Playing with Fire

Playing with Fire- Chapter Seventeen

Blehh. I'm on a sugar high right now from eating ONE LITTLE CANDY (I know it doesn't make sense) and I'm just starting this up because I'm bored in English class. Whatever.

Enjoy this chapter, or something. I'm a little wonky today so please don't judge me. Just read the story.

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Sleeping on the back of my Dragon seemed to keep away nightmares. I had ideas wafting through my mind the entire night, but none of them grabbed hold of my consciousness long enough to become a real dream.

Finally, when even the gentle rocking of Yín sè wasn't enough to keep me asleep, I felt my Línghún drift back into a conscious state. Midday sunlight warmed my face, illuminating the backs of my eyelids a harsh orange and effectively obliterating any remaining traces of sleep.

I opened my eyes unwillingly, albeit to a beautiful view of the snowy mountains. They glittered against the bright blue sky like massive piles of diamonds. The blinding white stung my eyes and I squinted, looking away from the range and instead focusing my gaze on the sleeping Hayden. His brown hair hung over his face in an eerie reminder of a younger him. Despite his age, he had the look of a young boy when he slept, as all of the hardened sarcasm melted from his expression.

"Good morning, young one," Yín sè murmured, twisting her broad head to meet my green eyes with her own silver cat's-eyes. "You had a good rest, correct? Thank the Gods you didn't have anymore nightmares. You tend to be a little... squirmy when you are having a bad dream."

I chuckled lightly, my fatigue evident in the quiet and unenthusiastic facsimile of a laugh. "That would've ended well." My arms complained as I raised them over my head, stretching them to their full extension before bringing them back down to rub the sleep from my eyes.

"What did that riddle say, young one? Remember, the one that told of the resting place of Shāyán de xié'è? Our first priority should be finding that sandstone so that we can discover whether or not it will lead us to the murderer." I nodded at Yín sè's smooth voice, tugging my knapsack around to my lap so that I could search for the scroll within. When I finally found it, the well-kept paper unrolled in my hands.

"At the edge of the darkest mirror, on the side where the sphre of light begins its journey." A vibration rumbled beneath me as Yín sè hummed in consideration. My head snapped back up, taking in the sight of my Dragon silhouetted against puffy white clouds. "Where do you think that is?"

"The mirror is a lake," Hayden grumbled. I turned to look at him, one eyebrow raised, to see his body slumped over Yín sè's back. "One of the guys in the wagon was talking 'bout how reflective the lakes are. And the lakes are black, so we just gotta find the darkest one."

Both Yín sè and I were giving him a look of utter astonishment. He yawned, scratching his short brown hair and glaring at us half-heartedly. "What?" he muttered. "I can be insightful." When I kept staring at him, wondering when my best friend had ever become so shrewd, he rolled his icy blue eyes.

"Well then," Yín sè recovered, peering around at the pock-marked landscape below us. "We shall begin looking for the darkest lake. In an area called the Black Lake Mountains. I can just sense that this is going to be a very quick and simple ordeal."

It seemed to be forever that we hovered over the massive expanse of mountains. Each mountain was surrounded by a ring of subsequent mountains, and at the center of each ring of mountains was a valley, and at the base of each valley was a darkened lake. From our vantage point it was almost like looking at an array of eyes, black pupils glaring up into the air and reflecting harsh sunlight into our path.