14

Raiya

Julian had just finished eating when a servant stopped by to inform him the Bellasea Council was ready to see him. He sighed, pushing back his chair to follow the servant reluctantly. As they walked, he tried asking the man questions but received little to no answers, wondering if he had been instructed to not speak to the Speaker. Finally, he grew quiet, his hands folded behind his back as he idly followed the fellow before him. He had been to Bellasea often enough that his surroundings did little to tempt his gaze, but a smile did grow on his face as he thought of his young charge’s expression when she saw the fortress for the first time. He remembered his own first time seeing the sea, how foreign yet beautiful it was. The smell of salt, the spray of water, the softness of the sand, and the occasional sighting of the marine creatures far off in the distance.

“We have lived on this planet for over a thousand years now, yet the oceans are still alien to us. Isn’t that funny?” he asked the servant, chuckling at his own thoughts.

“Right here,” the servant replied, gesturing to an ornate cedar double-door.

“Ah, yes. Thank you.” He nodded to the servant who promptly departed, leaving him a moment to compose himself before knocking gently on the doors. Opening the doors carefully, he walked into a circular chamber filled with decorative relics representing the sea. The table was made from the bones of a large marine creature, the rug underneath from the coat of another, and over the mantle hung a tapestry depicting a ship sailing amidst a storm.

“I see you’ve added some new pieces to the room,” Julian said, gesturing towards a large glass tank filled with colorful fishes and creatures.

“My own captures,” Felix proudly replied. “I found them on my last trip. Truly, the oceans are remarkable. While the sky may have the dragons, the land the aethertrees, the ocean has the glowing, gentle giants!”

“If you could grow gills and breathe underwater, I fear you’d leave us,” a pale man remarked. His red hair was pulled back into a messy bun and perched upon the bridge of his nose were blue square-shaped glasses. Seated beside him was a dark-skinned woman, her curly hair shaped into a full sphere which swayed with each tilt of her head. She was drinking some sort of minty liquid concoction that even Julian could smell all the way from the entrance.

“Geria’s Grace, whatever are you drinking Siana? It’s very overbearing,” he said, wrinkling his nose as he walked over to the only empty seat at the table.

Siana sighed, setting her mug back down. “This is the medicine Sibilla sent me. She told me I must drink a cup once in the morning and once in the evening for a fortnight.”

“But you are feeling better, yes?” he probed gently.

“Yes, much so thanks to her.”

“So, what brings you here, Speaker Julian,” the red-haired man interrupted. “I’m certain it’s about the sicknesses laying waste to the villages further north, right?”

“Kirdan is right, Julian,” Warren spoke up, clasping his hands together and leaning forward. “We’ve heard word of those villages falling sick with a contagious, unknown disease and dying quickly. Is this true or is it greatly exaggerated?”

“There is no exaggeration. I’ve been to several villages myself on the way here and it’s true. Those that fall sick die within three days. No herbal remedy stops it. Sibilla believes that nothing we know of in current medicine and science can help.”

The people at the table glanced at each other, uneasiness seeping into their bones.

“And what exactly are the symptoms?” Kirdan asked, tapping the table rhythmically with a single finger. He gazed coldly at the man who had so brazenly entered their fortress after traversing through disease-infected villages.

“There are many symptoms but, to name a few, rashes and hives. A bloody cough. Delirious fevers. Some described a burning sensation both internally and externally. Ultimately it all ends with death on the third day.”

“That sounds rather like that one disease, doesn’t it dear?” Seberga asked Warren, resting her head against her hand.

“You think so too?” Julian asked, eagerly leaning forward. Truthfully speaking, he didn’t think anyone would mention it out of disbelief. He figured he would have to convince them, perhaps even risk walking out of this meeting with them thinking he was mad for speaking about a disease that hadn’t existed for centuries. “The thing is, it’s not just humans,” he continued. “Animals and plants. Anything living, really, falls sick and dies. The animals show the same symptoms as humans. But the plants, they just wither and die away within three days.”

