Their time at the ‘Drunken Corsair,’ as Valen soon learned that it was called, was quite wonderful. It was far and beyond the accommodations he had grown used to since leaving the Divide. They had hot food, warm cider, and even a drink of mead to his surprise. It was so strong he practically gagged on it, much to Ylrick’s amusement, but he did not mind. It was the most fun he had allowed himself to have in quite a while.

It was a shock when Aevra made her presence known, of course. The little wyvern awoke as Hera entered the building, leaping atop the tables and making a big ruckus before settling back down. After Bardus spoke with Ylrick for a moment, the man went from panic to begrudging acceptance.

“Aye, fine, jus’ keep th’ dern thing off o’ me tables, ye hear?” he said, before turning and marching off muttering under his breath about ‘drakes’ and ‘no’ needing tha’ kind o’ trouble ‘round here.’ Still, Valen was glad it caused no more trouble than that. He thought about Raenelir, still up in the sky somewhere right now, and was even more glad that the much larger wyvern had not accompanied them into town.

It would have been chaos.

The rangers stayed away from the alcohol for the most part, while Bardus and Layne avoided the merrymaking entirely, but Samorr joined in with them and even Hedrick allowed himself a single drink and a grin. Meanwhile, a few members of Ylrick’s staff had rushed out front after they first entered to take their horses around back to a stable that he rarely had the fortune to use, seeing as visitors to Crove were few and far between.

Valen also learned that night that the Drunken Corsair was one of only two taverns in the whole town. It was certainly large enough to accommodate a good crowd though, perhaps three hundred if tables were pushed aside. His establishment also served as the only inn in the entire town, once again due to the lack of visitors this far away from the more populated areas of the Empire.

As the afternoon turned to evening, Bardus and Layne left the room with Ylrick. Maybe ten minutes later, several of the burly man’s assistants went running by and Valen realized they were probably leaving to gather the supplies they needed for their journey into the mountains.

Once others began to enter the tavern, some of the locals, it was time for them to head back to their own rooms. Although the rangers trusted Ylrick and his people, they were still cautious around others. When Bardus returned to the common room with Layne and Ylrick, the Second Ranger’s large friend let them know what rooms were theirs and called for an attendant to show them the way.

Soon, Valen and Hera were alone in their own room. The siblings sat together on one of the beds, both quiet as, Valen assumed, they thought about the same thing.

Crove was beautiful. It was welcoming, despite the violent history of its people. And, if he was honest, it was exactly the kind of place he had hoped he might be able to find for him and his sister to live out their lives in peace, after everything that had happened to them and their family.

“Hera… what if we could stay here?” he finally asked, after several long minutes of silence that threatened to stretch on for too long if someone did not say something. Immediately, his sister’s eyes turned and locked onto his, but instead of the agreement he had been expecting to see on her face, there was surprise and… was that anger?

“Val… how could you say that? I thought you were finally starting to get it! The rangers need us. The people suffering because of the Emperor need us! You remember what Illaya told us, don’t you? You’re meant for something greater than just living out your life where nothing can ever happen to you. What about everyone else? What about the wyverns?!” she demanded. Her anger was surprising to say the least, and it struck like a whip. He flinched at her words, realizing he had completely misread Hera.

Still, though, he could not just give up on this, not when such a place existed where they might be able to avoid the threat of the Empire and live out the rest of their lives without danger!

“Hera, I know you’ve grown a lot since… since Da, and Ma, and Aiden… since they died. You’ve learned a lot, and you seem to enjoy being with the rangers and the twins. But… it’s not our fight. Or at least, it doesn’t have to be! We can still decide that for ourselves. It’s not too late yet!”

Hera stood up, stepping away from him and avoiding eye contact. Aevra, who had been resting in her lap, was up on her feet now, looking around wildly before realizing Hera’s anger and turning her suddenly slitted eyes towards Valen. She gave a little growl and came to stand at Hera’s feet.

Already, she had grown quite a bit since leaving home. She was nearly a third again the size she had been when they first ran. She was going to get big, and fast, and then they would not be dealing with little simple surprises like they had earlier back in the common room.

