cracked one eye open and looked down at a chest dressed tight in a black shirt. She didn’t know where she was, she couldn’t remember. Her hand reached out and patted the chest underneath her gaze, and then a sudden feeling of remembrance washed over her.

Mel jerked her head up and pushed back out from her sleeping position and her eyes met with a black, intense stare. She observed Austin’s face for a second and he had a smile curling up the side of his lips. Mel felt a blush spreading up her neck and she willed her eyes to look away, taking in the empty tent around them.

They were alone in here and she had been sleeping on Austin’s shoulder. She had just touched his chest, patted him even. What was wrong with her?

Mel brought up her hand to her head and stroked down the hair on one side. Then she took in the consequences of them being alone. Realizing that if they were, then where were Luthel and Hanon? Had they left her to die out in the wastes again?

Mel met Austin’s gaze. He was still staring at her. His eyes roamed over her face and a frown spread over his forehead.

“Where are they?” Mel asked.

“Outside,” Austin said. “They just walked outside with Flavio. They told me we should join them as soon as possible. But…”

His eyes left hers, and he looked down at the space between them. Mel swallowed hard and had a sudden impulse of not wanting him to complete that sentence. She wasn’t ready to discuss what was happening between them. She wasn’t ready for there to be anything.

“Let’s go then,” she said, moving toward the opening.

Austin grabbed her arm, putting a light pressure around her wrist. “We should talk about this. Before we go out there. What if something happens and…?”

Mel shook her head. “It won’t. We’ll be fine. We need to leave.”

Mel opened the tent flap and walked outside into the early morning sunlight. It was more a bit shrouded out here, but she still had to shield her eyes from the sunrays. Outside, Gabs, Clara and Brandon stood together talking. Flavio stood slightly to the side of them and looked down at the ground. A pang of worry spread through Mel when she saw him standing there like this. He didn’t look like he was okay.

He looked like he was still in shock, and Mel wondered if it would be better if they took him back to Aldrion. Austin climbed out behind her from the tent and walked past her without as much as a glance. He seemed angry at her now for shutting him down before he even had a chance to speak to her. But Mel just couldn't deal with whatever was going on between them on top of today.

Austin stalked off to where Luthel and Hanon stood speaking to some other members of their village. They didn’t look happy and kept throwing strange glances at Mel and her friends. When Austin approached them, they quieted and watched him with intense glares.

“We should leave,” Austin said to Luthel.

He nodded and walked back with Austin to the group, leaving Hanon with the other members of the village. Hanon watched him go and in that moment he looked even younger than he already was. Watching his father step away to a group of possibly dangerous foreigners.

“I will take you to Bahlan now,” Luthel said.

“How long will it take?” Brandon asked.

“Not long,” Luthel said.

“Okay, we’re ready,” Mel said, glancing over at her friends.

They nodded to her, and Luthel turned his back to the group.

He walked off toward the barren wasteland and the group picked up their packing and followed after the man. Mel joined at the back of the group, watching Flavio for signs he wasn’t up to this. But he didn’t protest, he just walked off with everyone, saying nothing. She watched Austin walking close to Luthel at the front of the party. His back was straight and his head was held high. Mel didn’t see a single sign in his posture of the feelings he had indicated to in the tent. That worried her.

They walked for a while, mostly in silence. Once in a while, Brandon fretted over Clara’s wounded arm. But she kept reassuring him that she would be fine. They could go to the hospital when they were back in Aldrion. Gabs mentioned something about the next semester at Falden and speculations on what they would learn in elemental class. Mel kept her silence, as did Flavio, Austin and Luthel. The air was tense around the group and Mel felt it had more to do with the drama than with the dangers of the wastes.

They finally got to the ruins of Bahlan and, looking upon the raised land with small rocks jutting out from the wet sand, made Mel feel deflated. There was really nothing here, and she kept thinking a building would rise up in the distance if they only got closer. But as they kept walking, it became increasingly clear to her that the only buildings here were the piles of rubble on the ground.

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Bahlan was nothing more than a sandy pit with a few rocks. They walked inside the structures of what once must have been houses and shops. But it was hard to contain her unhappiness when Luthel turned to Mel and gave her a small nod.

“I took you here,” he said. “Now it’s time for you to leave.”

Mel shook her head at him. “Not until we’d had time to search this place.”

“There is nothing more here,” Luthel said. “This is what’s left of Bahlan. It’s what’s left of all the once great cities.”

“Just give us a minute,” Mel said, waving him off.