“And you wondered if the same was happening down south,” Kirdan murmured, stroking his beard in thought.

“Has there been any outbreaks in your villages Lord Talon, Lady Frances?” Felix asked anxiously.

The two nobles that had seemed content to remain in the background exchanged glances at the sudden question.

“I’ve received no such word. Master Ulrich has told me that the villages seem well from his last visit three days ago,” Lady Frances answered.

“And I the same. I stopped by my villages on the way here and though the crops seemed less than usual, there were no signs of disease,” Lord Talon agreed.

“And if it is what we think it is, we must quarantine the villages. Take the sick and put them in one area and the non-sickly in another. We must then bring out the dragons and purge the entire area,” Kirdan said.

“Are you also including the sick in that?” Felix asked the other man, his tone harsh as he glared angrily.

Kirdan glanced at the man seated beside him. “Yes, they’re dead either way,” he replied apathetically.

“Surely not!” Julian protested, glancing towards Seberga and Warren for assurance. “Even if they were to die, we can’t go around burning droves of people. We don’t want to further amplify the conflict between the dragon-flyers and common folk.”

“Even so, Kirdan is right,” Warren said, his expression grim. “Their lives are already forfeit. We must first destroy the disease in its entirety by going over the entire continent. Then, we can investigate its sudden appearance.”

“I can have members of the Carpenters Guild set up quarantine spots,” Siana said. “We can have everything done within the week.”

“A week is long enough for it to spread further. How can we monitor it better?” Seberga asked, looking at Kirdan.

“Have Dragonspire send out two or three squads to monitor the infected villages on the north and west side. We can send out our own squads to cover the east and south side since Reymora doesn’t have the dragon-flyers to spare for this. The dragons can see it so if it spreads further, they can, hopefully, intercept it before it reaches other villages,” a short, burly man answered instead.

“I don’t believe Dragonspire would like the idea of that, Ezio,” Julian interrupted, his voice unwavering despite the intense stare of the entirety of the Bellasea Council.

A silence descended upon the chamber.

Finally, Warren broke the silence, saying, “Very well. Convey our thoughts on the matter to Ralph and Sibilla. However, should Dragonspire fail to contain the disease and it spreads down to us, how, exactly, would Dragonspire take accountability for it?”

Julian found he had no response ready for the Chief of Bellasea Fortress.

*~*

Raiya and Hyun didn’t attract much attention as they made their way down the path through the cliff towards the beach. Hyun had wanted to explore the beach first, saying it was best while the sun was still out.

“A certain sort of freshness the ocean lends the air, don’t you think?” he asked her, a huge smile spreading across his face. The boy moved with ease down the coastline, as if he was born to it.

“Have you been here before?” she asked him, stumbling down the sloped, sandy path. Though the sand was beautiful from afar, especially with the light shining on it, she found walking on it to be a lot harder than dirt.

“I’ve been to Bellasea before, yes. I’ve always enjoyed my visits because they remind me of my old home. I grew up in a coastal fishing village called Laoalay, near Shiyama Keep. My father was a fisherman, and my mother sold his catches at the market. My siblings, well the oldest ones helped our parents and the middle ones looked after the youngest.”

“Which one were you?”

He glanced back at her, the grin still fixed in place. “Oh, I was the youngest and most mischievous of them all!”

She grinned back at him before asking, “So, how old were you when you left then?”

“When I left the village or when I left the east?”

“Both.”

Hyun didn’t say anything for a moment as they finally reached the flat coast. There weren’t as many people wandering about as there had been when she had arrived, she noted, and those that were there avoided the water. Hyun turned, ignoring the ocean and instead headed to the face of the cliff where she could see the looming maws of the cave entrances.

He began speaking as he moved. “I left the village when I was probably your age. Ten or eleven. I was originally taken to Shiyama Fortress, but instantly sent to Rajin. There I stayed until I was fourteen then came here.”

