Anders smiled at them as they walked by to pick up their meal. Natalia kept her focus on the kitchen area, not acknowledging them as she passed. Maija, however, returned the smile and placed a hand on Anders’ shoulder as she walked by. To Anders’ surprise, Maija appeared to have gone rolling around in the dirt. Her clothes were stained and smudged with dirt and grass. Her hair was a mess, twigs and leaves sticking out from tangles. He chuckled as he watched her get her plate and mug and join them at the table.
“What did you do with her?” Anders asked Natalia as they sat down.
Natalia raised an eyebrow at him but didn’t answer his question. She just stabbed her fork into a pile of crisp brussels sprouts and brought it to her mouth with gusto.
“Just some introductory lessons,” Maija said, placing her hand on his knee under the table.
“Oh,” Anders said, reaching around and pulling a twig from her hair.
Maija chuckled, “As I said, some introductory lessons.”
They quickly recapped the day’s events, Natalia continuing to remain uninterested in contributing to their discussion.
“What’s going on with Nadir?” Anders asked, curious about the political status within the High Council.
Ivan spoke after swallowing a mouthful of salmon, “He’s being watched now by his father’s guard. He tells me that Asmond has been fooled into believing he was the one to send word to Merglan.” Ivan shook his head. “I’m not sure who it is, but this is a dangerous game to play. It can only end in sorrow.”
“I can’t believe the king would think his own son, who fought in his name so bravely, would betray him so willingly,” Anders said.
Ivan nodded, “He’s under mounting stress.”
“The king?” Maija chimed in, clarifying who Ivan was talking about.
“Yes, Asmond. Nadir informed me all these whispers of spies have the High Council paranoid and it’s affecting their relationships with other nations,” Ivan said.
“How so?” Natalia asked, speaking for the first time since she’d entered the dining hall.
“Trade with the dwarfs has decreased greatly. With the rising threat of Merglan’s re-emergence, they’re on the verge of ceasing all trade with the elves,” Ivan replied, wiping his mouth with the underside of his sleeve.
“How would that affect the elves? Aren’t they self-sufficient here in the Enlightened Forest?” Anders asked.
“We are as long as we don’t go to war. The dwarfs mine the steel and other precious metals that our people rely on. Sure, we can last without the ore, but we need the metal for weapons,” Natalia said in a monotone.
“Don’t the elves have enough weapons left over from The War of the Magicians?” Maija asked.
“They have steel and other metals from those days, but with nearly twenty years of peace, they’ve been scattered, traded, sold and lost. Besides, if the king wants to prepare his people properly for this war, he may have to place a sword into the hands of every man, woman and child old enough to fight. He’ll need to forge new weapons regardless,” Ivan said, turning his attention back to his food.
After everyone had finished, Ivan pulled the journal from his pocket and placed it on the table. “Who wants to read first?” he asked.
Anders had spent hours each day reading and didn’t want to volunteer. When he used to read in Theodor’s library, he would become lost in the story, but when Anders had to read particular books for study, he found himself disliking the task. He’d had some inkling of this realization when studying for the Grandwood Games, but it was never this bad. With all the excitement of training to be a rider, he merely wanted to absorb the material instead of having to read through it at a slower pace.
Anders assumed from the look Maija gave him, she felt out of place taking the responsibility, and he knew Natalia was still not in the best of moods to read to them.
“Don’t all raise your hands at once,” Ivan said mockingly. “I guess I’ll do the honors.” Ivan looked the journal over for awhile before opening it and beginning to read.
Listening to Ivan, Anders was again reminded of the similarities between himself and Merglan. As they pressed further into Merglan’s writing, Anders found he was comparing himself to Merglan’s every action, trying to justify how he would turn out differently. The words of Solomon, the wise little man they’d consulted while trying to track down his cousins’ kidnappers, ventured back into Anders’ mind and he wondered if he was staying on the right path. One distinct difference between himself and Merglan was Merglan’s twisted thirst to strike back at any opposition. Young Merglan often described in detail in this journal how he’d dealt with those who sparred with him during the prince’s training sessions. He always made sure to land twice as many hits as any of his opponents.
Ivan paused after reading an entry, “There’s a long gap in time between entries here.” He flipped through several pages, double-checking the dates of each entry. “I guess he stopped writing for awhile. Let’s see what inspired him to pick it back up. It could be telling,” Ivan continued.
The next entry described Merglan’s first encounter with his dragon. For some unknown reason, Merglan had left the king’s castle. From his choice of words, the group could tell that he’d had a falling out with his best friend, Prince William. Anders and the others were left to speculate what had happened as Merglan chose to avoid the events in his writing.
Instead, Merglan recounted meeting a young dragon alone in the woods. The lost dragon and Merglan quickly formed a tight connection over the coming days. Merglan kept his entries short, but they reflected that he was in good spirits, considering he only badmouthed the king and his son several times in each passage. The whole experience seemed eerily like Anders and Zahara’s.
Over the next several pages, Merglan described the moment he and Killdoor bonded. Anders took comfort in the fact that at least he hadn’t felt the need to immediately test the boundaries of his bonding with Zahara. Anders had always known when to stop pushing the limits of their strength, whereas Merglan described the urge to push harder. It wasn’t clear why Merglan was wandering in the wilderness with his dragon, but he offered few entries again for an extended period.
When next he wrote, he’d come under the tutelage of a powerful sorceress. From the powers and teachings he wrote about, he’d learned to use magic exceptionally quickly. Anders found it strange that each time Merglan wrote about these teachings, he referred to them as religious teachings. The young sorcerer wrote of his longing for revenge and how he’d soon leave his instructor to exact revenge on those who’d wronged him. Merglan’s last entry was a quote. They’d assumed he’d learned it from his instructor because of its warring nature.
The quote read:
“If you seek to destroy those you’ve held most dear in life, you’ll enact this prophecy. A son of royalty and a daughter of the veiled huntress will rise and seal your fate. Dare to use the powers I’ve granted to you for evil and a day will come when those you’ve betrayed will exact their revenge. Fail to follow our ideals and justice will come on the backs of dragons wielding powers of old. Beware the sapphire soul.”
Placing a thin strip of leather into the spine between pages, Ivan closed the book and looked up. Natalia jerked awake when the book snapped shut; she’d fallen asleep, but both Maija and Anders stared at him glassy-eyed.
“Was that last bit the prophecy?” Anders asked.
“I heard Merglan tell Thargon about the prophecy. He did mention that bit about the dragons and the son and daughter, but never mentioned anything about a sapphire soul,” Maija said.
“Did you hear him say anything else about the prophecy?” Ivan asked intrigued.
Maija shook her head, “We had to return to our duties because the head maid had returned.”
“Why didn’t you mention this before?” Anders asked.
“With all that’s been going on lately, I kind of forgot.”
Ivan interrupted, steering the conversation back to what they’d read, “It’s fine, this version is much more accurate than the whispers Maija would have overheard anyway.” After a moment of silence, he continued, “I’ve heard of the ancient teachings of the North, but I didn’t know Merglan was taught directly by a sorceress of their religion. There have been many who’ve sought the teachings of these riders. All those in recent history, excluding Merglan, have died in the attempt.”
“It was pretty vague. I mean why does he think I’m the son who will come to destroy him? Sure, that’s exactly what we’re trying to do, but I’m not the only son who’s bonded with a dragon. And besides, I don’t have powers of old and I’m not of ancient nobility. My father was just a man, same as you,” he pointed to Ivan.
