She shot her head around and gasped when she saw a golden unicorn standing only twenty feet away from her. He was beautiful, more beautiful than the one she had seen in the meadow of the Wreing Florenn. He pricked his ears forward when he saw Jahrra looking at him and released a cry, a chiming, melodic whinny. Jahrra immediately forgot about the green cloaked stranger and cautiously approached the unicorn, fascinated by his metallic coat.
The unicorn let her pet him for a while but then turned and trotted out of the orchard. Jahrra quickly followed, entranced by this amazing animal. She walked easily through the forest surrounding the copse of fruit trees, moving downhill, always downhill. She struggled a little with the underbrush and had to push aside low hanging branches, but the unicorn always stayed in sight, not yet disappearing into the thick mist.
Finally, after several heart-racing minutes, the unicorn stopped dead in his tracks and stared down over a drop in the land. Jahrra slid next to him and focused her eyes on what he was seeing. She gasped. Below them was the Belloughs, Denaeh’s garden and the cave she called home in plain view. A tendril of smoke curled from a small chimney in the hillside, but Jahrra sensed no movement from the cave or the surrounding trees.
Jahrra glanced at the unicorn, his pale eyes locking with hers. Suddenly, she felt happy and carefree, like she weighed no more than a feather. The unicorn slowly edged forward, and she gladly followed, not wanting to be torn from the blissful feeling the magical creature was emanating.
Jahrra was sure she would’ve followed this animal into a forest fire if he wished to lead her there, but suddenly something seemed to pull at her mind. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it threatened to release her from the unicorn’s trance. No, she thought, he wants me to go down there, I must go. But the force that pulled on her mind wouldn’t relent. It gently surrounded her thoughts and lightly pushed the giddy feeling away. Jahrra gasped as the last thread of joyous peace was ripped from her mind. She clutched her head and took deep breaths as common sense returned to her.
What had she been doing, straying away from her safe orchard? Wasn’t it dangerous to go wandering around in dreams, even ones this familiar? Jahrra shook her head, wondering if she was even still asleep. When she looked up from her crouched position, she knew that she was. She was still deep in the woods, far away from her orchard, but there, just in front of her was the tall, enigmatic figure she had grown to rely on. He gazed down at her, as always, from the shadow of his hood. She couldn’t see his eyes, but she could feel them locked with her own. His arms were crossed and his back rigid, but she didn’t feel threatened by him at all.
He stood aside and held out an arm as if inviting her to walk ahead of him. Jahrra nodded and slowly got back on her feet, rocking slightly from the dizzy after effects of the unicorn’s influence on her. She stumbled forward, taking longer than she thought to get back to the orchard. Her hooded friend stayed right behind her, always keeping the same distance, and when they got back to the place where she had woken up in this dream, he nodded his head and she obediently lay back down upon the mattress of soft weeds.
Before she drifted off to join the world of the conscious, Jahrra asked him a question, her voice sounding strange in this otherworld, “You didn’t want me to go with the unicorn, did you?”
He nodded, keeping his arms crossed and not saying a word. Jahrra swallowed.
“Why?”
But all he did was drop his arm in a welcoming gesture, signaling to her that now was the time to wake up.
Jahrra nodded and hunkered down into the thick grass. She didn’t want to wake up yet; she had too much to think about and this was just the place to do some deep thinking. She thought about her new friend, Denaeh, and wondered if the strange path of this dream had anything to do with her. The Mystic was eccentric, Jahrra had to admit, but she liked the woman and felt that she could be a source of comfort and advice.
Jahrra thought about Hroombra and Jaax, wondering if two dragons could really know what was best for her. They were a mystery to her; Hroombra and his secrets, and Jaax and his mysterious life outside of Oescienne. Jahrra frowned mentally when she thought of the enigma that was the Tanaan dragon Raejaaxorix. She wondered about his mood swings and the way he looked at her, like he was always trying to figure out what she was, and she wondered about his mysterious friends, Viornen and Yaraa.
Jahrra loved her new trainers, but who were they really? Why did she have to keep their lessons a secret? And why did she have to keep the dragons’ language a secret as well? Hroombra and Jaax had told her it could be dangerous if she told others about Kruelt, but if it were truly dangerous, why teach her at all? She knew there had to be more to it than what they claimed, but when would she be old enough to know the truth?
Jahrra sighed and buried her face in the fragrant meadow grasses, wondering if the hooded figure was still standing guard over her. She struggled to settle her mind and was surprised to finally feel her rackety thoughts calming and subsiding. Slowly, every muscle in her body relaxed and before she knew it she was listening to Scede’s soft snoring, Gieaun’s sleepy murmuring, and the gentle lap of water. Jahrra grinned, eyes still closed. There were several voices ringing over Lake Ossar that afternoon, but not one of them belonged to Eydeth or Ellysian.
-Epilogue-
Letters from Afar
Hroombra gazed languidly through the small window perched above the ledge in his study. The golden stalks of dying flowers and grasses nodded their heads lazily as the sun touched down over the azure ocean. Summer was coming to a close, and soon the long warm days would grow short, heating up one last time in the middle of autumn before succumbing to winter’s chill.
The old dragon breathed in sharply through his nostrils and released a slow, heated breath. He could hardly believe all the time that had passed since Jaax had first brought Jahrra here those dozen odd years ago. A chuckle fought its way free of the dragon’s throat. Of course I can believe the quick passage of time, what is twelve years to me? What is a hundred, or even a thousand? He’d seen so much time pass it was almost unnecessary for him to keep the history books the elves had written up for him.
What was the point in looking through them if he already knew, from personal experience, what had happened? But they were for Jahrra to learn from, for there were things that had happened in the past, terrible things that the historians hadn’t known to write down. Things that he’d seen happen and had allowed to happen, things that Jahrra shouldn’t know about, at least not yet.
Hroombra drew another breath and then glanced back at his desk. As usual, it was cluttered with age stained scrolls and creased maps. Beside these familiar items lay several white pages, newer paper just arrived earlier that week. Letters from the beautiful city of Lidien, and some from Nimbronia, he mused. They’d been written with magic, the writer using the same technique he himself had used once to draw up the Kruelt alphabet for Jahrra.
Magic that would be much easier to obtain within the mystical province of Felldreim, the old dragon reminded himself. These particular letters hid a variety of emotions, if one read between the lines, and an abundance of information, some good, some not so good. These letters concerned Jahrra, the chosen one, the savior of the world, and they had all been written by the dragon Raejaaxorix.