Frostbite (The Dragonian Series Book 3) (25 page)

My feet slipped on some loose turf and Cheng helped me to climb further. He reached the top first and pulled me up with him.

I took in the view before me of row upon row of tall trees. They were big and nasty. In my dreams they had suffocated me so many times and here I was in real life. This wasn’t a dream anymore and there was no turning back or waking up this time.

Why on earth did Queen Catherine want me to come here?

“Elena, you okay?”             

“Huh?” I snapped out of it.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” He laughed. “I know it’s intimidating, especially with those tall trees.” He smiled again and started running down the steep hill and toward the forest.

I followed him and skidded off on my bum. My shoe got caught on a rock and I tumbled over and landed flat on my face.

Cheng laughed again as he tried to help me get up. “You seriously are the worst Rubicon I’ve ever seen.”

I laughed with him. “Tell me about it.” I sighed again. “I just don’t know about this, Cheng,” I finally admitted as I stood up.

“Elena, we’ll get out. I promise.”

I nodded. Then I remembered what Lucian said that night. When I told him about George and Becky going on this trip. He got upset that it wasn’t me, implying that
I
should be the one to do this.

What was inside that forest that both these ghosts wanted me to find?

E FOUND A path and I couldn’t stop watching the top of the trees swaying high above my head. I felt tiny, like a fairy with these gigantic trees surrounding me. I was waiting for a huge animal  to run into our path any minute, but nothing came.

Huge roots forced the two of us to climb like one would on a wall, and as we climbed the more the forest welcomed us, and I had to admit, it was beautiful.

Cheng found a tree and stopped.

“You think that’s wise?” I asked.

He smiled. “We found the tree, Elena.”

“What tree?”

“The tree that looks like an old lady’s face. See.” He showed me and I looked up at the entire picture. It sure did resemble the face of an old lady. An old ugly lady.

“Now what?”

“Now we wait for a while, until the sun reaches her nose. Master Longwei said it will show us the way to go.” He took out a map. “The rest is easy to follow.”

“You’ve got a map?”

“Master Longwei gave it to me before we left.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“He said not to, until it was time.”

I shook my head softly and shook off my backpack. It landed with a thud on the ground. I sank down next to it and took the map from Cheng. It didn’t look like the kind of maps I was used to. It had funny dots and marks on it that I didn’t understand. I handed it back to him. “Even the maps are Greek.”

He chuckled again. “It’s a very old map, at least 300 years old. Master Longwei said there are only two in this world. He’s got one, and the other one is somewhere on the other side of the Wall.”

“Just tell me you know how to read it.”

“I can read it, Sort of.”

“Sort of?”

“I’m joking with you, Elena.” He laughed. “That look is priceless though.”

“Urgh!” I slapped him playfully. “My nerves are already shot. I don’t know what we are going to find there. Lucian didn’t even want to tell me.”

“Lucian communicated with you? How? Phones don’t work inside here.”

I took out my Cammy and it was dead. “Yes, he did,” I said as I kept staring at the Cammy inside my hand. “Lucian might not have had an extra ability, but he sure was special.”

“He mastered one of the transmission spells, didn’t he?”

“What is a transmission spell?”

“You can communicate with someone without the use of stupid towers or bars on your Cammy.”

I nodded.

“Which one?”

“I don’t know what they are called, but he appeared to me. He felt so real.”

Cheng’s eyes grew. “He mastered the dimperius spell?”

“The dim what?”

“A dimperius.” He looked at the ground. “Not many can. He sure was one hell of a guy.”

“Now he’s no more,” I said softly.

“Elena, it’s not your fault.”

“Cheng, don’t. I trusted Paul when I shouldn’t. I should’ve listened to you.”

“I had my doubts after a while too, Elena. He was really good at fooling everyone.”

I laid my head back against the tree’s bark and listened to the birds chirping high in the branches. I closed my eyes and let their cries transport me back to when he was still alive. It started to ache deep inside and I took a deep breath. “What if Lucian was my rider?”

“Don’t think like that. It would only drive you crazy. Besides, a dragon always knows, Elena. There is no what ifs with us.”

“How do you know? What does it feel like?”

“I don’t know how to explain it, it just is. It’s like when you know that the sky is blue and the ocean green. It’s not pink and it’s not red. You just know.”

I got what he was saying. So Lucian couldn’t have been my rider. Then who was?

He tapped my leg and I saw him looking up at the old lady’s nose. A light fell onto the path to the left of us and we picked up our bags.

Cheng walked with a map in one hand and a compass in the other as we walked through huge plants that made funny hissing noises. It really freaked me out and I walked as close to Cheng as I could. He just chuckled and shook his head slightly.

Yeah, I get it. I’m supposed to be a freakin’ Rubicon.

“Just slap them if they get in your personal space.”

“Who, the plants?”

“Yes, the plants. They’re very curious.”