“With the Prince egg.”

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

“With Nymerik, yes. You could say we were fated to be.”

As they reached one of holes in the cliff face, Raiya felt a sudden chill overcome her. She rubbed her arms against it, but the goosebumps remained. As she peered inside, the darkness threatened to swallow her whole. She took a step back, afraid. She didn’t want to go inside.

“How about we take a quick look inside?” Hyun suggested, also peering inside.

“It’s too dark. How will we see? Maybe we should go back.”

“Don’t worry,” he responded, leaning down to pick up a long, thick stick. “I’ll make a torch.” He unsheathed the knife strapped to his belt, cutting off a strip of his tunic before tying it around the stick. He also pulled out a small, dark grey metallic object and a little bottle he had tucked into his pouch. He poured a little of the yellow liquid onto the cloth before placing the stick down, getting down on one knee, and striking the dark grey object against his knife in an attempt to catch a spark.

“Have you ever made a fire like this before?” she asked him, bending down to watch in interest.

He laughed but his eyes remained focused on the task at hand. “Do you think we dragon-flyers forget to make fire traditionally because we can so easily conjure it with our dragons? It’s easy to make your own fire when you have two key items: kolite* and tree resin. If you have oil or grease, that works too.”

“I can’t imagine relying on dragons to make fire for simple uses in the first place. Wouldn’t they burn everything around them in the process?”

“Did you know that there once were little flying fire-breathing lizards, like our dragons? They called them dragonlets, like dragonet and hatchling crossed together, because they seemed like baby dragons. They co-existed peacefully alongside their larger counterparts.”

“And what happened to them?”

A sudden spark and then a crackling flame, Hyun quickly dropped his knife and piece of kolite, picking up the torch.

“No one knows, but everyone says they might have disappeared the same way the last of the dragon gods had.” He handed her the torch to hold for him before bending down to pick up the knife and piece of kolite, tucking them away securely. “Though I thought once, when I was younger and playing by the ocean, I saw this little lizard with wings.” He took the torch back before entering the cave, the light illuminating the dark walls filled with tiny little crevices and cracks. “Come on, let’s go,” he said, glancing back at the girl rooted at the entrance of the cave before making his way further inside.

Raiya followed, albeit reluctantly. The air was cold and smelled musty. The sand gave way to dirt, soft under her feet. The passageway was wide enough for two people to walk side by side, albeit tightly, so she hurried next to him, fearful of being left behind.

“I was curious about it naturally, so I went up to it. It was just lying on a rock, bathing in the warmth of the sun,” he continued his story as they walked slowly, making sure to step carefully. “When I got near it, it opened its eye, beautiful and gem-like, the same as our dragons. It didn’t move or make a sound and neither did I. We both just stared at each other. Then one of my brothers called my name and I ran back to him. The next day, I went back to the beach to see if it would be there, but the rock was empty. I returned every day until I left the village, but I never saw it again. Sometimes I wonder if it was just the imagination of a child at play.”

“Do you think, if it was real, that it was a dragonlet?”

“I think so.”

The two drifted off into an amiable silence, until the sound of a rock falling in the distance echoed loudly, startling the girl.

“What exactly are we looking for?” she asked shakily, drawing closer to him. She was all but clinging on to him at this point.

“Nothing and everything. I don’t think we’ll find anything, but everything could be of value so don’t disregard a single thing.”

As they walked deeper in, the narrow passageway widened into a large, circular chamber with multiple entrances embedded in its walls, all leading in different directions. Raiya could see that many people had been here before, the paths heavily worn down with imprints left into the soil. It wasn’t surprising, she was sure these caves had been explored hundreds of times already. She doubts there are any secrets left within its dark, eerie depths.

“And if we get lost?” she whispered, not leaving his side despite standing in a larger space.