Luthel sighed, but did as she said and walked off to the edge of the ruins, looking out into the distance to the east. Mel looked down at the wet earth surrounding the occasional rocks. In the corners of what had once been walls, there were mushrooms growing and moss. She bent down to where small holes were jutting out from the ground, like there had been some kind of storage perhaps in the wall.

Mel traced a rounded top and a square bottom of a hole and wondered what they would have stored in a wall like this. Her friends circled around the ruins, and Flavio kicked at a rock on the ground. There was a slight clink as it hit something, and it made Mel look up. Flavio kept kicking the rock against something else, and it didn’t make the same distinct sound.

Mel’s eyes met with Austin’s and he seemed to have heard it too. They both walked up to where Flavio was standing. He watched them with surprise and held up his hands as if to defend himself from them.

“I didn’t do anything,” he said.

“No,” Mel said. “But something sounded strange. What is that?”

Mel crouched down and traced her hand along something covered in dirt. As her fingers traced the smooth surface, the dirt fell off and something shiny was revealed. There was metal in this stone, and Mel dragged in an excited breath.

As all the dirt fell away and the sunlight reached the edge of the rock, the metal sigil shone brightly at Mel. She pulled back from the stone and watched the symbol with a shocked expression on her face. As if everyone around her had noticed her reaction, they pulled closer and stood around Mel now. They looked at the symbol in front of her and then down at Mel.

Mel felt like she wanted to disappear. She wanted to run away into the wastes, never to be found again or just be swallowed up by the wet, clammy sand underneath her hands. She wanted anything else than to be in this situation, to sit staring out here in the wasteland on a silvery depiction of a dragon. On the official symbol of the dragon cult.

What was it doing here?

“Oh, wow,” Gabs said from behind her. “That’s really unexpected.”

Mel swallowed hard, wondering if they were all seeing her as a spy from the void now. If they were all seeing her as a void worshiper. Mel glanced over at Luthel, who had also drawn closer. His eyes were on the symbol, too. His face looked concerned, drawn into a deep frown.

“What is that?” Clara asked.

“It’s the symbol of the dragon cult,” Austin said.

“Ooh,” Clara said. “Did you know about this, Melissa?”

Mel shook her head, but kept staring at the symbol, not wanting to meet anyone’s gaze. Her breath came in ragged bursts and her heart was beating hard against her ribcage. Her mind seemed to whirl around, not understanding what it was doing out here.

Who put it here and why?

Austin walked up to where Mel was sitting and looked down at her. Mel glanced up, hesitating at first, and Austin bore a look of concern on his face. His gaze left Mel, and he looked at the metal symbol in front of them. He walked up to it and crouched down to reach it. He brushed the sigil with his hand, gently.

Then his palm flattened out on the surface, and he pushed the sigil into the rock. Something clicked and Mel’s eyes grew wide. There was a sound like stones scraping against each other and wet sand sloshing to and from.

“Shit, Austin,” Brandon said. “It’s a staircase.”

Mel helped herself up to her feet and a small distance away from them, a staircase down below the ground had opened up. Mel’s eyes shot up to Luthel, but to her surprise, he looked utterly horrified. Mel didn’t think he could have faked such a genuine expression, but she needed to know.

“Did you know about this?” Mel asked.

Luthel dragged his eyes away from the staircase, leading down to the underground, and met Mel’s gaze. He shook his head. His eyes were wide and filled with terror.

“Don’t go down there,” he said.

“But we must,” Mel said.

He shook his head at her again. “I can’t be here then.”

Mel’s eyes grew hard, and she swallowed. “Are you going to inform the void about us being here?”

“No, but I need to get back. I need to get Hanon to safety. He’s my son.”

“Why?”

Luthel kept shaking his head, like he couldn’t believe what was happening. “Something is coming. I can feel it. This isn’t a good sign. You should never have found this.”

He looked around with anxious eyes, and Mel swallowed hard.

“How much time do we have?” Mel asked.

Luthel’s gray eyes were filled with honesty. “I don’t know. But I need to move my village away from this place to safety. But you should get out of here as soon as possible.” He pointed in the direction of the mountains. “Aldrion is over there. You should make it back before nightfall if you hurry.”

He took a step back from the group, toward where they had arrived from. Mel nodded at him and dragged in a deep breath. “Go then,” she said. “I will keep my promise if you keep yours. Okay?”

Luthel nodded and then turned his back to the group. He moved fast, breaking into a jog away from them, toward his family. Mel looked back at the group and her gaze caught with Austin’s. She held it for a moment and knew they were going down below.