Journey 'The Chosen One Trilogy: Book Two' (4 page)

Jasper gave me a boost to get onto her
leg and I climbed the rest of the way up with the help of her
wing.

“How far is it to the hot springs?” I
asked as we started walking toward the river.

It takes me a day to fly
there.

“How about on foot?”

Dodge snorted.

Brice translated. “He thinks about five
days.”

“So we’ll go get Dodge’s emerald, and
then what? We can’t hide out here like the plan was. Do we just go
home?” The thought of having to travel for another two months was
making me grumpy. I missed our cabin.

I looked down at Jasper and tried to
smile at the reassuring look on his face. I had cut his hair fairly
short before leaving Sageden almost two months ago. The dark curls
were starting to brush into his eyes again. His week-long stubble
framed his face and helped to hide the fact that he had lost some
weight since we had left home. His sky blue eyes smiled up at me.
He looked so tired; even with Brice there he wasn’t letting his
guard down for an instant. What he needed was a good week of eating
and sleeping.

I got the sudden urge to hold him; to
put his head on my shoulder, to keep him safe, to make him full,
and warm; to hold him until he fell asleep in my arms.

His eyes softened and I melted into
them. Maybe sleep wasn’t the only thing I wanted to do with him. It
had been too long since I had felt those strong hands run over me,
felt those soft lips brush along my skin.

Jasper groaned and closed his
eyes.

I shook my head to clear it.
“Sorry.”

When he opened his eyes again they were
full of amusement. “No worries, Shlova. I feel the same
way.”

If the two of you are quite
done
, Faren laughed in my head.

I blushed. We had stopped moving and
were standing on the edge of the river. “How are we supposed to get
across?”

I’ll fly you across.

“What about the others?”

I will come back for your
mate and your friend. The Winged one is on his own. If he completes
his quest with the help of others, his stone will lose its powers
and he will have done all of this for nothing
.

“Is that true, Dodge? You can’t have
help?”

He nodded.

“Ok. Faren is going to fly me across,
then come back for Jasper and Brice. What are you going to
do?”

“He will swim.” Jasper was looking up
at Faren with indecision.

Dark red eyes looked back at him. Tell
him not to worry.

I smiled at him. “She says not to
worry.”

“Alright. But she drops you off right
on the bank.”

Faren nodded. I felt her tense and
great wings moved behind me. I had thought to close my eyes, but
all I could do was stare as we lifted into the air. Four slow beats
of the powerful wings had us across the river. Faren landed and
knelt so that I could slide off.

“That was awesome!”

Her laughter rang in my
head
. I’ll be right back
.

She sprang into the air and made her
way back over the river. Jasper made his way easily onto her back.
Dodge walked down the bank and made his way into the
river.

“Come on, Buddy! You can make it!” I
wasn’t sure if he could hear me over the rushing sound of the
water, but couldn’t help but cheer him on. I stripped out of my
jacket and extra tunic and took a deep breath. It was odd to smell
flowers when you could still see snow.

I looked up as Faren landed beside me
and let Jasper off. “Oh!”

Both of them looked at me.

“You’re silver!” I gazed intently at
Faren. “I mean, you’re black, but you’re surrounded by silver. Kind
of like the magic waves, but different. Softer. It’s like a
haze.”

She nodded.
All dragons have silver auras
.

“Why can I see it now?”

I think it would be because
we linked. You can hear me, so I imagine it is safe to say you are
tapping into what I can do
.

“You can see auras?”

She nodded.

My guess is that you will be
able to see more of them the longer you are linked to me. You can
learn to see them when you feel like it. Call on it when you need
it.

“What color is Jasper?”

Blue. Namaels are a light
blue
. She looked at Jasper and
nodded.
It has been a while since I have
seen one. I wanted to make sure. Namaels have a light blue aura.
Majs have a dark blue. Wedelves have a purple one if memory serves
me right. You’ll find that all creatures of this world have
one.

“All creatures from this world. Does
that mean humans don’t have one?”

She nodded.

“I’m half Wedelve, half human. What
color is mine?”

She turned her focus on me and I felt
the slight nudge of magic. I felt the nudge pull back before it hit
me again, this time stronger.

Jasper felt my surprise and
growled.

Faren pulled back and shook
her head
. White.

“White?”

She nodded.
I had to check twice. I’ve never seen a white aura
before
.

“Is everything alright?” Brice was
watching us from the other bank.

Faren crouched and launched herself one
more time to the other side of the river.

Jasper took advantage of the few
minutes we had alone to pull me against him. I took a deep breath
and hugged him close.

Every being that used magic had its own
feel for it. I felt a nudge that wasn’t Faren’s and tensed. Jasper
felt it through me and growled.

Hayden!

Faren’s voice was the last thing I
heard before the magic hit hard enough to make me black
out.

Chapter Two

Jasper’s head felt like it was going to
fall off. Or maybe he just wanted it to.

“Jasper! Wake up!”

Ugh. Was someone talking? All he could
hear was a loud drumming noise in his head. He turned so that he
lay on his stomach, his hands spread wide against the ground to
keep the world from spinning.

He tried to think through the pounding
in his head. He remembered meeting Faren. Flying over the river.
Holding Hayden.

