Page 12 of The Dragonrider and the Void
Venrick’s eye drifted to the bare patch of grass where the snow had melted. The dragon must’ve rested there for quite some time. He studied the detail that the textured scales had left behind. His heart skipped a beat with hope when he noticed a patch of unmarked ground in the midst of the scaled indentations. That was just the right size and shape of a rider to have slept under the warmth of a dragon wing.
Definitely a dragonrider…he thought.They stopped to rest, but only to rest,he noted. He found no food scraps or sign of a campfire. All indications pointed to White Eye and Lark as they were the only dragon and rider he knew of who would be resting under the cover of the forest without building a cookfire.
Venrick sucked in his breath when he noticed something in the dragon bed. There, in the matted down grass, were the unmistakable drops of blood.
This must be where they stopped, but is it Lark’s or White Eye’s?
Venrick closed his eyes, letting the elven half of his senses take over. They extended beyond normal sight, picking up on the magic laced into the drops of blood. Though Lark had access to their bond, she was human, and her blood would not emit a magical trace unless tainted.
Venrick opened his eyes and picked up on another oddity in the blood.What’s that?
Where he’d normally expect to see some blue tones from the Hyalite’s influence and green from the draconic magic all dragons shared, here he found only red and purple.
The only purple magic I know of is what that evil mage Joc did when he combined two sources of magic using his brismil as the conduit.
Venrick squatted down by the splotches of blood to consider the possibilities.Is it a tracking spell? But how could White Eye have been exposed to the Magi’s experimental magic.
“It’s been so long since I shot White Eye in the shoulder. That was before I joined Lark’s mission to recover the lost Hyalite. White Eye’s injury would’ve healed by now, unless the arrowhead is still stuck in his shoulder?” Venrick muttered to himself, reverting to his habit of talking to himself when riding alone with Thunder and Giant. “But that doesn’t explain how White Eye was exposed to Joc’s magic. It’s possible Barrikcontrolled him with his warging ability while Joc used his magic on him.”
Venrick realized he’d never come across such thorough magical control. White Eye was a large and powerful dragon. How could he not recognize that his own magical essence had been tampered with? It seemed unimaginable. Venrick had never encountered a warg that could implement such control. Warging usually only allowed a magician to see through an animal’s eyes.
But Barrik was said to be Skol’s most powerful dragonrider, until Marcel anyway. I mean, Lark.He shook himself. The thought that Lark was somehow Marcel Heartfell still felt impossible, given who he knew her to be.
“Wouldn’t White Eye know if he was under the influence of a tracking spell?” he asked himself.
Venrick’s anger swelled at the idea that the Magi Order was tracking Lark. Corruption within their Order had led the Magi to use Venrick. They had played him like a pawn in their effort to gain control of a rare power. The quest for that Hyalite had changed the course of his life. It very nearly ended his life because of a curse, but it had led him to Lark. She had saved him, and he had saved her. Now he must find her. Things had become even more complicated, if that was possible. She would need his help combating the corrupt magic.
“You’re abandoning your friends when they need you most.”Cheyanne’s words from the night before cut through these thoughts of Lark, Cheyanne’s youthful elven features fierce in the candlelight in the rebel camp’s war room.
“I can’t help Hardin in the way you think I can,” he replied.
Venrick had struggled with his decision to part company with Hardin, Sasja, Ezra and the rebel forces to search for Lark. She had taken off with White Eye on her own, but he was convinced that it was more to keep the rest of them safe than to leave thembehind. “I was just a Squire, remember? I’m not a Paragon. I never even made it to Knighthood. You hold me to a standard I have not met. You and Ezra have the experience to train Hardin as a dragonrider,” Venrick responded.
“It’s not about training Hardin. This is about our mission that could use your help. I’m so close to understanding what’s driving the rimeshade to corrupt the magic in our world. The Morsythians have agreed to help me in our efforts to expose them. Their tribes have been the most affected by the rimeshade’s hostile attacks throughout Fjern and Elderice. I need a squad leader I can count on to lead them,” Cheyanne insisted.
“You want me to lead a squad of Morsythians?” he gawked. “Do you know how many I took out with the help of Tel’s brismil? They’ll execute me the first chance they get.”
“They won’t when you show them what a strong leader you are. They would learn to trust you, and then we would all benefit from an alliance with them. It would broaden our command structure to include all races in the fight to save Sataran,” she added emphatically.
Venrick ran his hand through his dark hair and said, “I’m no leader, Cheyanne.”
“It’s hard for me to believe that Tel would’ve spent so much time training a pupil who didn’t possess the qualities of a leader,” she countered, searching his green eyes. “Come with us and find out for yourself. The pathways we’re taking to Fjern are likely in the general direction you’d want to go to find Lark anyway. My scouts last saw a black dragon with a rider flying to the northeast. You can still be on the lookout for Lark. The gods know we all want her back. Don’t make a hasty decision, run off and get yourself killed,” Cheyanne said.
Venrick had seen the fear beneath her anger, the way her fingers had gripped the scroll tightly as she’d passed him thebriefing report. He took it with no intention of joining her troop of Morsythians for their mission. “I’m going after her,” Venrick said. “I owe Lark my life.”
“Then you should know Paragons from both sides of the Everburning Forest have been deployed to hunt you and Lark down. Even the Knights of the Vermillion Keep are having their contracts amended. They’re coming after us all. Everything I’ve built over the last decade to expose corruption within and among our monarchies, how the rimeshade have infiltrated the Noble Classes in Nordraven and Lamar, could be compromised. Knowing that, you still insist on going at this alone?”
“I’m not leaving you for good. I intend to return, with Lark.”
“What about Ingamar, Thunder and Giant. You’ll abandon them too?”
“Ingamar and I never really got on that well. There was a time, recently, where we were starting to see eye to eye. But” he shook his head, “he doesn’t want to bond with me. He’s staying with Hardin and the new dragon. As for Thunder and Giant, they’ll serve Ezra and your alliance better than whatever hardships I might put them through.”
Venrick blinked away the memory, focusing again on the blood-speckled earth before him. “I’m making sure we have a future to fight for,” he told himself.
He pressed the back of his hand into the grass where White Eye had lain. It was still warm.I’m close!They must’ve left less than a few hours ago,he decided.
The notion pained him. He was close to catching up with them yet, they could be a full day’s ride away or more by now since he was earthbound on horseback and they were flying. The idea of being so close, yet so far apart threatened to crush his hopes. As he moved to rise, a folded piece of parchment fluttered from his fur coat pocket. Cheyanne’s final warning, pressed intohis hand as he’d left. He didn’t need to read it again. The words were burned into his memory:
