Rhenor coughed as he opened his eyes again, blinking a few times. In front of him was a stone wall, curving around him and Kaz in an almost perfect curve. Rhenor didn’t have time to properly try to understand that, though, as he noticed an unconscious Kaz lying next to him.

Rhenor quickly propped him up against the wall of stone and put his ear on Kaz’s chest, looking for a heartbeat. When he heard it, he breathed out, finally relaxing a tiny bit in what felt like forever.

There were no earthquakes now, it seemed, but looking up, the ceiling still didn’t look very stable. There was a large crack in it, and small rocks continued to fall from it. They should get out of there as soon as possible.

Next, he had to check on what had happened with Mera and the artifact. He didn’t particularly want to, but he had to. Rhen tried to swallow down his fear as he, as quickly as humanly possible, stuck his head out of the protective barrier of the stone wall.

He frowned, suddenly confused. The lava was gone, leaving behind only a smooth gray rock in its place, and the only thing lighting the room were the remaining magic crystals on the ceiling. Frowning harder, Rhenor got up and walked towards where the artifact had been. There wasn’t anything anywhere. Just more gray rock. And Mera was nowhere to be found either.

Perhaps the lava had swallowed both her and the artifact, or perhaps both had disintegrated during the blast, but it didn’t matter what exactly had happened, Rhen supposed. He couldn’t help but feel regret. Perhaps if he had gone looking for Mera as soon as she had disappeared, she could have been pulled away from the artifact’s power.

Rhenor gritted his teeth. Yet another person was dead because of the dragons. And who knew how many could have been injured, or even killed, in Arlow. Those earthquakes that had taken place before the explosion had been rather severe. They might have reached the surface. Rhen, of course, hoped they hadn’t, but he’d never been much of an optimist.

He sighed and started to walk back to Kaz. Before he made it though, he found himself staring at the magically conjured-up wall. It was a little taller than he was, and his instincts wanted him to stay away from it. However, he also knew that Kaz had been the one who created it, and if Kaz had proven anything, it was that he didn’t want to harm Rhenor.

He put his palm up against the wall, half-marveling, half-disturbed at how smooth it was. It didn’t even truly feel like it was made of stone. It was too smooth for it. However, the solidity and color strongly suggested otherwise.

There was also a jagged, cracked part of the wall, singed into a pure black color that must have caught most of the blast from the artifact. To think that they would ultimately be saved from death by a piece of stone when that was exactly what had been threatening their lives the entire time they’d been here….

He went back to Kaz, crouching down to check if he was injured in any way. He seemed fine on the outside, only unconscious, but this was magic. How was Rhenor supposed to know if this was normal after using a spell, or if Kaz needed something to help him wake up?

Rhenor sat down next to him, sighing, but immediately he winced as he felt something sharp beneath him. He moved over, noticing that it was a small pile of sharp rock fragments. His eyes widened when he saw the leather cord and realized this was what had remained of the pebble. Rhenor picked one of the larger pieces up, frowning at it.

Kaz had somehow used this to conjure up that wall. Rhen wished he knew how this worked, but he also couldn’t help but feel a bit annoyed with Kaz, no matter how grateful he was to him for saving them. Kaz could have told him he could do magic. Maybe then Rhen would know what to do to help him now.

Rhenor looked at him, noticing how his hair fell into his eyes now that it wasn’t held back by the leather. He looked a bit older like this, which was strange because it was already difficult to pin down his age in the first place. He looked younger than Rhenor, perhaps twenty-five or so, but his unbridled excitement always made him seem younger than that. Perhaps it was his previous lifestyle. How many worries could he have had as a rich human in favor of the dragons?

Rhenor decided that he needed to rest a little bit anyway, and so let Kaz be, resting his eyes. Even though he hadn’t wanted to, he must have fallen asleep because in what felt like a second later, he was being brought back to reality by a loud gasp. Rhenor groaned as he tried to wake himself up fully, blinking. How long have they been here?

“We’re…alive?” Kaz asked, his eyes lighting up. “We’re alive!” He grinned and pulled Rhenor into a hug, before tensing up retreating almost immediately. “Uh, sorry.”

Rhen huffed at Kaz as the man rubbed his injured arm, wincing and staring at the ground. Rhenor sighed and hugged him instead, which Kaz immediately reciprocated, letting out a happy hum. “Yes, we are alive. Thanks to your sorcery.”

Kaz pulled away, looking startled. “Oh. That. Um….”

Rhenor sighed, the corner of his mouth quirking up. “Why didn’t you mention you could do magic?”

