Bloodlines: Dragon Rider Book 2

Chapter 42: Steel Scars

Clarika

Fog clings low to the deserted streets, swirling around my feet as I walk toward another store. The river flows calmly as ever, always within my ability's senses. It snakes through the city, the water lit in flaming red and orange of the rising dawn. No one is up this early into the day, except for a variety of shops and the rare sight of a boat with its fishing string plunged into the freezing water. Occasionally, another shopper or parader will carry through and nod in greeting.

What if?

The thought scratches the walls in my head, an annoying, almost painful itch. Normally, Norah would have accompanied me. She would have made for far more enjoyable company than Holland, and eased any of my worries of her finding more trouble. But she was gone before I woke, having said the night before that she invoked Gaia to give an introduction into being a common's person.

Such a waste of time.
My sister could be learning how to perfect the most lethal ice a frost mage can create. Ice that only the most powerful frost mages can wield and that freeze even the best magic wielder. Ice our father can barely control. A skill he abandoned teaching me because I couldn't control it long enough to do anything significant. Only through my own trial and error was I able to wield it two-and-a-half years later. And Norah has an opportunity that no dragon riders, nor anybody on this continent, can teach her. She, and all her tri-breed weirdness, has made an astronomical amount of progress in two days, surpassing what has taken me two years to learn, and if she would sit and train with me... I can only imagine the power she'd have and everything she could do with it.

But, no, she insists on learning to talk to trees.

It provides nothing in a fight or any advantages politically anyway.

But. The word doesn't sit well, even in the privacy of my own head. The mages don't want her. Dragon riders despise her. Perhaps the love-gushing, hand-holding, commoners will.

The shopper makes his usual greeting, his voice raspy from sleep, and Holland and I split our separate ways. He, to the opposite of the store, and me to search for food that will aid in replenishing a mage's stamina. Even working together, with Norah and I forcing out the cold and Adam heating the air and controlling the winds, the hours of work will be taxing and burn through our energy reserves.

In the silence, even with my mind focused, the itch returns. Like nails on a chalkboard now. I try to ignore it, to shove the thoughts down. When I start for the other side of the store, I tell myself it's because the idea of not knowing is infuriating rather than from me worrying.

It's easy to find Holland with his silver hair stark against his thick, dark jacket, pants and boots. He doesn't glance up from examining the rope with its metal hooks at the end, curling like claws, though he tenses.

Over the days spent traveling with the group I've noted what riles them and what soothes them. It's not hard to rile up the rider, though it's still carefully calculated. "Do you know how to throw those properly?"

Still, he refuses to look up, but I note the line forming between his brows. "I've been doing this for over seven-hundred years, Miss Crimson, I know what I'm doing."

It's almost too easy. I fold my arms. "Seven-hundred years, hm?" Regret settles over Holland's face and his shoulders lower in a sigh that I know he isn't exaggerating. At least, not by much. "Do all dragon riders live that long or is it just you?"

"What do you want, Clarika?"

At least there's no dancing around the question. "Do you think Norah will follow in those footsteps or live like us, or somewhere in between?"