Getting out of the city was proving much harder than Rhenor had expected. And he'd been expecting it to be very difficult. Now that all they had to hide in were long shadows from the rising sun, they couldn't just run through small, dank alleys to avoid the guards. The only thing they had over them was knowing that due to the helmets the guards wore, their peripheral vision was at least partly blocked.

So even though they were planning on using the same exit they had used to get inside, it was still difficult to get all the way up the hill and to the unlocked door without anyone seeing them.

Right now, they were pressed against the sandstone wall of a wide house as a group of guards walked past them, yelling something about not stopping until they found them. If Rhenor wasn't quite so on edge, he might find that idea funny, since if they had wanted to, he and Elaya could have left a long time ago.

Next to him, Elaya let out an aggravated sigh, shaking her head. Then she leaned close to Rhenor's ear. "I had an easier time hiding from the guards in Reighir."

Rhen just raised his eyebrows. Elaya had hidden from guards in the Capital? What had she gotten up to there? He'd thought both Elaya and Kaz had been good, rule-abiding citizens until the incident with the bridge.

Rhenor sighed. He didn't even have the energy to curse the dragons for any of that between worrying about Kaz and trying not to get arrested or killed by the guards.

As the sound of the guards' walking and talking turned distant, Elaya waved her hand, continuing to lead Rhenor through the maze of narrow, winding alleys and cobblestone. There were people about, talking much more quietly than normal, most likely gossiping about the guards searching the city.

As they ran past an alley leading to a bigger street, out of the corner of his eye he saw a guard knock harshly on the door of a house opposite them. Rhenor grimaced as he ran past it, hiding behind another house. He hadn't thought stealing that silver would end in houses being searched, but hopefully, it would be at worst an annoyance since none of these people had anything to do with this.

They continued like this, frequently having to stop and hide behind whatever crate, barrel, or house there was to avoid the guards. How many were there in Sigallah? It seemed like there were hundreds, even though Rhen knew very well that that was impossible. But they were everywhere, and in groups as well.

Perhaps they were simply focusing on the poor side of Sigallah, assuming that the richer citizen would either report the fugitives, or at least wouldn't harbor them.

Rhenor adjusted his grip on the strap of his bag as they continued their slow progress, only to come to a halt a second later as two soldiers appeared out of nowhere, right in front of them. Rhenor froze only for a second before grabbing Elaya's arm and dragging her into the alley on the right, desperately trying to ignore whatever the guards were yelling at them.

They zigzagged between the houses, hoping to confuse their pursuers enough to lose sight of them, which they finally managed after a few minutes of sprinting, hiding behind the remains of a house that had fallen apart for whatever reason.

Rhenor tried to keep his gasps for breath as quiet as possible as they pushed their backs against the cracked wall, staying close to the ground. They were just a row of houses away from the walls, but that didn't necessarily mean they were close to their destination.

He could barely move as he heard the guards walk around, somewhere close to them, but not as close as he'd feared.

"Keep searching!" yelled one of them as the sounds of their loud footsteps slowly became quieter and quieter. Rhenor didn't relax, though. Now that they had been seen, the guards would be twice as vigilant.

"Rhen," Elaya whispered to him, still panting. "I might have to use magic to get us out of here."

Rhenor looked at her, his eyes widening. He hadn't even thought to consider that. With everything Kaz had told him about Elaya, nothing concerning magic had ever really come up as a conversation topic while being around her, and she couldn't use magic anyway without exposing herself to the dragons, so it hadn't even occurred to him as an option.

But they were already on the run. How would this make things any worse?

"If I do, we'll have to run. Right back to that forest. Stealing from the King is one thing, but openly using magic to fight against the guards might be enough to get his assassins involved."

Rhen had never seen what happened after a human used magic. Most didn't have enough knowledge to know how to use it in the first place, so it had hardly been a problem in Arlow. Although in Arlow, there had been a blind spot, though that hardly mattered since no one had known about it in the first place and now the place was in ruins.

Rhenor thought about it. He didn't like this plan, and he didn't like magic, but if they could avoid being captured and killed by using it, then it was their only option. He just hoped Elaya was as good at using it as Kaz seemed to think.

"Only as a last resort," Rhenor whispered back, giving another nod. As much as the idea of being hunted down by an assassin daunted him, it was nothing compared to his worry for Kaz. He didn't care about anything other than saving him. And besides, if breaking into a dragon's castle and freeing their prisoners—assuming Nova really was alive—didn't put a target on their backs, then Rhenor didn't know what would.

