Will Of The Fates

14.

Silence. Pure silence as we'd expected.

Piglet laughed first. "Please. What are you guys on?"

I hung my head, my hand rolled up. "Pippa, check if I'm telling the truth." She wrapped her slender fingers around my wrist. "We— Kieran, Urun, me— saw a dragon."

Silence once more. Only Pippa looked up at me with wide eyes. "My Fates... you're not lying."

Articia scoffed. "Pippa, you're too nice." Urun started as she grabbed his wrist without warning. "Your turn, new guy."

"Uh, we saw a dragon." He repeated what we said.

Articia frowned. "What kind of mass hallucination is this? You're not lying either. And neither is Kieran."

"You never tested him." Noll spoke slowly.

"He has a tell." Hanna nodded with me.

Kieran met my eyes. "No, I don't." He sounded annoyed.

I waved dismissively. "I'll tell you later. Anyway, we saw a dragon. A real one." I paused. "Two real ones."

Now, Urun rolled his eyes. "Come on. There was only on—"

"She's not lying." Pippa cut him off, blue eyes wider. "Two?"

"No way." Pyr whispered. Hanna had her jaw open behind her. "They're real?"

"Yes." Urun sounded exasperated. "But we saw one, Alekto."

"Two." Kieran pushed. "Emerys and I saw two. You saw one."

Urun shook his head. "What do you mean? Did I miss something when I wasn't on watch with you two?"

"No. Actually, when you went to get us help." Kieran continued. "The dragon threw up an egg. We took the egg to another dragon."

"Another dragon?!" Urun leaned forward. "Is that the delivery mission you guys were on?"

"Yeah." I nodded. "It was..." I had to pause as I remembered that day. "Massive."

"Huge." Kieran added, also a bit shaken again.

"You both are shitting me." Piglet spat. "One? I can believe— my uncle said he saw one too. Two? No one gets that lucky."

Kieran and I grimaced. "It has nothing to do with luck." I replied. "You do not want to meet a dragon. Trust me."

"Yeah." Urun nodded. He gestured to the both of us. "These two were knocked out for a few days because it talked to them. Major blood loss."

"We're fi—" I was cut off as Pippa grabbed my face and yanked me down to her.

"What happened?" She got serious. Mana penetrated my skin. She frowned. "I can sense some frayed blood vessels around your nose and ears... older ones— healed— around your eyes. And..." She leaned in. "Where's... Where's Sosthenes?"

I gently grabbed her wrist and leaned in. "He got taken down by the dragon. He'll be back soon." I whispered back. My next words were louder. "I'm fine. There was a healer there. Ralda— fixed us both up."

"Ralda?" Pippa repeated slowly. "Like Formarian Ralda, the healer researcher who's made over half the major findings in the last thirty years?"

"Uh..." Her fingers dug into my cheeks. "Maybe? She never gave me a full name." Probably not her real name.

"Where?" Pippa whispered, eyes wide, intense. "I need to meet her."

"She's probably gone now. She was researching something in the village, stuck around for the dragon. But since it's gone, she's probably gone too."