Kaz grimaced, somehow managing to look more guilty with every passing second. “I, well, I noticed that, um, you don’t seem to like magic very much.” Kaz sighed. “So, I didn’t want to give you more reason to...well, dislike me.”

“I don’t dislike you,” Rhenor disagreed immediately, his face warming up. He hoped the cave was dark enough now for Kaz not to see that.

Kaz grinned at him, his eyes twinkling with something a bit like amusement. “I don’t dislike you either.” Then his expression grew a little more serious. “I can’t truly do magic though. My friend, Elaya, is great at it. I can only manage a few spells, and even then, I need a totem to—”

Kaz’s eyes widened as he touched his forehead and then immediately started tidying up his hair. Before Rhenor could ask what that had been about, Kaz continued as if nothing had happened.

“Elaya is the friend I told you about before. She has the kind of natural ability with magic that lets you command the elements to do whatever you want. And you barely have to say a word.”

He got a little starry-eyed at that, and Rhen almost huffed. He wasn’t sure why he got annoyed at Kaz talking about his friend like this, but he did.

“Anyway, the reason I’m saying this is that I don’t want you to think I’m powerful. I’m really not.”

Kaz hung his head a bit at that. Rhen scowled.

“You are enough as you are,” he said. And he truly meant it. Kaz seemed to want to disregard all of his contributions to this quest, but Rhen wasn’t going to let him. Not without a fight.

Kaz seemed surprised by this, but then he smiled. A soft, genuine smile that Rhenor didn’t think he’d seen on the other man’s face before.

“So, um,” Kaz said just as Rhenor was starting to realize they’d been staring at each other for what felt like far too long in retrospect. “What…happened, exactly?”

“Well, Mera and the artifact are gone.”

Rhenor would have thought that the fact that they managed to save Arlow would make Kaz happy, but instead, his face turned into one of pure horror, his eyes wide and his mouth hanging open. Immediately Kaz jumped up, running to the place the artifact had been.

“Oh no, oh no…” he muttered to himself. “This is bad. Very, very bad.”

“What? Why?” Rhenor asked, feeling his stomach sink. “We stopped it.”

Kaz turned around, his eyes wide and full of worry. “Yeah, but…. Now the dragons know we destroyed it.”

“But we didn’t.”

“They won’t care!” Kaz almost yelled, his voice breaking as he became more and more panicked. “They’ll come here, find out that the artifact is gone, and probably burn down Arlow for good measure.”

Rhenor gripped his shoulders, trying to get him to calm down despite not being calm himself. “It’s going to be okay.” He took a second to put together a plan. What could they do to save everyone still? “If we move now, we might be able to reach the village before the dragons do and warn them.”

Kaz nodded a few too many times as he breathed in and out. Keeping a hand on his shoulder, Rhenor started leading Kaz out into the corridor, grabbing his cloak as an afterthought. He really hoped they would manage to get back before the dragons or their lackeys arrived and started to explore the cavern.

There was now some rubble in their way that hadn’t been there before, but since it wasn’t blocking off the entire corridor, it wasn’t too difficult to get around it, so they kept going, only stopping when they walked around the siren, who was of course still there.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“I didn’t expect you to live this long,” she said, still with the same bored tone. Kaz glowered at her but said nothing. “Congratulations. Now leave—I want to listen to the song in peace.”

Rhenor was about to do as much, not interested in talking to this creature, but then he got an idea. An idea he didn’t like but knew he would have to try.

“You said that there is a cave connecting this one to the ocean.”

She gave a nod, narrowing her eyes.

“Do you think you can get to Arlow faster than we can?”

She narrowed her eyes even more. “You want me to swim around this mountain into the freezing river, and warn some humans?” She scoffed. “Not for free.”

Rhenor sighed. Well, he hadn’t been expecting her to agree on any terms, so this was better than he’d hoped already. “What do you want?”

“I like that knife of yours,” she said, already stretching out her clawed hand towards it. Rhen automatically moved back, glaring at her. He’d had this knife for years, but thankfully he generally didn’t grow attached to items.

Rhenor took the knife out of its sheath and, flipping it over, offered it to the siren. She snatched it, seemingly entranced by the metal. Rhenor watched her with suspicion. Even if she didn’t do as asked, he knew he was never going to see that knife again. He would have to get a new one. But not from Lorn.

“So many memories, such sweet, sorrowful music,” the siren whispered, nuzzling the knife. It was just…a disturbing thing to witness.

“Now, could you go warn Arlow about a dragon attack?” he snapped when she didn’t do anything else for a while.

She gave him an annoyed look, barring her pointed teeth at him. “Fine.” And with a splash, she was gone. Rhenor sighed, finding it easier to breathe now that she’d left.

