Guardian (Riders of Edaria: Book 1)

Chapter 35: Rest

It took a few weeks before the agreements between the Dragon Riders and the kingdom were finalized. Ari was so happy to go back to the keep. She missed Elise. A lot. On top of that, she hadn't exactly seen Kieran the entire time. Whenever she did see him, he was usually accompanied by the terrible Lady Beryl. Honestly, Ari was more sick of the smug looks and haughty attitude the annoying woman gave her than anything else, including the lack of attention from the one she longed for.

Finally she was returning. The flight wasn't too long but it seemed to drag on forever with their modest pace. The dragon scouts stationed near the capital city would inform them if anything happened or of any emergencies. For now, the riders had to return to the keep to regroup.

Ari immediately found Elise within the library vault buried in a towering mound of old, dusty books. Ari fought the urge to sneeze, screwing her nose and scrunching her eyebrows to keep it at bay. "No welcome back greeting for your best friend?" Ari felt the urge to tease Elise, having stood there for several moments fighting the sneeze and Elise hasn't so much as twitched.

"Huh?" Elise looked up from the book currently under her nose, her eyes glazed over in her thought before focusing back on reality when she realized Ari stood before her. "Ari," Elise clumsily rushed to stand. The girl threw herself into Ari's open arms. Ari scrunched her nose as the dust covering Elise flew up into the air and all around Ari. "Ooh, how I've missed you these weeks we've spent apart."

"I've missed you too, my princess," Ari hugged back. The familiarity was soothing.

Elise pushed away, slapping her lightly on the arm. "Don't call me that. You know how I feel about it."

Ari chuckled unable to hold back a small grin. "I hope you've found something useful? There are more books in here than I expected," Ari commented, looking around the room passively.

"I'd like to say I found a magical 'cure-all' but I'm afraid I'm getting more confused. That stack over there is full of different types of demons and their weaknesses. The captains of each platoon are looking through those. This stack is comprised of spellbooks. The Enchanters are going through them one by one, learning what they can. I presume the enchanters from your platoon are joining them today."

"I don't see how that's confusing. You've sorted a lot of useful books from the others." Ari picked up a bestiary and flipped through the pages. It was more detailed than the one they had before. She wondered if she could identify the new creatures she had seen.

"I wish that was simply it," Elise sighed, picking up the book she was reading before Ari interrupted her. She flipped back a number of pages before showing it to Ari. "Most of these books," Elise motioned to another large pile of books, "mention this Gate Guardian. I haven't found anything specific on this 'Guardian' yet. Everything points to this person paying a very pivotal role in the Demon Wars. I've asked Commander Traven if he knew anything about the Gate Guardian or the Gate Key this book talks about but he doesn't know a thing. The closest I've gotten to actual information is that the last known Gate Guardian disappeared shortly after the wars ended. My guess is that nobody heard from them since and that was nearly a thousand years ago."

"That's surprising," Ari traced the picture of the Gate Guardian with her finger. "For someone so important, you think you'd be able to find out at least something definitive about them."

"I think maybe they were so important that the riders thought they didn't need to record much about them. After a thousand years of absence, of course the riders would have forgotten," Elise grabbed another book from the shelves. It looked like she had just started on the last shelf.

"Hm," Ari dropped her eyes back to the picture. It was old, but well preserved. Only slightly faded. It was small and not very detailed. Only a few small details separated the figure from the other riders in the drawing. "It's past lunchtime," Ari put the book down and held her hand out towards Elise. "I assume you haven't eaten lunch yet. Plus, you might get to see Nate too. We just got back so I bet many of the platoon are still eating."