Layne was standing off to the side of the tunnel, arms crossed and watching as Hera, Simon and Samuel moved into position before Bardus and Hedrick The only one they were waiting on now was Valen, but in his mind there was only one person he wanted to work with.

Only one person who had pointed out that the issue was not that he had no affinity for the sword, but that there was something within him that had to change if he ever wanted to grow.

Layne looked at him expectantly as he approached, no words forthcoming. She was leaving this entirely up to him, which Valen respected. He took a deep breath; he still wasn't sure what might be holding him back, but if there was anyone who could work through figuring that out with him as he trained, it would be the person who pointed out the problem in the first place.

“Ranger Layne,” he began respectfully, trying his best not to fidget as he continued, “I would like to begin training with you, if that’s alright. After what you said before, I… Well, I don’t know what inside of me is keeping me from learning, but I know that it’s there now, and I want to try and work through it. Can you help?”

He could tell immediately that everyone, even Samorr, was surprised by this. They were all looking at him like he had suddenly sprouted another head. Still, he did not mind the looks if it meant that he would stop being useless to those he cared about.

Layne herself stood there quietly for a good long while, everyone waiting for what she would have to say. When it seemed like no response would be forthcoming, Hedrick started to speak up.

“Valen, why don’t you just come and-“

His words were cut short, however, as Layne finally replied.

“Very well. But know, Valen Galar, that I will not go easy on you. If you want to learn, that is what you will do, but only if you’re truly committed. I will allow nothing from you but your best. If you cannot give me that then this will be over before it has even truly begun. Understood?” she said. Her voice was strong, demanding, and Valen knew she meant every word.

He also knew it was exactly what he needed. He was not quite sure what kind of physical response would be best, so he went with a kneel, looking down at the ground and trying to ignore the flame of embarrassment trying to worm its way up through his mind. He could not care what the others thought about this right now.

“I understand,” he replied.

Layne, for the first time since he had met her, allowed a small smile to light upon her face then. Valen found himself reminded of just how beautiful she really was. Then she was motioning for him to stand and stepping away from the others back towards Raenelir, where they would be able to work on their own.

“I’ve got this,” she told the other rangers. All of them, even Bardus, just nodded. None of them seemed to be able to believe this was happening.

“I hope that you’re ready, Valen, because we begin now.”

Even though the training that followed hurt him, he went to sleep afterwards tired, sweaty and ultimately pleased with himself. Though Ranger Layne had not been kind to him in their training, as she had warned him, she had also not once commented on a lack of effort from him. That gave him hope that, finally, he was getting somewhere.

----------

The only way Valen was able to keep up with the passage of time over the next few days was due to Bardus, who somehow seemed to have a perfect internal awareness of time. Though his nightly training with Layne always exhausted him more than he had ever thought possible, that only made him tired. It did nothing to tell him how much time had been passing, which was why the Second Ranger’s sense of time was so wonderful.

Regardless of how it was possible, Valen was grateful for it. It was the Second Ranger's timely schedule that let him know it was on the fifth day of travelling through the tunnels, as their food supplies finally began to get dangerously close to running out, that they began to ascend again. Raenelir appeared to sense the shift in the air, because the wyvern - who had begun to grow lethargic and listless the more time he spent away from the open sky – suddenly became agitated.

Valen had to stay at the back of the group to help keep the Highborn calm and he very much doubted his attempts were doing much at all.

The horses appeared to notice a difference next, however, and then all of the animals were growing faster. The rangers seemed alright with allowing this; the humans of the group had become tired of the endless tunnels as well, after all.

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Still, when they turned a corner in the tunnel and they could see light in the distance, Bardus called a halt to their advance. The Second Ranger turned in his saddle and motioned to them all to come closer so they could speak.

“We’re about to be back out in the open. We should be about a day’s ride from the town of Crove, which is where we’ll be resupplying before we ride into the mountains. This will be the most physically draining stretch of our journey, not to mention the dangers of dragon riders becoming worse up in the Drake’s Tail. We try to combat that by allowing wyverns to continue to roam free in the mountains within our territory, but we simply will not be able to see riders coming once we’re up high enough. They’ll have the cover of the peaks and elevated terrain, and we won’t be able to spot them unless they’re almost on top of us. I want to impress upon you four specifically just how important it will be for you to listen carefully to every order any of us give you once we reach the base of the mountains. Whether or not you’re being attentive and obey us quickly enough could very well mean the difference between life and death,” the Second Ranger told them.

