Bellris

ANDRA

Andra squinted into the distance, the rising sun throwing the approaching tree line into a deep shadow. After a few days of travel, the Burning Sands were finally behind them, and Bellris lay ahead.

~“I wonder if Bellris is nice?”~ Andra said to Tiri.

The dragons traced lazy circles in the sky as they flew above them. ~“Anything’s better than the desert,”~ Tiri remarked.

“You seem excited,” Colmen observed.

Andra realized she was leaning forward eagerly on the saddle of the horse. “I guess I am,” she said. She leaned back and rested against Kael’s chest.

“Why?” Alik wondered. “You aren’t technically a Freeman.”

Colmen leaned over and smacked him on the arm.

“No offense, of course,” he added.

Andra shrugged. “I think I just like the idea of it all,” she said. “It’s just so…”

“Insane?” Alik suggested.

“Brave.” Andra laughed.

She could make out the shapes of houses and structures from within the trees. Excitement began to build in her chest. Talias’s face flashed into her mind, and she couldn’t help but wonder what he would think of this place.

“I think if my father hadn’t been killed, he’d have joined you all.”

Andra could feel their eyes on her, the silence interrupted only by the horses’ footfalls in the dirt.

“What happened to him?” Kael asked.

“He was killed for trying to protect me,” Andra said. “He had smuggled in a dagger and had tried to attack Ledo when he pushed me down some stairs. My father was executed the next day.”

“I’m so sorry,” Colmen said. He urged his horse forward next to hers so he could place a hand on her leg. Andra looked into his violet eyes and saw a pain that mirrored her own. He’d lost someone precious as well.

Andra felt Kael’s arm move from around her waist to cover her hand with his own. He squeezed briefly, taking her by surprise. The gentle gesture was very unlike him. And then the hand was gone, returning to its position around her waist.

“Well, we’re almost there,” Alik said, a hint of wistfulness in his voice. “Just a few more hours, and we’ll be home.”

***

Andra had been dozing off when the feeling of Kael pulling on the reins nudged her awake. He dismounted as Eithne landed with a thud next to them.

“What are you doing?” Andra asked.

“The others will see us soon,” Kael said. “They’ll expect to see me flying on Eithne.”

He vaulted onto Eithne’s back, settling himself in the leather saddle with practiced ease.

Something about Kael’s demeanor shifted. She saw the slightest change in his posture: a straightening of the back, a lifting of the chin, a leveling of the gaze.

Andra thought that he looked like a hero returning from war.

Eithne took to the skies, and Andra had to shield her eyes from the sand.

~“I’ll be right back, sister,”~ Tiri called to her as she followed Eithne and Kael.

Colmen and Alik continued along, and Andra urged her horse to follow. She’d learned the basics of how to ride a horse along their journey, but she was much more comfortable having her horse follow someone.

Andra traced the shape of her friends as they moved across the sky. She wished she could be up there with them—feel the wind in her hair, see the whole world laid out underneath her…

But she’d probably just end up falling to her death with the amount of riding knowledge she had.

Suddenly two shapes erupted into the sky from the tree line, and Andra realized with a start that they were two other dragons.

The two emerald creatures raced toward Kael, Eithne, and Tiri. For a second Andra was scared that they would attack, but she saw Kael raise his hand in a greeting, and the other two Riders returned the gesture.

The two new Riders circled around Eithne and Tiri for a moment before they fell in beside them, the four dragons now soaring side by side.

Andra stared up at the majestic sight, excitement bubbling up inside her. The horses continued their steady gait forward, and now she could make out the buildings and homes built directly into the trees.

There were people streaming out from within them, all of them chanting that sacred word.

“Veholum! Veholum! Veholum!”

Eithne and the two dragons landed before the gathered Freemen, Tiri landing on her own off to the side.

As the trio on horseback finally caught up, Andra heard that the chant had changed.

“Kael! Kael! Kael! Kael!”

Alik and Colmen dismounted their horses and joined the throng, accepted with shouts of welcome and familiar embraces. Kael dismounted from Eithne and was pulled down from her leg by adoring hands.

~“Did you know that he was their leader?”~ Tiri asked.

~“No,”~ Andra replied. She watched Kael shake hands and accept embraces and rough pats on the back. He nodded and smiled at each of them, but his eyes looked tired.

~“They seem to love him,”~ she remarked.

Andra watched from atop her horse, wondering if these courageous rebels would accept someone like her.

Kael broke away from the crowd, going to stand next to her. Wordlessly, he held out his hand and she took it, slipping down from the horse.

He led her through the mass of bodies, and she tightened her grip on his hand to keep from getting lost in the sea of unfamiliar faces. Kael led her confidently through the crowd, the people parting for him.

Colmen slipped through the masses and walked alongside her. “Welcome to Bellris, Andra,” he said with a smile.

Andra smiled back. “They all seem happy to see you.”

“Of course they are,” the elf replied breezily. “Kael is the symbol of the rebellion, after all. They’re always happy to see him return safely from a mission.”

“Symbol?” she asked, confusion coloring her tone.

But before Colmen could respond, Kael shot him an irritated look over his shoulder. Andra let the subject drop, not wanting to annoy him further.

Instead, she occupied herself with looking around at the hidden rebel city of Bellris.

It was beautiful. Rather than being carved into the forest, the city looked as if it had ~grown out~ of it.