"Naturally."

Elaya took a quick look around the corner, gesturing with her hand for him to follow. They crept around the houses again, now incredibly aware of any sound that seemed even remotely like the clattering of the guards' armor or talking. Rhenor practically cringed at every noise their footsteps caused.

But hope surged within him when he finally recognized some of their surroundings. Most of the houses looked the same to him, but the trees growing around them here and there were unique enough for him to orient himself a little. And the tall birch tree was familiar, as there weren't many trees as tall as it around here.

Elaya seemed to realize this too as she looked back at him, a determined spark in her eyes as she increased her pace, sneaking up the alley.

Rhenor was about to follow but froze as he suddenly heard the guards yelling something a few houses down. He started running as fast as he could without being too noisy, trying to catch up with Elaya to warn her, but he only reached her when she was about to get to the door.

Rhen ran faster as he saw her open it, his heart hammering in his chest even faster. They were almost out.

But his hope was short-lived. Before either of them could exit the city, there was a cry behind them. And they both automatically stopped, even though running would have been the correct option.

Rhen found himself rooted to the spot, staring at the group of four guards, their bows drawn, aimed at them. Why hadn't they just run? There was now no way to get out of here fast enough to not get shot. He exchanged a look with Elaya, but she just kept her eyes on the guards.

"Surrender, or we'll shoot!" threatened one of the guards, adjusting the grip on his arrow. Rhenor looked at Elaya again. If she could use that magic of hers right about now, he wouldn't complain. But she wasn't doing anything. The only change was that now her face seemed slightly panicked.

Rhenor raised his hands, hoping that at least that would keep the soldiers from attacking them, but they didn't move. They seemed to be focusing on Elaya only now, however, who hadn't made any attempts at surrendering.

His stomach twisting, Rhenor stared at the tips of the arrows. He sincerely hoped that he wasn't about to have that shot through him as he threw another nervous look at Elaya, noticing that she now had her eyes closed.

Rhenor flinched as the guard shouted at them again to surrender. In the distance, he could already see more guards catching up with them. He was considering risking it and running out through the door anyway when Elaya's eyes finally snapped open. And they were very dimly glowing.

"Fire! Fire now!" the guard yelled, shock and terror on his face. And just as Rhenor was trying to prepare himself for being shot, the street in front of them cracked, shaking the earth. Rhenor did his best not to fall to the ground, but he couldn't force himself to run away while he had the chance. He stared in awe and horror as the ground flew up a good ten feet, forming a barrier around them and the door, stopping any arrows the guards might have shot.

The perfectly smooth texture of the newly formed wall was the same as when Kaz had summoned something similar in that cave in Arlow. Except Elaya had managed to make it ten times larger, without saying a word, and without falling unconscious afterward.

"Come on!" Elaya exclaimed, dragging him away and outside the city. Finally regaining the ability to run, Rhenor sprinted as fast as he could back to the forest, not looking back or stopping even as his lungs burned and his muscles ached. He could hear horns, which was more than enough to keep him going.

They kept running until they physically couldn't continue anymore, with Elaya falling to her knees a little before Rhenor had reached his utter limits. He leaned onto a tree with both of his arms, breathing hard and fast as he tried to recover as much as he could as fast as he could before they started moving again.

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Because they had to get deeper into the forest. Elaya had just used magic. However that magic detection system worked, it must have picked up on her using it, which meant that they were now twice as visible. And the guards from Sigallah were most likely already searching the forest.

Rhen hoped this wouldn't make getting inside the castle harder. But surely if the secret entrances were so secret that they had to pay a hundred talons for them, they wouldn't be guarded. No one should know about them, after all.

But they could deal with that when they got to Serrok without being killed or arrested.

He helped pull Elaya to her feet. "Which way do we go?"

She was still breathing too hard to answer, but she pointed to the right, and that was good enough for Rhenor. They kept up a steady pace as they made their way down the hill they had climbed in the city. Rhenor couldn't exactly remember which way the forest went, but he hoped it would offer them enough cover to not be spotted easily.

The woods were completely silent, but Rhenor didn't let that lull him into a sense of security. Every snapped branch and crinkling of leaves made him jump, but so far the guards hadn't caught up with them. The castle was only a few miles away—they could handle that distance without getting caught.

"Sorry about cutting it so close back there," Elaya huffed out as she finally managed to catch her breath. She was still stumbling over the rocks and roots more than Rhenor thought was normal for her, but that could just be due to exhaustion. She had summoned a huge rock wall out of nothing, after all.

