The Dream Keeper's Dragon

3.37 That'll Do It!

She awoke from the chill and thumping steps of the soldiers. The sun just started to rise, and the men readied to move again. Her tongue clung to her dry pallet. She reached for her flask and took a sip of water, feeling it fall right into her empty stomach.

Ahead, the armies merged together, the silver of their armor only made distinct by the colors of their cloaks; black and white for the Dranoirs and royal blue and gold for the Morels.

Kaiden found her shortly after she awakened. His windblown cheeks were bright red as he stopped beside her on his mounts.

"We've been looking for you all evening," Kaiden said.

"I'm sorry to have worried you," she said without her usual pleasantness. "We traveled through the evening and I was too tired to walk around searching."

"The council is worried about our Redayran problem."

By Redayran problem, she assumed he meant Nic. "Has anyone seen to his hand?" she said. As much as she wanted to poke his eyes out with her burning fingers, and feed them to the ever-starving Daerious, she'd seen the terror in his mother's eyes and couldn't add the woman's grief to her conscience.

"Yes," Kaiden said, "that woman that's been working with Vera had a look at him several days ago."

"Dear God," Aurelie said, "do you mean, Karah?"

"I don't know what her bloody name is," he said, dismissively. His horse looked around lazily and then shook its head. "The one you know with the hair things."

*****

Shouts came from the direction of the tent Nic had been kept in. Kaiden broke into a run and pulled her along before the shouts grew louder and he sprinted ahead while she held onto her skirt kept us as best she could. Kaiden stopped in front of the entrance of the tent and threw his hands up and then rested them on his head in sheer shock and helplessness.

Aurelie came around the corner, expecting to see one of two dead guards. Her heart stopped for a second and beat away like the climax of a ceremonial drum.

"Somebody do something!" she said as Nic's blood both ran down Karah's hands and sprayed through her fingers.

Nobody moved and neither did she. Karah choked as she cried. Nic's head leaned awkwardly to the side, he only remained on the chair because he was tied to it.

"Who did this?" she asked, looking around the room. Karah squealed and Aurelie felt her pain for a second before she connected the crying to Nic's death and then felt nothing but disgust.

The only guard who made eye contact with her pointed his head in Karah's direction.

The knife was on the ground beside Nic's chair and Karah's neck, face, and dress were soaked in his blood. It didn't look good.

"No," Aurelie said, shaking her head.

People gathered outside of the tent. They were attracting a lot of attention.

"Keep them away," she told the guard. Nodding, he walked off with quite a satisfied smirk on his face which he didn't bother to hide.

"Nic!" Karah gasped and then continued to cry louder than necessary and rubbed his pale cheeks.

Aurelie turned to the gaping strangers in the tent. "Is there nothing you need to be doing? Get out!" Tapping her foot, she waited for the all to leave. Karah kept choking and crying out loud, choking and crying out loud. Aurelie's frail heart couldn't handle the bloody mess, not with the Redayran army just outside the bloody tent. How one of them didn't walk in there was a mystery.