Homes emerged from within the hollowed trunks of the great trees, with wide curving balconies around them and sweeping rope bridges connecting them. Andra spied windows and open doorways high in the trees, smiling faces waving down at them.

Kael led her to a place underneath the trees that had been cleared of underbrush, a large firepit at its center. He left her to stand next to Colmen as he leapt up on one of the stone walls that surrounded the pit.

Kael raised his hands and the crowd around them quieted. Andra and Colmen looked up at him, as did everyone else.

“As you all know,” he began, “we went to Vereor to capture Ledo, to use him against his father and prevent the rise of another emperor.”

“And we can all see that he is not here,” a sharp voice called out from the crowd.

Andra turned to the voice and saw a brown-haired young man with blue, bloodshot eyes and a Rider’s cloak draped around his left shoulder. His arms were crossed over his chest as he stared at Kael.

Andra recognized him as one of the Riders that had flown out to escort them to the city.

“You’re right, Egan,” Kael said, unfazed by the edge in the other Rider’s voice. “Ledo is dead.”

“Astrum said that Ledo was the key to winning the rebellion!” Egan thundered. “You couldn’t follow the seer’s words and now we have nothing to use as leverage against the Kingsmen!”

A ripple of unease swept through the crowd, murmurs of uncertainty filling the air.

Kael met Egan’s gaze, a flash of lightning jolting in his gray eyes.

“We don’t need a prophecy to defeat our enemies. Our strength lies in our resilience.”

Kael didn’t raise his voice, but his words carried over the crowd, quieting them.

“Our strength lies in our hope. A hope that cannot be extinguished by oppression or fear.”

Andra leaned forward, hanging on Kael’s every word. There was a fervency to his voice that filled her with strength, passion, and the very hope that he spoke of.

“Hope for a better world,” he continued. “Hope that we could rebuild what the Guardians sacrificed so much to create.” Kael’s gaze swept over the crowd around him, seeming to make eye contact with each person.

“There is not one among us that joined this cause because it would be a certain and swift victory,” he called, hammering his point home. “This is not the first plan to fail, and may very well not be the last.”

He paused, his words hanging in the air.

“But we ~will~ find another way,” he thundered. “We are the Freemen! And we ~will~ make Paerolia free again!”

A roar went up from the crowd—raised fists and raised voices shouting into the treetops. Kael had turned their failed mission into a rallying cry of determination for the future.

Andra found herself shouting along with the rest of them. Kael looked down at her and her upraised fist, and she smiled up at him broadly.

Kael hopped off of the low stone wall, landing beside Andra.

“That was amazing,” she said, beaming at him.

Kael scoffed, shrugging away her praise. “I’m going to have to give the other leaders a full report. Amala will take care of you for now.”

Kael waved over a woman with soft brown skin and dark hair that hung in a thick braid over her shoulder.

“Hello, Andra,” Amala said with a kind smile after Kael had introduced them. “I’m the resident healer here in Bellris.”

“Will you make sure that Andra settles in?” Kael asked her.

“It would be my pleasure,” Amala said, taking Andra’s hand. The healer led Andra away from Kael, and she quickly lost sight of him in the crowd.

“What about Tiri?” Andra asked.

Amala looked up to see the purple dragon in the distance, her head craned, peeking over the crowd.

“I’ve got just the place,” Amala ensured Andra. They made their way toward the waiting dragon, and together they took off deeper into the woods.

~“You seem happy,”~ Tiri said as they walked underneath the emerald green canopy of the trees above.

Andra smiled, feeling lighter than she had in a very long time. ~“How can I not?”~ Andra replied, breathing in the scent of wildflowers. ~“We’ve come a long way, Tiri.”~

KAEL

“King Raegin is dead?” Kael asked.

“He died a fortnight ago,” Insarius said. The spymaster’s flat, emotionless eyes made it seem like the man was commenting on the weather instead of the death of the king of the elves.

Colmen bowed his head, his lips moving in a silent prayer for his king’s soul. “Who rules in his stead?” he asked, his voice strained.

“King Vires.” Insarius took a long drag from his pipe. The smoke briefly filled the small meeting room before being whisked out of the open window. “He’s promised the continued support of the elves.”

“But he still won’t send troops to aid us,” Egan muttered.

“That won’t work,” Kael shot the other Rider an exasperated glare. They’d gone over this multiple times, and he found himself questioning whether it was smart to have Egan as his second-in-command. “Open support from the elves could incite another race war.”

“We have other things to worry about,” Janis said.

Kael turned his attention to the third Rider in the room. The fierce look in his hazel eyes was at odds with the fact that he was barely fourteen years of age.

Janis was even younger than Kael had been when he had left for the rebellion all those years ago.

“There are whispers that a new Judge has joined underneath Castigo’s banner,” Janis went on. “One that’s recently taken a powerful sorceress as a bedmate. It’s rumored that she uses dark magic.”

An uneasy silence filled the room. If Castigo had the support of a dark sorceress…the Freemen’s cause was looking bleaker by the second.

“And which Judge has joined Castigo?” Kael asked.

Janis hesitated, his fierce resolve wavering for a moment. He took a deep breath before he answered. “Judge Caedo.”

Kael felt the eyes of his captains on him. A wave of heat ran through his body, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. He stared at the young Rider, hoping that he’d misheard him.

But Janis stared back, his next words leaving no doubt in Kael’s mind. “Your brother has joined the Kingsmen.”