The rest of the way up went mostly smoothly, though it was clear Kaz was struggling a bit, and Rhen somehow doubted it was only due to the physical disparity between them. That spell must have taken a lot out of him. But they kept going without a break, forcing themselves to get back as soon as possible.

That was until they reached the room with the decaying bodies of the wolves. The smell had let them know where they were ahead of time, but that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that it was there where they heard voices. And very angry voices at that.

“Move! The head arcanist wants this mess to be dealt with as soon as possible,” a woman yelled from the darkness in front of them, and Rhenor flinched. They needed to hide.

As he quickly putting out the torch using the small stream they were standing next to, the fire hissing into nothingness, Rhenor watched as the walls of the corridor on the other side slowly became illuminated. Dammit.

“Yes, we know,” a man replied, his voice more audible despite not yelling, unlike the woman. They must have been getting closer. “You’ve been saying this since before we even got here.”

Rhenor took quiet steps toward what seemed to be the most far-away corner of the room, hoping that that would be enough to be undetected by the dragons’ lackeys. Or maybe even dragons, since they had gotten here so fast.

Kaz followed right after him as they hid in a small alcove in the rock wall. They weren’t perfectly hidden, but it hopefully would be enough to avoid the hostile party, who shouldn’t be expecting them to be there.

“Then actually listen to me and move faster,” the woman snapped, finally walking into the room. There were three of them, all wearing thick, red cloaks with fur lining the collars. And on their heads were scaled golden helmets. It was nice to know that in the years Rhenor hadn’t seen the dragons’ armies, they hadn’t become more subtle.

“These wolves haven’t been dead for more than a day,” the third one, also a woman, said. Rhenor swallowed thickly.

“No doubt killed by the one who caused this mess. Now keep going,” the woman, likely their leader, said harshly.

They quickly moved out of the room after that, letting Rhenor breathe out in relief. It was dark everywhere now, and he didn’t have anything to light their way anymore, but at least they were safe now. Hopefully.

Behind him, Kaz breathed out loudly. “That was close.”

Rhenor agreed. He was about to say that the sooner they got out of here the better, but then he noticed Kaz had pulled something glowing out of his satchel.

Oh, of course, the crystal.

Rhen glared at the thing. He had to admit it was useful now, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. “Why didn’t this one disintegrate?”

Kaz smiled. “Well, it didn’t break. I assume that’s why.”

Rhenor shrugged and let Kaz lead, not interested in holding the thing himself. Soon they finally reached the cavern entrance. It wasn’t covered up by snow, but Rhenor suspected that was only because the dragon servants had gone through it only a while ago.

As soon as they stepped out of the cavern and breathed in the fresh, crisp air, though, Rhen noticed something much, much worse than a group of dragon loyalists. There was smoke rising from the valley the village was located in. A lot of smoke. For once it wasn’t snowing, giving them a good look at it.

Trying to calm down, Rhenor quickly started running down the hill, only careful enough not to stumble and possibly die.

Rhenor heard Kaz call after him to wait, but he wasn’t listening. He just needed to get down there. Now.

Even with how fast he was running, it took him far too long to get there, and when he did and saw the burned down houses, scorched almost beyond recognition, all of his strength left him. Breathing heavily, he fell to his knees on the usually frozen path, now uncovered by all the heat of the fire.

“Rhen!” he heard Kaz call his name as he caught up a few moments later, kneeling next to him and putting an arm around him. “L-look, this doesn’t have to mean anything. They could have left in time.”

Rhenor sighed, trying to get his heart to stop beating so fast. Kaz was right, of course. Just because the village had been destroyed, it didn’t mean the people had been as well. But he couldn’t quite get his brain to believe that. Not fully.

Still, Rhenor forced himself to get up, and, swallowing, he walked over to the nearest building, which turned out to be the smithy. It would be hard to tell if Rhenor hadn’t visited it often to make arrowheads.

The choking smoke coming out of the building itself wasn’t the only thing making him feel sick, but he still forced himself to cross what was left of the entrance. There wasn’t much beyond smoking wooden beams and rubble. He coughed as smoke started to fill his lungs, and tried his best to blink away the tears in his stinging eyes so he could see well enough to search for bodies.

He couldn’t find any though, not before the smoke forced him outside again. Rhenor coughed hard, wiping his eyes. Damned smoke.

“Anything?” Kaz asked, putting a hand on Rhen’s shoulder while he continued coughing. Rhenor shook his head, breathing in deeply. “See? Maybe they’re all alive and safe.”

