Page 40 of Forgotten Arcane

“Alright,” Coen says, as he stands up. “I’ve never been a coward before, why start now?”

I grin, “You’ve got this, man. Go save our girl before she ends up face-planting from a great height.”

He chuckles, and then winces as she tilts to the side again, “She’s watched me train the other dragons enough that she should be able to tell what she’s doing wrong. Although I suppose there is a big difference between watching it and doing it.”

I nod, “Yeah, there definitely is. I bet if we videoed this for her and then got her to watch it back, she would be able to tell us exactly what she did wrong, and how to fix it.”

Doc hums in agreement, “Yeah, she helped Griff in his flight class, and they absolutely loved her.” He chuckles as he adds, “She’s got a sign-up sheet for a class, and most of Griff’s class is on there. She gave some amazing advice.”

Coen looks contemplative for a moment, “You know that might be the problem. She knows exactly what to do, and she knows the theory behind some quite difficult maneuvers because she watched me teach them so many times, but she can’t do any of that before learning the basics. Once she’s got those down, she’ll be flying.”

“Literally,” Ransom smirks.

Coen chuckles and then takes off running, the rest of us all lean forward in our seats as we watch him, and I pray to whoever is the God of dragons and flight, that he’s going to be able to shift, and I think more importantly to him, fly.

He launches himself high into the air with a powerful jump that sends him soaring at least twenty feet up, and gaining the attention of the ones already in the air, all of them smiling widely.

When I get a closer look at Neith’s expression, my eyes narrow slightly. She’s got an unmistakable twinkle in her eye and is holding herself remarkably steady in the air, considering she was bobbing all over the place a moment ago.

“Sneaky little thing isn’t she,” Doc comments with a wide and proud smile, confirming my suspicions.

“She’s brilliant, and caught on to the fact that Coen was having issues way before any of us did,” Ransom adds, with a similar look to Doc’s on his face.

We all get distracted from our conversation as Coen shifts, his wings spreading out and taking him higher in the air, he roars with joy as he dips and dives, proving that he’s still capable of some pretty complicated flying maneuvers.

I can’t help but chuckle as Neith immediately steadies herself even more, a huge smile on her face as she watches him, and proving that she knew what she was doing all along.

Coen is so busy enjoying the feel of the wind beneath his wings that he hasn’t realized what she’s done yet.

He increases his speed, moving faster than I’m sure I have seen another dragon fly, and as he does a weird loop thing, that I have no name for but that looks pretty fucking complicated, there’s a sudden spike of magic and he disappears mid-flight.

“What the fuck!” I exclaim as I jump to my feet along with the others, scanning the surrounding sky to try and find him.

Neith

One minute I’m watching Coen move through the air with as much ease, if not more, than he always has and doing some of his favorite moves, and the next he’s gone.

“What just happened?” I question the panic evident in my voice. “I didn’t know that he could teleport?”

“I don’t think he can. I’m not sure what that was,” Reed says, looking around us with concern.

“Let’s head down to the guys and see if they saw something that we didn’t,” Griff suggests.

As we get to the ground, Raiden immediately says, “I think it might have been magic that has something to do with death.”

“What!” I exclaim.

Raiden quickly shakes his head, “No, he’s not dead. At least I don’t think he is. What I mean is I can always sense when someone has an affinity withdeath, apart from you, I had no idea when it came to you, and I still don’t know why.”

“It’s Neith,” Van replies. He continues without further explanation, although I don’t think anyone really needs one. “So, what you’re saying is that you felt death magic before he disappeared.”

Raiden nods, “Yeah, at least I’m pretty certain that’s what I felt, but it happened really quickly and now I’m second-guessing myself.”

“Do you think it came from him or someone else, because that definitely changes how much we should be panicking right now,” Doc asks.

Raiden’s eyebrows dip down slightly, “I can’t say for sure. But I would be very surprised if something that none of us sensed managed to get through Ransom’s wards. I know Neith did it, but I feel like that was definitely a one-off breach that we didn’t detect, because the second breach Ransom found and was an actual hole. Whereas Neith just walked straight through them.”

“He makes a good point. Ever since we strengthened them as well, we’ve had no more breaches. The Elders couldn’t even find the place, and I would imagine they’ve got a lot of magic and resources on their side, so if they can’t find it I doubt anyone else can,” Griff adds.

---