The Dragon Knight; The Secrets of the Desert

The Secrets of the Desert (Chapter 13)

Maripose means butterfly in Spanish. I think it is a really cute word and works perfectly for the name of a capital.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The sun was slowly going down in the sky as I saw the castle slowly come closer and I was glad that for once we weren’t flying through the night. Although the winter weather had always been something I enjoyed I just couldn’t feel the same excitement anymore now that I had to fly on a dragon’s back. Luckily Teixeira was way more inland and didn’t even border with the sea, which meant that the cool winds had heated up by the time they reached this Kingdom.

The capital, Mariposa, was closer to the Elfique Forest than it was to Tanah Bulan, which made me slightly worried Robin would already be waiting for us for several days. But then Zjarr reminded me that she had flown us from Emeraude to Rubis and to Tanah Bulan in probably the same amount of time it took Robin to get to Álfar. She was most likely right, which is why I didn’t mind that she was taking her time getting to Mariposa.

So the day we left Fullmåne, I went to say my goodbyes to Daniel properly this time, then my parents while I completely ignored Nolan, though Zjarr gave him a pretty clear warning. Isabelle and Edur flew with us for a bit before they turned around, saying she didn’t want to leave Daniel waiting. I thought it was cute though I wasn’t entirely sure about when Daniel thought about having an obvious interest in someone who had been dead for centuries up until recently. But that would be something to think about when everything with this prophecy stuff would be over and done with.

For the moment I tried to focus on seeing Robin soon and seeing my sister for the first time in what felt like years even though it was only one.

The problem was that I had told Robin we would meet up outside the castle. Nothing more nothing less, which wasn’t very precise. I had no idea where he would be if he was already there, although the tavern in the city would be my first guess. And also, I had no idea whether I should be looking for a pale black-haired Robin or an even paler white-haired Robin. I had already made a mental note to be more specific next time we split up.

“Where are we going from here? Where to I land?” Zjarr asked me suddenly, snapping me out of my thoughts.

“Somewhere not too close to the city, I’ll walk there myself and see if I can find Robin.” She didn’t respond but I was sure she had heard me. After a while I asked, “Do you think he is here already?”

“Yes, I do. I doubt he would have spent more time than necessary in Álfar. I think he delivered the letter, made sure he knew the answer, got his potion and left.”

“You also think he took the potion? And what about his friends; wouldn’t he have stayed a little longer for them? I did for Daniel, although we didn’t really do what I think we would be doing. Reading an endless supply of books wasn’t something I thought we would ever do.”

I smiled a little at the mesmerized look on Daniel’s face when he saw the Dragon Knight library, and even more so when he opened his first book and actually understood what it said. I couldn’t imagine what it must be like, growing up and not knowing how to read. Most of my childhood had been spent reading, although not always by choice.

“I honestly don’t know whether he took the potion or not; that was entirely his choice. And even if he stayed a little longer for his friends I doubt he stayed too long. He almost lost you once because of something Anila did; I doubt he wants a repeat of that.”

“He didn’t almost lose me,” I retorted.

“Yes, he did. When you saw them together in that corridor you were ready to leave without him because you were hurt. He knows as well as I do that if he hadn’t come after us to Sablier you would still be avoiding him.”