Rhenor had been pessimistic, but as he checked the burned-out husk of house after house and still found no bodies, he was starting to believe it himself. But where could they have gone? A nearby village? There were a few of them, yes, but they were all equally far away, more or less. How could they guess where everyone had gone? They couldn’t even follow footprints because the wind in the Crystal Mountains tended to cover those up.

Rhenor let himself be led to the river by Kaz, who most likely thought there would be less smoke there. Kaz didn’t seem to be having much trouble with the smoke, but then again, he hadn’t gone into any of the smoldering buildings himself. A very wise move on his part.

Rhenor sat down on a stone on the riverbank, watching the water rush down farther into the valley. Cupping his hands, he threw some of the water in his face, trying to get rid of the ash and dizziness. It was freezing, but that was for the best. It made him feel at least a little refreshed.

“Finally,” came the irritated, bored voice of the creature Rhen didn't want to see ever again. Next to him, Kaz flinched, but Rhenor just gave the siren an annoyed look. She looked much bluer now in the sunlight, and her tail was even longer than Rhen had thought it was in the cave.

The siren didn’t seem to have much trouble resisting the flow of the water, looking as lazy as she had in the cavern, though now she had the knife in her hand. Despite the claws and teeth, this made her look even more dangerous.

“As far as I know, everyone went to some place called Suhill before a dragon burned the place down,” the siren continued. “No need to thank me.”

“I already did. With that knife,” Rhenor reminded her, though all the sharpness he’d meant to put in his voice was dulled with the relief he was feeling. So everyone was okay, most likely. He let out a heavy sigh as a terrible weight had lifted off his shoulders. Suhill was about an hour away from here, so unless there was another storm, they should be alright.

Finally, Rhenor felt his fear and anxiety leave his heart, but soon enough it was replaced by anger. He looked back at the village, reduced to ash and smoke. He couldn’t help but wonder if things would have ended differently had he looked for Mera earlier. Perhaps then the artifact wouldn’t have exploded, and the place he’d spent five years living in wouldn’t have been turned into a ruin.

Rhenor gritted his teeth. No, this was all the dragons’ fault. He shouldn’t be blaming himself for not fixing something they had caused.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, the frozen wastes in the Northern Sea are warmer than this river,” the siren said, disappearing into the depths of the water. Rhenor rubbed his eyes.

“Are you okay?” asked Kaz, sounding as if he was concerned that Rhenor would yell at him or punch him for that question. Rhen sighed.

“Are you?” he turned the question on him. Kaz shrugged sadly, sitting down next to Rhenor.

“I can’t stay here anymore. Not if the dragons are going to be around. I’m, er, not exactly supposed to be in this kingdom anymore.”

Rhenor smiled. “But at least that artifact wouldn’t keep track of your magic use anymore.”

“Actually, it had a cloaking spell on it. It hid it, and as a side effect also all magic use within the area.” Kaz paused for a moment. “But even if I wanted to take advantage of the artifact being gone, it’s too dangerous for me to stay.”

Right, that made sense. Rhenor wasn’t sure what the penalty for not following through with an exile was, but he was sure it wasn’t anything pleasant. He took a moment to get his thoughts in order, watching the clear yet dark water continue its unending journey.

“Perhaps we don’t have to part ways just yet,” Rhenor finally said, making Kaz blink at him in surprise.

“You’re…not staying either? I thought you might want to go to this Suhill as well,” Kaz replied, still looking incredibly confused. Rhen shook his head.

“There is nothing left for me here. Especially not after…this.”

He turned around and gestured towards the carnage. He didn’t think he was going to bother checking on his own house. Despite living a bit away from the village, he could see smoke coming from that direction.

It was incredibly upsetting when Rhenor realized that they had saved the village from the earthquakes and snowstorms and almost died trying, only for those damned lizards to ruin Arlow with their poorly aimed wrath.

“And especially not if dragons and their servants will be here,” Rhenor added, to which Kaz nodded with a sigh.

“So, you’d like us to…travel together?” Kaz summed up, and Rhenor shrugged, trying to make this casual. For some reason, it felt anything but.

“Essentially.”

Kaz hummed, smiling. “All right, that sounds good. But, um, where should we go?” His eyes widened then. “Oh, Elaya said she would go to Sigallah. Do you think we could head there first?”

Rhenor’s knee-jerk reaction was to reject that idea, however, when he thought a bit more about it, it made sense. If Kaz wasn’t exaggerating, Elaya was very powerful, and she wasn’t a dragon loyalist. She could be useful if they had to fight the dragons and their people. And perhaps get a little revenge for everything they’d done.

Rhenor couldn’t help but smile at Kaz’s barely contained excitement. “Sigallah it is.”