Dragons Rising ✔️

Ch 41: Secret Meeting

I came to with a pounding headache and the acute realization that my clothes were on fire. I leapt to my feet, and my pounding head nearly dragged me to my knees. Gritting my teeth, I pulled my wand from my pocket. Fear and pain made me mess up the fire quenching rune, but I got it the second time, extinguishing my now-charred clothes.

"So you're fireproof as well as annoying?" Clarisa asked from behind me.

I spun around to see her sneering. Luckily, it seemed she and I were the only ones in the camp. Otherwise, they would've heard us and come running.

"Where are the others?" I asked.

"I had to knock them all out at once so they didn't see me using my powers. They're a little ways from here, prepping for the border cross."

"Thanks- wait, what do you mean, you're prepping them for the border check?"

"It's not very complicated. Well, maybe for someone like you, it is. Because of you, your friends are coming on the mission. Since they are coming to Ferentis, they have to have a mind treatment so they can hide suspicious memories when our minds are searched at the border check."

"Then you didn't wipe their memories of the mission?"

She scowled. "Callah said it would be easier to treat their minds and bring them with us. She also said that they might be useful later on."

"Meaning even with ileski leaves, you're not good enough to wipe their memories, at least not without scrambling their minds."

She stomped a foot. "I am more than good enough. Callah just thought it would be better to do it this way."

"Sure. And when are you going to use your expertise on us?"

"For you, maybe never after what's just happened. Really, how terrible a rider do you have to be to make your own dragon get blood frenzy?"

I opened my mouth to argue, but I couldn't. She was right.

"Exactly," she said with a scoff. "Put on something that isn't burnt before the others wake up. And get your dragon under control before she attacks someone who isn't fireproof. We'll stay here for a day or so to wait for the mind spell's effects to finish working. You don't have long before we get behind schedule." She tossed her hair back and strode past me like she owned the world.

I hated that she was right about Leera. It wasn't easy to push a dragon to blood frenzy, especially when they weren't in the middle of a fight for their life. We didn't have the sedatives or the medicines with us to treat blood frenzy. If it didn't wear off on its own, my stupid disagreement with Leera could derail our entire mission.

How was I supposed to fix this? I didn't even know where Leera-

"The mine." I shook my head as Clarisa glanced back at me. There was no time to explain things. Leera would be at the mine, causing havoc, no doubt. "Hawer Briskeni Telmar."

As soon as I'd transformed, I took off and scanned the sky with my heightened bird vision. Far to the right of camp, Leera was flying fast above the trees. She dove for the ground as if she was landing. I sped up, heading for where she'd disappeared.

A couple of minutes later, I was flying over a stream where she must've landed—unless some other massive creature had left clawed tracks along its bank. She was nowhere to be seen. I landed on a branch over the stream to take a better look at the tracks. It looked like she'd landed to take a drink, then walked off downstream for some reason. I followed the tracks with my eyes up to a thick clump of thorn bushes. Red eyes peered of them.

For second, I was frozen in fear. When Leera didn't move from her hiding place in the bushes, I tried reaching out to her.

[I shouldn't have said what I did.] My thoughts met an impenetrable wall.