Chapter 5

After ten minutesof clapping and pointing at everything beautiful she saw on the ground, Rain lay down and passed right out. She was belted to Kilyn's saddle around her hips, but rested her head in my lap. I sat cross-legged, looking around from time to time, but mostly answering Ezra's questions. There were a lot of them.

Was I familiar with that mountain range in the distance? Yes, I had ventured through it by foot on my path to Earth. If we looked hard enough, it was clear that we were flying over a city, but there were no lights. Why? Because lights in the night were a bit of a warning call. If a neighbor lit a lantern, and another lit one, and another lit one, it meant we were under attack. Some people kept a candle or two burning, but on average, our cities stayed dark at night.

That ocean there? Was it too cold to swim in? For most of the year, yes, aside from the beaches near hot springs and volcanoes. Oh, that sounded beautiful. Had I ever gone in a hot spring like that? Many times, I told him.

"I'm sorry." Bringing his blanket in closer, Ezra blew on his gloved fingers to cover his blushing cheeks. "I'm sure this is getting annoying. Answering all of our questions, I mean."

It wasn't. "I don't mind."

"Just tell me to shut up if your opinion changes."

It wouldn't. "It's nice, actually. Talking about this place, the way life works here."

"Really?" Pale cheeks bright red with the wind, Warren stifled a yawn. "With everything considered, I just thought that it was hard for you to talk about it."

"It's hard to talk about my folks." Noticing Rain's teeth were chattering, I brought heat to my fingertips and held them to her cheek. Within heartbeats, she relaxed again. "It's hard to talk about the war. It's hard to talk about where I'm from. But it's not hard to talk about this place." Off in the distance, mountaintops peeked through the clouds just below us. "The culture here, the world itself, means everything to me. I love this place."

"You were just afraid of getting stuck here," Warren said. "The first time we came here, I mean."

"Aye," I murmured, giving a smile. "But there's so much beauty here. I'm excited to share it with you guys."

"Respectfully," Ezra said, smirking as well, "if that's the case, then why are you scolding Rain so much?"

"I'm not scolding her."

"Every time she tries to lighten the mood, you make sure to knock it down a few pegs," Ezra said.

"Because I don't want her to lose touch with reality in the fantasy of it all," I said. "Two things can be true at once, you ken. I can love this place, and be excited to share it with you all, and still have a realistic expectation of what comes next. The things we're about to see? When we get to Vulla? It's not going to be as pretty as this."

"Pretty," Warren said under his breath, wrapping a blanket tighter around his shoulders. "You're talking to a guy who always flies in first class."

"Peaceful, then," I said. "Point being, things are rough in Vulla. It's a hard place to travel through. A harder place to live. I can't wait for you all to see the solstice festival, but it's not all fairytales. That's all I'm trying to get in Rain's mind."

"I think she understands that," Ezra said. "Suggesting otherwise is a bit of a slap in her face."

I gestured to Warren. "He's the one who slaps her face."

"Only when she asks me to," he said. "And it's a figure of speech, man."

"Obviously." I knew that I messed up their turns of phrase on a semi-regular basis, but I wasn't completely useless. "Just trying to lighten the mood."

"But when Rain does the same thing, you have to kill it?" Ezra asked.

My brows knitted. "Did she mention something to you that she hasn't mentioned to me?"

"No, but for someone who has been reading her mind for half his life, I'm surprised you don't see it," Ezra said. "She's worried about you." He wagged a finger at Warren. "And you, too. So she's being her usual bubbly self, but kicked up a notch or two. She's not stupid. She understands all of the risks that we have here. But she feels like you do, Graham. That two things are true at once. She's excited to see the beauties of this world, but she has realistic expectations of the things that aren't so pretty."

"Well, thank you for the therapy session," I said. "If I were bothering her so much, she would tell me so."

"She certainly tells me." Adjusting his blanket again, this time bringing it up over his head to retain more warmth, Warren said, "She's convinced I'm on the verge of a breakdown."

"You aren't?" I asked.

I knew that may have seemed insensitive, but I shared a home with this man. I'd woken up to his screams on a near nightly basis. I'd watched his face turn green every time Jake made a sly comment under his breath. Of all of us, I thought Warren was the worst off.

"I was." He shook his head. "But I'm not now. Doing this, being here, being able to help people, that makes it easier."

Balancing the scales, I guess.

"I get it," I said. "But nobody blames you for what happened. You were manipulated."

"Somebody blames me." Craning over his shoulder, Warren glanced at Jake on Laila's flying wolf. "He has the right to."

Ezra only frowned.

And I sighed.