But the wyverns were their family too, he knew. That, at least, he would not set aside. Which was why his sister’s next words stung him even more.

“If we just let the Empire keep doing what they’re doing, pretty soon there will be no more wyverns in all of Parovia, too! You know better than me what Da always said. For a Galar, there's nothing more important than them!”

Valen could not respond. He was struggling, trying to think of something to say, but nothing would come to mind. Of course, it was at that moment there was a roar that sounded very much like Raenelir, coming from much closer than he should have been. Since they were in a room with a window, he rushed to it and pushed it open. He heard the roar again, sounding even closer now, and turned back to look at Hera.

“Stay here! Something’s wrong!”

Then he was out the window, racing around the side of the building to the main street, where the Highborn was quickly descending. Raen hit the ground and spun to look at Valen, teeth bared aggressively before turning his eyes skyward. Valen followed the wyvern’s gaze and saw immediately what had the wyvern so agitated, their shapes just shadows in the night right now but still too distinct for him not to recognize what he was seeing...

Dragons. Many, many dragons.

All thought of his conversation with Hera left his mind at the sight. He had known the strength the Draconic Orders could call upon, had seen it firsthand when they came for the wyverns at his own family’s hatchery. Yet still, seeing the numbers in the sky now, the fear took hold of him, latching on like a drowning man at sea.

There were at least a hundred of them, probably more.

He felt his breath go, his pulse quicken. It felt like his vision was suddenly rimmed in black. ‘No. No. No. No no no no no… not again.’ Spinning towards Raenelir, he tried to figure out what they could possibly do to escape this situation. It was the middle of the night but thankfully the sky was clear, which meant that they could clearly see their enemies.

For just a moment, Valen felt a faint hope that maybe, just maybe, these might not be dragon riders, instead just a wild flight making its way into the mountains. Then he caught the glint of moonlight reflecting off of armor, and knew it wasn’t the case.

These were the Blackscale Knights, come to finish their job.

“We have to run, Valen,” a voice said, calmly but firmly. He turned to see Layne there as she placed a hand on his arm, a calming, firm hold that helped bring him back to reality. He caught his breath, then purposefully took several long, deep ones that set his pulse at ease. He nodded to the ranger and she nodded back, letting him go and turning to race away, back around the side of the Drunken Corsair in the direction they knew Ylrick’s stable to be.

Turning to Raenelir once more, Valen drew close to the wyvern and rested a hand on the base of his long neck, bringing the Highborn’s attention to him.

“I know you want to fight, Raen, but we can’t. Not like this. We’ll lose, buddy. Please… please understand me…” he whispered. He desperately needed Raenelir to hear him, needed this to be one of those strange times where the wyvern seemed to grasp human emotion more than Valen had ever known a wyvern to be able to. He prayed to the Four, or whoever else might be listening, that this would be one of those times.

When Raenelir lowered his head to touch Valen’s, he knew he did not imagine the words in his mind this time.

‘I… understand…’

Just like that, all fear was gone, his doubt running away from him in a rush - because in that moment he knew, without a doubt, that he could never let anything happen to Raenelir. This Highborn was beyond anything he had ever known about drakes. Not only that, he was Valen’s friend. His friend.

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

And he would protect his friend to the best of his ability.

Valen also knew, however, what that meant. He could no longer be afraid. His last moment of questioning, of fear, had to be his conversation with his sister only minutes ago now. He had to devote himself to training, to fighting for wyverns everywhere, because if he did not do it, there might not be anyone else who would.

When he turned back to look at the dragon riders again, he was not afraid.

He was angry.

With a grunt, Valen pulled himself up onto Raenelir’s back, glad to be atop the wyvern once more. Then they were moving. The narrow paths between buildings were much too small for the Highborn, so instead of following Layne and the others to the stables that way, he spoke to Raen.

“Let’s fly!” he shouted. With a roar Raenelir was moving, leaping into the air with all the force his muscles could muster, passing over several buildings as his wings unfurled and he caught the air beneath them. With a few beats of his wings, he was suddenly hovering over the rooftops of Crove. Looking around, he could see lights springing up all across the town in response to the noise, while above and rapidly approaching from the West, the dragons’ roars could be heard drifting in from a distance.

“Valen!” a voice called from down below. Looking beneath him, he saw the rangers, Hera, Simon and Samuel all in their saddles, with Bardus leading Valen’s horse by a lead. Ylrick and his attendants were out with them, hurriedly passing over all the supplies they had managed to gather for them.

At the sight of the wyvern there were some cries from the workers, but Ylrick recognized Valen and clapped the fool who had shouted closest to him behind the ear.

“Ah, bu’ ye’ve brough’ danger righ’ down on us this time, ye damn fool!” Ylrick snapped at Bardus next, but the Second Ranger’s attention was fully on Valen. He had been the one to shout his name.

“Don’t worry about us and fly for the mountains! In the end, it’s you and Raenelir they’ll really be after! We’ll be fine and follow you up as quickly as we can. Look for the two, big white spires of rock that cross over one another; there’s a cave near there where we’ll meet you tomorrow! With your drake friend it should be easy to spot them near the main path. Now go!” Bardus called up. For a second, Valen was incredulous. How could he possibly just fly off on his own with no knowledge of the area he would be travelling through, knowing that those he cared about were somewhere behind him being hunted by such a massive force of dragon riders?

Yet the more he thought about it, the more he realized it was their only chance. Having Raenelir with them would do nothing but paint a giant target on their back. If he and Raen stayed close enough to the ground and flew quickly enough, there was a chance they could get into the mountains before any of the riders could even see them.

It was the only chance they had and although Valen still hated it, he knew there was not really a choice in the matter.

“Fine!” he finally called down, before turning his gaze to Hera and Aevra, both of whom were looking up at Raenelir with wide eyes as he hovered in the air over them. “Just look after my sister, alright?”

“You know we will, Val!” Simon replied. In that moment Valen was doubly glad to have his old friends along with them. Hera looked like she wanted to say something, but the words would not come out. He spared a few more words for her even as he rested a hand on Raenelir’s side, preparing to direct him.

“It'll be alright, Hera! I’ll see you soon!” Valen shouted.

Then, without waiting around to waste more time, he leaned forward on Raen’s back.

“Fly, Raen! To the mountains!” he called, pointing in the direction of the Drake’s Tail range that began just beyond the edge of the town. There was a path that he could see now from where they hovered above the rooftops, leading up and away through the trees into the giant, towering mountains before him.

With everything else that had been happening since arriving at Crove, he had not yet really given the Drake’s Tail a good, up close look, even with it looming so close. Perhaps he had simply been hoping, somewhere in the back of his mind, they would never have to head up there after all. Now, he knew there was no time for hesitation.

Raenelir followed Valen’s finger and then, like lightning, he was off, shooting through the air with a single, directed blast of his wings. Valen could tell the Highborn was resisting the urge to roar, a deep growl rumbling up from inside of him instead, but he was glad the sound did not come. It would defeat the whole purpose of trying to get out of Crove before the dragon riders spotted them; the dragons would simply hear the wyvern, and then they would be doomed.

Quicker than Valen had experienced they flew, leaving the buildings behind. Trees started passing beneath them in an incredible blur even as ascended, following the rising landscape until the path disappeared through the woods beneath them. There were several long stretches where he lost sight of the mountain road and he would begin to panic, but it always came back into view just a short time later and he would breathe a sigh of relief.

He did not know how long they flew like that. It could not have been too long but with the danger behind them, it felt much longer than it should have.

What he did know, however, was that Raenelir suddenly turned vertical in the air and for just a moment Valen felt weightless. Fear and anger both were gone now, replaced with that unexplainable rush of excitement that he felt every time he was able to fly with the Highborn. Then it was like the world was trying to pull him back down again. He was reminded of the fact that although he enjoyed flying with Raen, he had no saddle to keep him safely seated. He had to rely on Raenelir not to do too much with him upon his back, as well as his own arm and leg strength that helped to hold him in place.

He thought that it was not going to be enough just long enough for a bit of panic to return, but then Raenelir ended his vertical climb and broke out between the first two peaks. Suddenly he was upright again and breathing a sigh of relief. Looking down, the mountain road continued through the now sparser trees. He was glad to see he would not constantly be in danger of losing the path for a while, at least.