I giggled at the image in my head, and somehow it made my fear of them disappear.

The path we took wasn’t worn like most were, and it made it really hard to see where we were supposed to go.

I kept bumping into Cheng when he would stop dead in his tracks. Once he confirmed where we were on the map we carried on walking.

“So what, your tracking ability isn’t that good?” I teased him after the tenth time we paused for him to look at the map.

“Not all dragons are born with that ability.” He kept looking at the map with a hint of a smile on his face. He looked at the compass then. “Master Longwei said this would happen.” He looked at his watch.

“What would happen?”

“It’s getting late, we need to go back until the compass can show us north again. It’s not safe to set up camp.”

We turned around and walked back for about half an hour, Cheng went a couple of miles further, just to be safe. He made a huge red marking on one of the trees and then took a different direction. He found a huge hollow tree. “Would you do the honors?” he said as we peeked inside.

I lit up my hand like Blake showed me and the fire lit up everything in front of us. The inside was massive but creepy too.

The first thing we made was a fire and then we set up our tents inside the tree. Cheng took out tinned food and we each had a can of soup. I couldn’t help but think of my dreams again. Why had Queen Catherine wanted me to come here?

“What’s on your mind, Elena?”

I shook my head and saw him frowning because he kept staring at me. “I might as well tell you. I dreamt of this place.”

“What?” He looked at me, surprised. “When?”

“Ever since I came to Paegeia.”

“I thought it might be something like that. You came up with that plan of Becky dreaming about Tanya way too fast.” He smiled. “What happens in the dream?”

I wanted to tell him about Queen Catherine but for some reason I had a feeling that Cheng was much safer not knowing. “Not much. I keep waking up when the trees try to pull me in.”

He smiled. “It means then that you are on the right path, maybe we can go home after all of this.”

“I’m not going to chase my foretelling, Cheng. People around me keep dying when I do. I can’t lose you.”

“Elena, you don’t need to worry about me. I can look out for myself and I don’t believe in that kind of destiny. You shouldn’t need to get punished for the wrong choices you make, well not like the way you do. I can’t tell you what to do, but answer this, would you rather go back to the other side? What if we could never come back?”

“I thought that is what you wanted?”

“We are different from the humans, Elena. We don’t age like they do and we would be on the move every couple of years or so.”

I smiled. “I like the ‘we’, it means that I don’t have to face whatever is waiting for us alone.”

“I’ll miss Andreas,” he said in a soft voice.

I’d never thought about that and what it was he would have to give up. “I’m sorry Cheng. I should’ve never mentioned your name in that meeting.”

“Are you insane? You wouldn’t have been able to do this by yourself. I’m happy to be here. It makes me feel important, as if I’m finally going to be part of something big.”

I huffed and smiled. “Guess you weren’t wrong about seeing my name inside that museum,” I joked and we both laughed. “Thank you, Cheng.”

“You’re very welcome. So what exactly did that foretelling say? ‘A day will come and a day will go…”

“A choice I’ll have to make, otherwise the truth will never be known.”

“Any speculations to what it might be?”

I shook my head. “First time I thought it had to do with finding the sword, proving to everyone that dragon offspring can be worthy of the mark. Turns out the Viden was right. It was only a birth defect.”

“You can’t say that, Elena.”

“I’m a dragon, Cheng.”

“I think I know your reason the second time: it had to do with Paul. That’s why you were so angry with me, wasn’t it?”

I nodded.

“I’m so sorry, Elena.” He blew a gush of air out. “To have something that big in the Book of Shadows, not knowing what it means, it can’t be easy.”

“It’s a curse. I don’t know why everyone wanted theirs to appear inside that book. I never wanted it.”

“The ones that usually don’t want one, are the ones worthy enough to handle it. You will find what it means, Elena. I’ll help you, even if…”

“Don’t say those words.” I stopped him before he could say it. “Lucian said the same before he came here, and it turned out to be exactly the last thing he did. I can’t lose more friends, Cheng. Not like that.”

He nodded. “We should try to get some sleep. I’ll take the first shift.”

T WAS HARD to fall asleep. I jumped at every noise in the forest. At twelve I heard a huge growl and it woke me up. Cheng was peeking out of the tree.

“What was that?” I whispered.

“Don’t know,” he said, still looking outside. “Master Longwei said that there are really dangerous creatures here at night, that was why I had to turn around. Go back to sleep. I’m sure whatever that was is way too big to get into this tree.”

Easier said than done, but somehow I dozed off.

Cheng woke me up around three. I sat at the entrance of the tree with the orange coals that were all that was left of the fire.

Outside looked creepy. The trees all had these huge dark shadows and I could see a couple of blinking eyes from the animals that roamed the night. I kept thinking I heard someone close by. I guess it was because of the growl I heard at twelve.

My heart would accelerate and I had to keep telling myself it was just my imagination. If Cara came out, it would be disastrous.