“Hayden!” Her name came out as a moan.
He couldn’t feel her; could feel nothing from her. No pain, no
fear; nothing good either, though he doubted if he felt like this
that she would be feeling anything good. He heard a deep rumbling
from somewhere to his right. He opened his eyes just enough so he
could see through them.

“Jasper! By the moons, wake up! Get her
off of me!”

Jasper fought the urge to throw up and
tried to focus on what he was seeing. He heard another of the long
rumbles. “Brice?”

“Ugh. I think my arm is
broken.”

The pounding in his head was receding
and he stood shakily to his feet. “Oh, god!” He took a step forward
but fell to his knees and decided that crawling would be faster. He
reached Brice and sat with his head on his knees. “Are you
alright?”

Faren made another grumbling
noise.

“Other than the fact I have a dragon
laying on me, I’m fine. What in the world happened? Both you and
Hayden flickered, then you came back and fell to the ground, but
she didn’t and Faren just fell out of the sky!”

Jasper crawled to Faren’s head. “Are
you alright?”

The dragon nodded her head slightly
then groaned.

“Can you lift your right forearm?
You’re lying on Brice.”

Faren did as she was asked, though her
whole body shuddered with the effort.

Brice took a deep breath to make sure
nothing had been damaged by the weight of the dragon’s leg on his
chest then stood, his right arm cradling the left. “Where’s
Dodge?”

Jasper tried to look around and gasped
at the pain that shot through him. He lay his head back down
against Faren’s neck. “Dodge!” The sound of his own voice split his
nerves and he groaned.

There was no answer. “Go check the
river bank, Brice.”

Brice did as he was told, careful of
his arm, and Jasper pulled back from Faren’s neck so he could watch
her answers.

“Was it Ternach?”

She nodded.

“Did I only feel it because I was
holding Hayden?”

Again, she nodded.

He took a deep breath. “I…I can’t feel
her. Do you think…Would he have…” A lump formed in his throat and
he swallowed hard to clear it. “Was he supposed to get her to them
alive?”

She nodded and he let out the breath he
had been holding.

“He’s not down here!” Brice started
making his way back to them.

Faren gave a shuddering heave and
rolled herself onto her stomach, her neck stretched out ahead of
her, her eyes closed.

Jasper stood and leaned his back
against her shoulder for support. “How’s your arm?”

“I think it was just my shoulder
dislocated. I slipped on the river bank and it popped back in.” He
moved his shoulder in slow circles and winced. “What do you think
happened to Dodge?”

“He can feel magic, right? So the only
things I can think of are that the nudge knocked him out and he was
still in the water, in which case…” he didn’t finish the thought.
“Or, he was transported elsewhere, which is what I think happened
to Hayden.” He looked toward Faren’s head. “Do you know where he
might have transported her?”

She nodded.

Jasper felt her tense and pushed away
from her.

Faren gave a loud groan then pushed
herself up onto all fours. She stood with her legs sprawled apart
for balance.

Jasper fought down the urge to laugh.
He was fairly sure he didn’t look much better. “Do you think you’ll
be ready to go soon?”

She turned her head and he found
himself staring into blood red eyes. Brice took a step back. Faren
shook herself, took a deep breath, and straightened. The red eyes
were on him again.

“Does that mean you’re
ready?”

The dragon knelt down and waved her
head toward her back.

“You can fly already?” He didn’t want
to admit that his head was still killing him. He grabbed all of
their bags as well as Hayden’s swords and her jacket, pulled
himself up onto Faren’s back and helped Brice up, careful of his
friend’s shoulder.

That was when he felt the best feeling
in the world. Confusion.

Faren looked back at him.

“Let’s get to her before that confusion
turns into something worse.”

He felt the dragon gather herself and
then they were airborne.

*****

I felt something soft on my cheek and
smiled. “Hey, Buddy. What happened?” I lifted my head up and looked
around. “Where are we?”

Dodge snorted and I waited for Jasper
to translate for me.

“Where’s Jasper?”

Dodge shook his head.

“You don’t know?” I wasn’t sure what to
think. I wasn’t hurt. If our situation had been a bad one, Dodge
would have found a way to let me know. I tried to see through the
steam rising from the ground. My hair and clothes were plastered to
me.

“Are we at the steam beds?”

My horse nodded.

“There was someone there, on the
riverbank. I felt the magic.”

Dodge nodded again.

“Man, I wish I could hear
you.”

He stomped his foot in
agreement.

“Are we close to your
stone?”

He turned away from me and looked into
the distance. He nodded his head.

“Well, since we’re here, we may as well
look for it. Maybe we’ll find everyone else along the
way.”

I swung onto him and gave him a pat on
the neck. He picked his way carefully over rocks and through pools
of steaming water. More than once we had to detour around large
puddles of mud that threatened to suck us down into their
depths.

I squinted through another thick cloud
of steam. “Dodge. What’s that?”

A small shape was making its way
through the air toward us.

Dodge stopped and froze when it landed
between his ears facing me.

“You’re a dragon!”

Of course, I’m a dragon.
What did you think I was?
The gruff male
voice sounded insulted. The spines on his back were raised, like an
irritated cat.

“It’s just…well…I don’t mean to offend
you, but you’re very small.”

The dark blue eyes blinked at me. He
looked back at himself, his gaze running along his dark burgundy
body, to his tail, and then back to me.