Did I feel like Jake had the right to resent Warren? In some regard. But it wasn't Warren. Warren didn't start this.

When it all came to fruition, when I found Jake's ring in Warren's basement, I thought he had done something awful. By technicality, yes. He had done something awful. But it really wasn't his fault.

The blame fell on Jake's shoulders. Jake started it. Warren fucked up, sure. But Jake's fuck up was worse.

Jake was using Warren as a scapegoat. It was easy to paint Warren as the villain in the immature mind of a child. Realistically, though, Warren was the reason we brought him back. Warren was the reason we realized he was still alive.

Jake refused to take accountability for his actions. He wouldn't acknowledge that he was the reason he ended up in that soul prison for a decade.

Maybe I was biased. These days, I was closer to Warren than I was with Jake. The reasons for that were obvious. Maybe I should've held some resentment for Warren, but I just couldn't find it in myself to blame him for any of it. Now that I knew the story, how could I?

Then again, that reasoning may have been the result of Jake's demeanor thereafter. There was annoyance and frustration for Warren in the beginning, and then we got Jake home, and then I saw the way that Jake treated Warren. Like a kid throwing a tantrum. As if Warren was a parent who had wronged him.

But he wasn't Jake's parent. He righted his wrong the best he could. Ever since, Jake had done nothing but walk all over him, and it made me sick.

"Don't do that," Warren said, shaking his head slightly.

"Don't do what?" I asked.

"Make excuses for me," he said. "I fucked up. Now I have to reap the consequences. And I'm okay. I can handle Jake's attitude. I can't handle being the reason you two fall out."

"We're not falling out." Looking at him behind Laila, tucked up against her back, I shrugged. "Especially not over you. We just don't look at life the same way anymore."

"You're a man now," Ezra said. "I'd hope you'd matured by now."

The question was, when would Jake?

She must have caught my glance, because Laila pulled the reins on her white wolf. Floating closer to us on the cushion of air that held us in the clouds, she flew just before Kilyn's left-wing. Over the howling wind, she called, "Follow my lead for the landing, Graham!"

I held up my thumb.

As I unhooked my seatbelt, Ezra asked, "Do you know how to land a dragon?"

"Aye," I said. Although I had never landed one this big before, it was a lot like riding a bike. Once you learned, you never forgot. "Grab a hold of the seatbelt in front of you, keep your head and torso as close to Kilyn's back as you can, and don't let go."

"Can't we just fly off of her back?" Warren asked. "Do—do we have to land her?"

Sure, we could just hop off. I could use the wind to catch us at the bottom. "Where would the fun be in that?"

Face green, Warren swallowed hard.

Laughing, I gestured to Rain. "Wake her up and tell her what I told you."

We survived the landing.Truthfully, it was easier than landing a plane. A similar process, though. Gradually, I brought Kilyn down through the lower altitudes. As she adjusted to each, her speed slowed. By the time we were only a few stories off the ground, she was barely moving faster than the ravens. With her long legs, she absorbed most of the shock of the landing. She fluttered her wings, touched down for a moment, jumped up a bit to decelerate, then touched down once more.

Truly, no great deal.

But Warren's face as he sat up suggested otherwise. Still green, nauseated, he begged me to help him get to the ground. With a little tornado, I lowered him to the soil. Covering his mouth, he ran at full speed to a bush nearby. No use describing what he did to it.

Ezra and Rain, though? They applauded Kilyn for her landing, laughing and petting her scales. Once we all made it onto the ground, Rain ran over to her snout and stretched out her arms like she was trying to give her a hug. Kilyn accepted, lowering her face to the ground so Rain could reach her.

Rain marveled at the texture of her scales. Silky and smooth as glass. Like a snake, although she had the big brown eyes of a puppy dog.

"She sure is chipper," Amara said. I jumped, and she laughed. "Sorry. Didn't mean to scare ye."

"It's alright." After grabbing mine and Rain's backpack, I tossed mine over my shoulders. "And she is. That's what I love about her."

"I'm sure ye do. Down there." Amara pointed to the snow dusted clover. That was how we referenced Earth here. Pointing to the ground. In actuality, dimensions were more parallel than vertical. I guessed, if you saw someone fall through a portal in the ground, you'd assume they were heading downward. "But that's dangerous here."

I didn't disagree. It had been my biggest concern since we'd arrived. But I would always defend the woman I loved. "She'll be focused when she needs to be. And she's damn good with a spell. You'll see."

"She better be," Amara said.

"Come on, everyone," Jeremy called. "Let's go set up camp."

"Amara," Laila said, "have your soldiers flank mine. Necromancers stay in the center. We protect them at all costs. Rain, you're up here with me."