The next few days passed in a blur. With each day that passed, the ground beneath them changed more and more from flatland to hills, until the hills were everywhere and growing larger. Valen knew what that meant - they were still a while from the base of the mountains, but the Drake’s Tail was growing closer and the landscape proved it.

Raenelir would likely have been able to reach Trinity sooner, but they had to make sure that they kept pace with those on the ground. That meant a lot of freewheeling through the sky for the Highborn and those upon his back, which meant Valen and either Samorr, who loved flight from his very first takeoff, or Layne, who to Valen’s shock had caught on to flying even faster than he had.

Of course, that did not make her friendly. The more time he spent with the young woman, the more he realized that she was not the social type. For the most part she remained silent; the only times he heard her speak was when she would occasionally ask that they not stray too far from the party on the ground, or when she asked for them to take off or land for the day.

Valen didn't mind it. She was beautiful, there was no denying that, but her almost total lack of communication or desire to speak with him made it much easier for him to ignore that fact, especially since there were large stretches of time in the air where she said nothing. During those times, it began to feel like it was just Valen and Raenelir up in the sky together.

Two other things changed as they travelled, however, that helped to speed the days along.

First, there were several times when dragon riders passed dangerously close by and they all had to head for cover as quickly as possible. It reminded Valen that they were not just leisurely travelling across the countryside and that their lives were still in danger. After the first couple of times that happened he remained wary and watchful, which meant the hours passed that much more quickly.

The second thing to change was that after their couple days of travelling the Second Ranger, Bardus, did something that caught Valen, Hera and the twins off guard.

He announced that they were going to begin training every night before going to sleep, for at least an hour, with their weapons of choice. For Simon that meant his hammer; for Samuel, his knives; for Valen, the short sword that had been given to him back in the city. Even Hera started training, beginning with two knives that Bardus produced from his saddlebags.

“I’ll have you start learning the bow as well, Hera, once we’re able to acquire one in Trinity. We did not have any of the proper size for you back at camp or we would have brought one from there,” Bardus told her after handing her the two blades. Although Valen did not like the idea of his sister playing around with weapons, he also knew that this was not actually ‘playing around' no matter how much he wished she had no need for the blades. With the dangers they faced now, she needed to know how to defend herself.

Valen came to realize that after the third night in a row in which he showed little to no progress in his own training, while his sister seemed to be picking things up faster than anyone thought possible. Samuel and Simon already had some proficiency with their own weapons thanks to their time with the Children of the Sky, but it was nothing compared to what the rangers were capable of.

It quickly became obvious that the only one capable of keeping up with their training was Hera, who was already well on her way to being as skilled with those little blades as Samuel was with his. The twins were still improving some as well, though not as quickly as Valen’s sister. Everyone was trying their absolute best to prepare themselves for whatever might come.

Which was why Valen quickly became frustrated by his lack of progress. Try though he might, it seemed more and more as if he simply had no skill with the blade beyond the absolute basics of slash and stab. At the very least he could feel his sore muscles every night when he went to sleep, which meant he was getting stronger.

He tried to be content with that but found that he could not. He wound up having to rely on the time he spent flying with Raenelir every day to stop thinking about his failures. Valen thought that he would be stuck with zero progress and began to grow resigned to it, but to his surprise change came in the form of Layne, who one night pulled him aside after training to speak with him.

“At the rate you’re going, you’re going to be no use to anyone. I would think that you should want to be able to protect your friends and your sister. Instead, it’s looking more like you will have to rely on others for your own safety forever,” she told him, once they were far enough away from the others and their small campsite that no one else could hear.

The words were biting and he felt the dig in the pit of his stomach. She was right, obviously, but the way she spoke was far from kind.

“I know that, alright? It’s not like I want others to always have to look out for me. I just don’t have any skill with a sword! Maybe it’s just not for me,” he replied. He knew he sounded like a child but he couldn't help it. How could he do anything about simply not having the capacity to learn something?

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“That’s nothing but idiocy. I had thought more of you than that,” Layne bit and immediately Valen turned scarlet in a mixture of embarrassment and anger. He looked down at his feet and gritted his teeth together as he tried to figure out how he should respond to her.

“Look, I get that you’re trying to help, but –“ he began, but he was cut off before he could say more.