“We won’t get lost,” he replied. “Come on, let’s just go straight. If we go straight, we can easily turn around and come straight back out.”

They walked through the chamber and then through the center-middle passageway, the sound of rocks and chittering accompanying the silent duo. Raiya didn’t want to know what was making that chittering sound and she hoped they’d never find out. She was, to her chagrin, forced to walk up front as the passageway only had enough room for one person to walk at a time. Hyun brought up the rear, having handed her the torch to help light the way. He wanted to have both his arms free in case they encountered something dangerous down here. The chittering noise was enough to put even him on edge and he scanned their surroundings carefully, taking in every crevice and eyeing every shadow that moved with the flickering flame. The walls of the cave closed in on them and he was thankful he had a knife small enough to wield should they face danger. But despite his worries on the potential dangers they might find ahead, it wasn’t a long walk before they came to an abrupt dead end.

“How odd,” Hyun murmured. “Why is there a short passageway leading to a dead end?”

“I’ve read that it can be normal for some tunnels to lead to dead ends. From cave ins or other things that might damage. Caves are dangerous, tricky places,” Raiya said, turning to face him. “Now you lead us back.”

“Yes, but this doesn’t look natural. See how smooth it is? And if you look carefully,” he said, taking the torch from her and peering at the wall closely. “This stone doesn’t even match the rest of the cave. This looks like it was purposefully done.”

She didn’t understand why it mattered, but when he leaned forward, she found herself forced back against the wall behind her. She was trapped between his body and the wall, forced to turn her head to the right to avoid having it press into his chest. In doing so, she saw a narrow crevice directly in line with her body.

“Wait, there’s something!” she said excitedly, pointing to the right.

Hyun tilted his head, but he didn’t see what she was referring to. Frowning, he asked, “What do you mean? I don’t see anything.”

She ducked underneath his arm, her hand stuck out to feel the gap between the walls. She couldn’t see the crack anymore now that her whole body was facing the wall, but she knew it was there and that knowledge allowed her to locate the gap from her memory and shove her tiny body through. To Hyun, it appeared as if she had disappeared into the wall.

“Raiya!” he called out worried. “Raiya, where did you go? Be careful!”

She could hear his voice, but she couldn’t respond. The walls were pressing in on her body and she felt like she couldn’t breathe. But it was only a few short moments before she stumbled out into another chamber and froze.

The room was filled with balite*, a useful metal often used to create fire-resistant tools or structures. But it wasn’t the iridescent blue metal that caught her attention, but the strange metal objects situated on tables. A box with a glass window, dark as the night. Several glass bottles lay scattered, a few broke into tiny pieces. Alongside another strange device lay a glass bowl with a spherical ball the size of her hand situated inside, made from balite. As she approached, she could see strange markings on inlaid upon the smooth, metal surface. Her hand traced the symbols, “⍀⏃☍⍀⍜⏚*,” trying to figure out its meaning.

“I found something!” she called back to Hyun who was still calling her name. “It’s a room filled with balite, but there are also some strange things in here too. I’ve never seen any of these things before. There’s this long table filled with all these weird objects. One of them is this ball that has unique markings etched on it.”

“Take it and come back out, I can’t follow you. I don’t know how you got in there but however you did I doubt it’ll be large enough for me to squeeze through.”

Raiya grabbed the ball, finding it to be quite hefty. She glanced around the room again, making sure not to miss anything else.

“Wouldn’t there be an actual entrance to this room?” she asked herself, spinning around slowly. “Surely if this was used by people, they’d need to have a proper way in and out.”

But try as she might to find some doorway hidden within the walls, she could not. Finally giving up, she made her way back to the corner she came from. She could see the gap far more clearly on this side than she could on the other. In fact, if she squinted through, she could make out Hyun’s body shuffling around back and forth in front of the gap. Pressing the ball tightly to her chest, the girl pushed herself through the gap and moved through, finding it much harder without the use of her arms.