Valen felt his blood run cold at Bardus’s words. So far, he and Hera had already faced more danger than he had ever thought they would. Yet he was saying the most dangerous segment of their journey to the Iron City was still to come? That was not a pleasant thought.

“Now then,” Bardus continued before anyone had a chance to respond, turning about and flicking the reins of his horse to get moving again. "Shall we?"

Valen found himself somewhere between relief and fear. He knew these tunnels had likely been the safest place he had been in quite some time, if he was to believe that they had been created by the magic of the ancient Fae to protect and hide those in need. He also knew they could not possibly stay down there for much longer, or they would all lose their minds.

“I’m going to ride ahead for a moment to make sure that we’re in the clear before we all come riding out. Wait here,” the Second Ranger called a minute later. His steed sped to a canter, then he rounded a turn in the direction the light was coming from and they could no longer see him.

Valen, Hera, Simon and Samuel bounced with anticipation, more than ready to follow Bardus out. Though it could not have been more than a couple of minutes, it felt like hours had passed before they heard the sound of hooves on stone once more and Bardus came back around the corner. He paused to make sure they saw him before raising his hand and waving them on.

“The coast is clear. Let’s move,” he called out. At his words, Hedrick flicked his reins and took up the lead even as the Second Ranger spun back towards the light and disappeared around the turn again.

The rest of their party followed closely, spurred by their own excitement as well as the eager shaking and growls of Raenelir behind them. The Highborn seemed to be actively fighting the desire to rush forward and push them out of the way so that he could get out first. The tunnels had grown smaller again the more they had ascended, so Valen understood why Raen would be feeling so eager to spread his wings and take to the open sky.

He was eager to go up there with him again, as well.

Valen knew the light was probably going to hurt his eyes the closer they got to it, but when they began to sting even before they turned the corner to its source he realized just how bad it would be. He also had no desire to stand around, slowly making his way outside to let his eyes adjust slowly. So he led his horse right on around and had to almost completely shut his eyes to avoid being blinded.

He heard Aevra squealing from her place in front of Hera in her saddle, and then Raenelir let out a joyous roar and began rushing forward. None of them had any time to just sit there and wait. Valen let out a cry of surprise and led his horse out after the others as they all rushed to get out of the wyvern’s way.

They managed it just in time as out the Highborn leapt, wings unfurling to their full length the moment he could manage. He flapped those powerful wings and then whirled and spun around in the air overhead. For a moment, as his eyes began to readjust to the light and the pain went away, he found himself watching the wyvern’s movements.

Then he saw the mountains beyond Raenelir, and his mouth nearly dropped.

He had thought he knew what mountains looked like. He had lived in a wyvern hatchery up in the Divide almost his entire life, after all. The Drake’s Tail, however, put the Divide to shame. Though they were still some distance from them, they towered over anything else within view.

The tallest peak he had seen back home would have come up to perhaps two thirds the height of some of the smaller ones he was seeing now. It was far and beyond what he had been expecting.

From their vantage point – they had exited the tunnels onto a large overhang that jutted out from a small cliff face, as the hills had grown so tall here that they were becoming more like much smaller mountains than gently rolling hills – he could also see, off in the distance where the Drake’s Tail seemed to run out of sight, the sun’s evening light glinting off of a great deal of blue. He realized that the blue had to be the Eastern coast of Parovia.

They truly had come almost all the way to Crove. If Valen remembered correctly, Crove was only known to him, or to anyone who did not live there, really, because it was the Eastern-most town on the entire continent. He had not really thought about what that meant, however, when Bardus had told them that was their final stop before they crossed the mountains into Manidar.

“Ahead lies the last, and by far the longest, leg of our journey. We have come East, away from the easy border crossing between Taire and Welde, because that is exactly where the Empire would be expecting us to go. Because of that, however, we’ll be spending almost a month passing through the Drake’s Tail, once we’ve gathered everything we need in Crove. So, like I said before,” Bardus said, nearly startling Valen as he drew their attention away from the landscape before them to where he sat astride his horse to the right of the cave’s exit. He was at the start of a rocky path that ran down along the cliff to a small game trail almost hidden by trees below them.

Valen, Hera and the twins looked at the Second Ranger wide-eyed, none of them ever having seen a place anything like this, and the weight of his next words hitting harder now than they had before.

“I hope that you’re ready.”