“It isn't about whether you have skill, Valen. It’s about whatever fear you’re holding on to that’s keeping you from learning. You’ve been through quite a bit since the night your family was killed and every moment since then you’ve been moving, trying to figure out how to keep yourself and your sister alive. The problem is that you’re still holding on to the hope that things will somehow go back to normal. They won’t. Your sister turned that tragedy into a determination never to let anything like it happen to those she cares about again. Your friends, who have been through dark circumstances of their own, have sharpened their wills as well. What are you going to do with your circumstances, Valen? You have the ability to become a skilled swordsman – anyone has the ability to become anything they want to, if they truly put their minds to it - but your fear of letting go is holding you back. If you’re able to figure it out, let me know. I’ll be ready to train you when you do.”

With that, Layne spun around and left him standing there, mouth agape, staring after her like she was some mystical creature people spoke about in the stories from the first days of humankind.

He went to bed that night thinking about what she had said and woke up with it still on his mind. It stayed there all the next day – the sixth day since they had left Lakevale well and truly behind – until, just after noon had come and gone, Samorr pointed towards something from behind him on Raenelir's back and drew Valen’s attention in that direction. Suddenly, his mind was back on their journey.

They were approaching Trinity.

----------

Three hours later, their group lay hidden in the brush of a treeline maybe a mile from the entrance to Trinity. The city was much smaller than Lakevale but it was still surrounded by walls. Unlike the stone walls of Lakevale, these were made of wood, and many of the guards here seemed to be militia rather than true Imperial legionnaires. Which made sense; the Imperial armies tended to stick closer to their largest garrisons, while allowing settlements further away to largely govern and protect themselves with more minimal Imperial oversight.

Still, there were definitely Imperials in Trinity. They had seen several dragon riders coming and going since they had reached their hiding place and Valen found himself wishing that Raenelir had been able to come this close with them. Hera, Aevra, Raenelir and Layne had stayed back closer to where the Highorn had first landed, finding cover in a cave or old mining system that seemed to run for miles beneath the hills that surrounded the city.

The rest of their group had continued on to the town to get a grasp on the threat level to them here, as well as to determine whether or not they could risk going in to gather the supplies they needed.

“Something isn’t right,” Bardus said suddenly, shifting quietly to look back at them as he spoke. “After what happened in Lakevale this place should be swarming with Imperials. Even if there hasn’t been enough time for ground troops to arrive yet, Velitarii should have sent three to four times as many of his riders here to watch out for you. It’s a natural stop for anyone running South and a strong staging ground for any searches they might send out in the area. Yet we’ve seen what, maybe four or five of them since we’ve gotten here? It doesn’t sit well with me.”

There were murmurs of assent from Hedrick and Samorr, and even from Simon and Samuel, who recognized the strangeness of this as well. Valen felt his brows scrunching up as he thought, trying to puzzle out what this could mean and coming up with nothing.

“Can we afford not to send someone in, though? We have to know what information has spread this far by now. If we don’t know what the Emperor has decided to share with the people then we don’t know what he’s planning, and that’s dangerous,” Hedrick replied, looking as if he wished he was not saying what he was saying.

“Ah, but he’s right, Second. I could head in, sort things out and come back with a report, if you like. I would stick out the least among us rangers. But I don’t like the idea of going in alone, no matter the situation. If things go bad, and I were captured, there would be no way to let you know what we found out,” Samorr added, drawing their attention to him now.

There was silence for a moment as the Second Ranger seemed to consider his options before he then looked over to take in Samuel, Simon and Valen. His eyes landed on Valen and he sighed, as if resigning himself to something unpleasant.

“I agree that myself or Hedrick accompanying you would stick out too much. However, there is also the issue of what information the Imperials may have. They know what Hera looks like – they had her held prisoner for a short while, after all, and I’m sure they’ve spread that description as far as they could manage by now – but we also know they likely took Children of the Sky prisoner. It’s very possible that descriptions of these two,” Bardus paused to indicate the twins before continuing, “have been made public as well. They were prominent enough members of the Children that we need to assume they’re compromised. That means the only other person here that has a chance to not stick out like a sore thumb, and whose description might still be unknown to our enemies, is Valen.”

At that, all eyes fell on him.

Him? His eyes grew wider involuntarily. Did that mean he would have to accompany Samorr into Trinity? He had to forcibly stop himself from groaning. Why did it have to be him?

Yet he also knew that if he had any hope of finding safety in Manidar, he had to work with the rangers. In this case that seemed to mean going into a town swarming with Imperial militia, while also being suspiciously empty of true Imperial soldiers or more than a token force of dragon riders.

He could only groan as he nodded.