Her sudden emergence from the wall caused him to jump before he quickly reached out to help her out, grabbing the ball from her hands to examine it eagerly.

“Remarkable,” he murmured. “This has to be from the Gerians.”

Raiya’s mouth dropped open in shock and Hyun laughed at her expression.

“It is?!” she exclaimed, trying to take the ball back from him to examine it herself.

“Of course not, I’m just teasing you. Come on, let’s get out of here while we still have a torch. The chittering noises have stopped for now too which make me feel uneasy.” Still chuckling at her gullibility, he led the way out, one hand gripping the ball tightly while the other held the fading torch.

Raiya followed behind him, her eyes glued to the ball in his hand. Though he had said he was joking, her mind couldn’t help but think of the possibilities. She was eager to tell Sibilla and Godrick about this and see what they thought. Julian would probably be the most excited though. She couldn’t wait to get back to Bellasea and tell him right now. As they emerged from the cave, Hyun tossed the torch aside, stamping out the remaining flames. She took deep breaths, enjoying the fresh saltiness of the air in comparison to the stifling, musty air in the cave. The sun had already begun dipping below the horizon, the sky a deep orange and purple.

“That was fun, wasn’t it?” he asked her as they began walking back along the beach. “We found something interesting too. Let’s examine it together when we get a chance.”

“I didn’t think we would find anything. Those caves were explored by so many others after all.”

“I’m sure every place has its own secrets. Even if you visit a place daily, can you truly say you know the entirety of what it has to offer? It’s easy to overlook that which is hidden carefully. I was lucky you were there, or I’d never have known there was a secret room behind the left wall.”

“I’m a good explorer and researcher,” Raiya said proudly, a small smile spreading across her face. She found that she had begun to see the boy in a far closer light than before. She wouldn’t be opposed to spending more time with him at all.

“I believe it. After all, you spend all your time around books or running around the fortress. But how about we keep this between us, okay? It’ll be our little friendship secret.”

At this, she hesitated. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to keep it a secret from those she trusted and loved, but she also didn’t want to upset her newfound friend.

“Why should we keep it a secret?” she instead found herself asking. If he gave her a good reason, she’d listen to him even if it was with great reluctance.

“They’ll just take it away from us. Don’t you want to have the chance to unlock its secrets and discover something great? Why give that chance away to others?”

Raiya considered his words carefully before nodding, her childish innocence blooming under his careful wording.

“That makes sense! But what kind of secrets do you think it might hold? It’s not that big after all and you said you were joking about the Gerians making it.”

“Hyun!” a deep voice called from the distance, causing the pair to look up the cliff face to see a short, burly man standing there, his black hair swirling in the wind. “Come here boy, we need to talk!”

“Dragon balls, what does that man want with me now?” Hyun mumbled as he shoved the ball quickly into Raiya’s hands. “Here, I dare not hold onto it. Keep it safe for both of us and when we next meet, we can both discuss what we found out about it, okay? Promise.” He extended his pinky out to her, and she stared at it dumbly. “Ah,” he said in sudden realization. “Where I come from, when we make a promise, we lock our pinkies and thumbs together and shake to seal it.”

“Why do you need to shake pinkies and thumbs to mean your word?” she asked as she extended her own out anyways to shake his.

“It’s just a custom,” he said with a laugh. “I used to do it with my siblings all the time. So, think of me as your older brother and you as my younger sister. You must listen to your older brother, okay?”

Raiya nodded her head slowly, finding this idea to be a bit weird but not wanting to say it out loud.

“Well, goodbye Raiya. Safe journey back to Dragonspire and good fortune on your journey as a Speaker. I hope we will see each other again sooner rather than later.” With that, the boy turned and ran back the way they had come from, his long legs carrying him quickly away.

She stood there in the sand, squinting after him as the wind pressed against her small form, her hair whipping back and forth. The ball in her hand weighed heavily in her palm.