"I had a feeling...it wasn't on purpose," Rhenor replied, his words interrupted by small pants as he tried to get his breathing under control. He hadn't really given either of them the time to do that, but they didn't have it.

He could see the path leading to Sigallah through the trees. They would have to cross it to get to the castle if they didn't want to waste a lot of time walking all the way to the edge of the forest.

"I haven't used magic since I stopped that bridge from killing us in Reighir, and my whole life I've been terrified of accidentally using it without the dragons wanting me to. So, it took a moment."

Rhenor couldn't say he was surprised by the implication that the dragons had wanted to use Elaya's magic for their own gain. That would explain why they'd kept her around. He was starting to think dragons weren't very good at magic, aside from fire magic, as Kaz had mentioned and demonstrated.

"You got us out of there. That's all that matters." Rhenor wouldn't lie. He wouldn't have minded if she'd managed it faster. He really had thought they would get skewered by arrows. But they were now outside of Sigallah, and they weren't going back. It was unlikely that they would be able to visit any city for a while after this, but Rhenor couldn't say he minded that. Kaz probably would, but he'd understand.

Thinking about Kaz made Rhen go faster. He could see the place where the forest moved close enough to the path and spread out to the other side where they could cross without causing a scene or being noticed. There were still crowds coming in and out of the city, but Rhen couldn't see any guards, which was certainly a good thing. Unless they were waiting to ambush them.

His heart kept doing nervous flips as they got closer and closer. It would be wise to stop and talk about this, but he knew that would just make it worse for him. He felt like if he stopped and thought about it for even a second, the insanity of what they wanted to do might truly sink in. And he didn't need that right now. What he needed was all the confidence he could get, and this would destroy it.

He barely looked before walking out of the forest and crossing the path, avoiding all of the travelers before disappearing between the trees on the other side of the path. He kept going even though he hadn't heard anything that would give away the presence of anyone coming after them, only pausing briefly to make sure Elaya was right behind him.

They didn't say much over the next hour, only focusing on traversing the forest and making it to the castle. Rhen did his best to walk in a straight line and not get confused by the uneven terrain and the way the forest got thicker and thicker the deeper they went. But the sun, which they could see through the mass of leaves above their head, was a good indicator.

Finally, Elaya stopped him while they were almost there, at least according to Rhen's estimates. She sat down on a large log and took out the map. Rhenor took a few deep breaths to appease his stinging lungs, only then realizing how much his feet ached and leg muscles hurt. But all the rushing would be worth it.

"Okay. Angar said that this entrance will be best," Elaya said, pointing at the mark. It was on the east side of the castle, which meant they would have to walk around it somewhat.

Even from the map he could tell that the forest didn't reach far enough to hide them from the eyes of whatever guards the Dragon Lord had around the castle. And unfortunately, it didn't seem to reach far enough east to at least let them find the entrance before they would have to walk out into the open.

"Chances are there shouldn't be more guards than usual because the dragon living here wouldn't have a reason to change those simply because tax money had been stolen. But they might increase defenses as soon as possible after hearing about what just happened in Sigallah, which doesn't give us much time."

Rhenor's predictions had been less optimistic than this, but he agreed with Elaya's assumptions. If someone had been sent to Serrok immediately there still wouldn't be enough time to do anything, surely. Unless dragons had some kind of magical way of communicating, but even then, it didn't have to mean there would be more guards. Surely the dragon wouldn't be able to predict that they were planning on breaking in.

"I really hope we can find the entrance without having to leave cover." Elaya huffed, folding the map again and putting it in her bag. Rhenor hoped so as well. Because they couldn't afford the risk of being seen. If anyone was seen near a dragon's castle without a clear purpose for being there, the guards already had a reason to get involved. And he and Elaya were wanted criminals.

They set out again, having at least partially caught their breath, and this time they didn't pause until they reached Serrok Castle. The moment Rhen saw it, he came to a halt and leaned onto a tree to hide, despite having at least three more trees in front of him.

The castle was even larger than he'd thought, but it was also much less extravagant than he'd imagined. The walls were made of the same sandstone most of Sigallah had been made of, and there was no gold or jewels in sight.

But the architectural style was incredibly odd. Even though Rhenor hadn't seen most of Istamid, he could immediately tell no human had designed this. The towers were far too wide, with large flat surfaces on top, the windows were incredibly tall and wide, even though many of them seemed to be covered up, and the roof itself wasn't a roof in the usual sense of the word. Instead, there was a large, flat surface.

