Avondale: The Golden Door

Clan Maretu

"That is the school." Sanna said, pointing to the log building. "Next to it is the kitchen and attached to it is the mess hall."

I heard someone inhale behind us. "Smells like they made pasta," Havala said as she caught up to us.

"How can you smell that from here?" I asked, I couldn't smell anything other than the fresh air.

She smirked and tapped her nose. "Superior senses, Fledgling."

Suruli sighed. "Serpents have acute hearing and smell." She explained.

"But they are more sensitive to light." Śarat teased. "That is why she is so pale."

"The fledgling is way paler than me," Havala sneered. "She looks like a ghost."

Śarat rolled her eyes. "That may be Truth, but at least Kendra is not a bitch."

Sanna and Suruli laughed as we entered the Mess Hall. The structure was the same size as the Head House but only one level, several tables were set in rows down the Hall and people were already filling them.

Sanna pulled me into an end seat next to him. Śarat sat across from us and Suruli sat next to her. Havala sat down in the empty seat at the head, her face emotionless as usual.

Suruli pursed her lips and looked at Havala, "Is he not coming?"

Havala blinked slowly, "No."

I wondered who was supposed to sit there, and if maybe it was this mysterious Nisvārtha.

Moments later the doors to the kitchen opened and people poured out, setting food on the tables. Platefuls of pasta with rich tomato sauce, bowls of salad and platters of warm garlic bread.

I was so stunned by all the food that I became too shy to start taking a serving for myself. Once Sanna had loaded his plate, though, he grabbed mine and piled it high with pasta and greens.

"I'm not that hungry." I said, ignoring the clenching of my stomach.

"Your body needs food after the healing you did today." Suruli said sternly as she grated cheese over her pasta. "You need to eat to get your strength up. Plus the Council will want to meet with you after dinner."

I felt my stomach drop. "The Council?"

"Every new member of the Clan meets with the Council," Sanna said. "It is just so that they can decide what job to give you, and they should be able to determine what kind of dragon you are."

I shook my head and took a bite of pasta, there was no convincing this group that I was human, maybe this Council would be able to prove that. "I thought I was going to talk to Nisvārtha?"

They all went quiet and looked at each other.

"Who is he?" I asked.

Sanna sighed. "I guess you could say he is the unofficial clan leader. Generally we are governed by the Council, but Nisvārtha founded Clan Maretu. He only takes charge when we have an issue that the Council cannot deal with."

I frowned. "So I'm a problem?"

"No, no!" Suruli said. "The Council will meet with you and place you."

"Even the mentally unstable have a place in Clan Maretu." Havala drawled.

A growl slipped through my teeth at the serpent, but she ignored me.

"What does Maretu mean?" I asked, trying to distract myself from my anger.

"Forgotten." Sanna said quietly.

My brows furrowed as I looked at their solemn faces. "I don't understand."

Sanna sighed. "To explain I will have to tell you my story." His yellow eyes met mine and I could see such shame and sadness in them.

"I was born in Clan Bhūmiya five hundred and seventy years after The Drake War." He began. "I was unusually small for an infant so I was given the name Sanna, which means small."

I snorted at the idea of this large man ever being small, and he smiled.

"Hatchlings are only given five years before they are put into training for the initiation. The ones who are too weak to make it to that age are cast out."

"What? That's horrible!" I said.

Sanna shrugged. "It was normal. I held strong despite the hardships of my small size, larger hatchlings picked on me and I learned to defend myself at a young age. When I turned twenty-five and my powers started to surface, I was shoved into the secondary training that all dragons undergo. A wizard trained me so that I could shift from one form to the other."

"A wizard?" I asked. "You have actual wizards?"

Everyone looked confused. "What do you call the old and wise?" Havala scoffed.

"The elderly, or just old people." I said, taking a drink of water.

"Wizards are those few among us who have lived for at least a thousand years." Suruli said. "And traditionally they are the ones who mentor fledglings until they can control their powers."

I choked on my water and coughed until I could breathe again. A thousand years? How old are these people? None of them looked much older than thirty.

Sanna continued. "It took five-years for me to be ready for initiation. I was sent out with a hunting party of older wyverns and was tasked with the first kill, as a test of my strength and bravery."

Sanna swallowed hard and looked down at his hands. "The first kill was a female cougar. Extremely vicious and I almost lost....but at the last, most crucial moment, when my dagger was at her throat...I heard the sound of her cubs nearby."

My heart ached at the pain in his voice, it took all of my willpower not to comfort him.

"I let the cougar go. I was badly injured in my leg and I could not run back to the village. The hunting party deemed me weak and left me for dead, if I tried to return to Rain Village, I would be killed. There is no room for weakness in Clan Bhūmiya."

Sanna saw the sympathetic look on my face and smiled. "A few days later I was found by Nisvārtha Shade. He helped me out and we became companions, a few months later we found Havala. A century after I was exiled Śarat shows up, and then we find Suruli fifty years after. We were the first of the Forgotten Clan, started a village here on Jinī Island where none would know our existence, and now, after four hundred years, we have become the fifth clan of Avondale. The clan of the exiled and forgotten."

I let the story stew in my mind while I ate my salad. Then I thought of something. "If Nisvārtha founded this village, why doesn't he want to be the leader?"

The four dragons shared a look, but didn't answer my question.

What is this guy hiding? I wondered.