Then he heard roars in the distance behind him, and his blood ran cold.

Had the dragon riders reached Crove already? Was Hera okay? Were his friends? The rangers? Valen hated not knowing, but he also knew that right now he would just have to trust in the Second Ranger. They would be able to meet him where they said they would tomorrow.

So he set himself to watching for the white stone spires that Bardus had described to him, knowing that they could not be too far from the road he was following. It felt like he had travelled too far for the others to catch up in a single day and began to worry about whether or not the spires would really be there or if he was going to be lost up here all alone.

Then he saw it; a white formation and the broken remnants of another, where it had once crossed in front of the first but had been damaged somehow, causing a good portion to crumble. Valen breathed a heavy sigh of relief. Without even really thinking about it he pressed his legs in the direction he wanted to go, Raenelir adjusting his flight immediately to the sensation.

Valen realized that he had just successfully directed the wyvern without having to speak or point and a flood of emotions hit him that he felt guilty for having while the others were still in danger. Happiness, fulfillment and relief were just a few of them, and countless others besides that he could not even put a name to.

For a moment, he felt a spark of that same strange sensation he had felt back in Trinity, though the moment he felt it he forced himself to calm down and it went away. He had no desire to feel like he was not himself right now. This moment belonged entirely to him and Raenelir, and that was it.

As they approached the spire, Valen began to look around for the cave that Bardus had told him should be somewhere around there. It took him several long minutes of searching, but he did not doubt the Second Ranger’s words anymore. His search was rewarded when he caught a glimpse of an opening hidden by trees in the side of one of the mountain faces, down at the base of the broken spire.

Grinning, Valen pressed just his feet against Raenelir’s side and the wyvern began to descend, circling as he looked for a clearing in the trees large enough for him to land safely. After a moment the wyvern found one and then they were on the ground. After climbing down from Raen’s back, Valen took a moment to stretch as he regained his bearings.

Then he took a quick look around, found the broken spire, and started in its direction. It was a little bit of a walk from where they had needed to land, but it was nothing terrible. They crossed relatively flat terrain between two large peaks in a valley of sorts. Valen found that he had quite missed the chill mountain air, and the feeling of standing so far above the rest of the world; it was a combination of sensations that had always felt like home to him.

He reached the spire and started towards the mountain face where he had seen the opening. It took a few more minutes of walking, Raenelir keeping pace with heavy steps just behind, dodging through the trees in areas where they started to get a little too close together for comfort. Finally, they stepped out of the trees into a small uncovered space in front of the cave. This one was definitely not an entrance to the strange tunnel system that Bardus had led them through to get to Crove, but it was deep and wide enough for Raenelir to enter comfortably and still remain hidden from eyes that might come searching in the skies above.

To Valen’s surprise, he found what looked to be the remains of an old wyvern’s nest inside the cave. It had been abandoned for some time, but it was still obvious to someone who had spent his whole life around the creatures. Patches of the wall had been worn smooth from where wyverns had rubbed their bodies up against the stone, and there were still some skeletal remains from the occasional meal in the back.

Valen even recognized what looked to be pieces of old wyvern eggshells and he grinned. Despite everything that had just happened, now the place felt even more like home than before, regardless of the smell. Raenelir seemed to be a little displeased as he caught the scent of wyvern, but calmed down as he recognized that it was an old smell and settled in near enough to the front of the cave that he would be quick to leap into action if anyone got too close, but still far enough back that no one would be able to see him from above.

Though he was tempted to find a spot closer to the back of the cave to sit, Valen found that he did not want to be by himself right now. Instead, he made his way over to Raen and sat down next to the wyvern, resting his head against his chest as he watched the entrance of the cave. He was already eager for the others to find them even though he knew it would still be quite a while. There was no way they would be able to cross the same distance as he and Raen did so quickly. Despite that, Valen was sure that he would not be able to sleep at all that night, as worried as he was for the safety of everyone else.

Which is why he was so surprised when the exhaustion of the day suddenly fell upon him, and he found himself dozing off before he even realized what was happening.