He couldn't tell if there was something on it, but he could theorize about the reasoning behind this—in their real form, dragons were supposedly very, very large, and no matter how large this castle was, Rhenor doubted one of them could comfortably fit inside. So being on the roof might be a solution to that.

Or they could just go back to whatever godsforsaken cavern they'd come from and leave Istamid forever, but that was unlikely to happen.

Elaya tapped his shoulder, jerking her head to the side when he looked at her. Right, they needed to keep going. He kept his eyes on the castle as they crept around it through the now much less thick forest, feeling increasingly more and more paranoid as time went on, especially once he spotted a couple of guards standing by the entrance.

Since they wanted to approach the castle from the east side, which was the opposite side the entrance was located, this was fortunate. However, it just put Rhenor more on edge because it felt far too easy and lucky. But they would just have to hope for the best because they had no way of figuring out if this was a trap.

The line of trees hiding them was only two or three trees thick at this point, which wasn't exactly making him feel calmer, but he still pressed on, following behind Elaya who every once in a while stopped to look at the field surrounding the castle, looking for any signs of the rumored tunnel entrances.

But Rhenor couldn't see anything. There were just a couple of trees and bushes around, but mostly it was all simply long grass and sand on one side, which stretched all the way to the beach he could see from here. If they were here simply for leisure, Rhenor might take the time to appreciate how nice it was here.

He flinched as strong wind hit the trees around them, making the leaves rustle loudly. He sighed, shaking his head. He was jumping at any sound at this point. Wonderful.

Rhenor made his way over to Elaya, who was now crouched down behind a tree and was leaning onto it as she carefully studied the terrain surrounding the castle's eastern wall. Rhenor couldn't see anything of importance there, but he kept silent. Maybe she could see something he couldn't, though he wished he had more to add to their search.

Even though he wanted to stay silent and just let her do whatever she was doing, after a moment he couldn't resist his curiosity and asked. Elaya didn't look at him but she did move her head a little to the side so he would hear her well even with her whispering.

"Do you see those large, dark red bushes?"

Rhenor narrowed his eyes through the sunlight almost directly facing them, trying to spot the two plants she was talking about. But he noticed them almost immediately, due to their color. He'd completely missed it when he'd looked around initially, but now that he focused on them, they did look a bit odd. He didn't think he'd seen anything with red leaves in this region before. It must have been imported from somewhere.

Did this damned lizard truly need to have exotic plants as well to flaunt their stolen wealth? Was the massive castle not enough?

"It's called dragon wreath." Rhenor frowned. He'd never heard of that, nor did he understand why it was named that. But thankfully Elaya explained immediately. "Dragons like to make wreaths out of the leaves and hang them in their houses. Kaz told me it smells nice to them."

That was incredibly strange. Though Rhenor's mind immediately went to wondering if Kaz would like it if he made him a wreath.

Rhenor huffed, annoyed with himself. Now wasn't the time. If they didn't get inside that castle, there would be no Kaz to give plants to. Though he wanted to, no matter how ridiculous this sounded even in his head.

"That isn't important," Elaya continued and pointed at another one of these dragon wreaths that was farther back. "There are several of them. But the one closest to us seems to be directly on the spot Angar talked about."

Rhenor squinted harder. It wasn't easy to look this way due to the rising sun, but he did eventually manage to spot a few more of the bushes. Their branches reached the ground, forming an uneven ball of red foliage.

It seemed that the only possibilities here were that either Angar had lied, or that the entrance was under the dragon wreaths. Rhenor was willing to risk that.

Elaya gave him a questioning look, to which he nodded. Rhen looked around properly, still not seeing any guards, but they would still have to run as fast as possible. Aside from a couple of trees here and there, there would be no cover until they made it to the bushes.

And so with one final nod at each other, they bolted, running as fast as their tired legs could carry them towards the large bush. Rhenor did his best not to get his feet tangled in the tall grass as he kept up the pace, still frantically looking around to spot anyone who might have seen them. But there was no one.

As soon as they reached the bush they ducked behind it, the dragon wreath being large enough to easily hide them. Elaya quickly pulled up the lowest branches of the bush, immediately spotting a metal trapdoor. Rhen let out a breath, relieved that there truly was something. He helped her raise it up, grabbing the metal ring attached to it, grunting in effort as he did. The trapdoor was much heavier than he'd expected.

He held it up as Elayajumped down into whatever corridor it led to, with Rhenor joining her rightafter. He took in a few deep breaths as his feet met the ground. Almost there.