First Witch, L.A. Borgaard [snow like ashes .txt] 📗

them we are here with you.” She grasped his arm and pulled him out from under the rock. “You will ride behind me. Wrap you arms securely around my waist and try to move with me.” She leapt to Saphyre’s back and lifted Jahara to sit behind her, though he thought it more as lying against her as her feet were behind, not in front.
Once they were in the air he understood the position. If they had been sitting up they would most definitely been blown off his back. The speed in which Saphyre flew was beyond anything that Jahara had known was possible. What would have taken him months to travel they were accomplishing in hours. The speed was so dizzying that he clung to Jen, trying hard to mold himself to her and closed his eyes. Saphyre slowed as they neared their destination and the air suddenly grew cold. Jahara wished fervently that he had a winter cloak with him but there was nothing he could do at present but endure the bite of the north wind.
Once on the ground, Jen pulled a cloak from a pouch that she rested against and handed it to Jahara. “It is not as thick as yours but you will find it warm.” Taking hold of his arm, she lowered him to the ground. “We will wait here for you. The nest is in a cave on that mountain,” she said and pointed off into the distance. When he made no move to go forward, she looked down and met his eyes. “You must hurry father, the eggs will hatch soon. Saphyre can hear them tapping now.”
“I would find another way if I could.”
“I know.”
“And Saphyre?”
“We know, now go quickly. We will watch; we will wait.”
Jahara left them then and made his way silently to the opening in the mountain where the eggs waited. As he walked, he looked around him at the bare earth and twisted trees. There should have been pines here. Long ago, he knew, there were vast forests of pines in these lands, before the dark ones appeared. Now it was a desolate land, cold and empty but for small villages here and there. The people he saw were quiet, all of them staring up at an opening in the mountain before him. Each village he passed was the same, those there stared up to the mountain and soon he realized that there were no children present within the villages; the time of hatching was close indeed. Walking up a worn path, he came to the opening and passed through the rider’s children unseen. They crowded around the entrance, waiting for the newborns, waiting to be bonded to the dragons and becoming riders themselves. When he entered the mountain, shock overcame him. So many, he thought, how will I ever destroy so many? There were dozens of eggs and as he stood they all began to crack. He thought about the crowd of children at the entrance and knew for certain, they had been bred for this moment in time. Looking around and the hatch began, he quickly began to run to the nearest newborn breaking from it’s shell; at the same time he pulled the prepared spell from his pocket. He opened the bottle and speaking the words, he dipped his finger in then touched the newborn’s head. He did not stop to watch as the newborn curled and died, but went on to the next. In horror, he saw that they were hatching too quickly for him to reach them all; then he slipped, and as he reached out to steady himself his hand was bitten. He had failed, and in his failing his world would end just as his life would end. No! his mind screamed, It can’t end this way! Reaching in to his memory he found a spell to slow the outcome of today. He turned to the newborn that had bitten him, placed both hands over it’s head and spoke. The newborn froze and with it all dragons younger than it was itself, not only here, but in all the world. No dragons anywhere would hatch until one with the countering spell woke them.
His hand burned with pain as he ground the spell of newborn death into the dirt and left. He had stopped the hatch but at more of a cost than just these. Would Saphyre forgive this spell? Would his daughter forgive it? He made it out of the mountain still unseen and started walking when he heard the cries of the children behind him. What he had done had been discovered and the search for him was on. He needed to make it back to Jen. He needed to tell her what he had done and tell her where to find his spells. They needed to be hidden until one was born that could undo his folly and give the dragons back their children; one that would carry not only the power of a sorcerer, but the love to correct the dark hearts in the ones changed. As he made his way through the crowd of children and down the worn path, the pain in his hand spread to his arm and his vision began to blur. Shaking his head to clear his vision, he continued and began to run when passing the first village the adults started to point. He was visible to them, no longer able to sustain his fade. He ran, stumbling as the newborn’s poison worked it’s way faster into his blood. Just as he thought he would not make it back to her, Jen was there. She had crossed the borders of the dark lands and come to get him. Lifting him over her shoulder, she ran to Saphyre as the sounds of the ones searching grew louder. She threw him up onto Saphyre’s back and laid over him, clinging to Saphyre as he lifted from the ground. Flying swiftly, he went directly to Jahara’s home.
Jahara was laying in his bed. He knew it was his bed by the smells that came to him. The poison of the newborn was in his eyes and he could no longer see. “Jen...Saphyre,” he called out.
“We are here,” he heard her say and felt her hand touch his cheek.
“I have caused a sorrow to you,” he said gripping her hand.
“We know what you did.” She held his hand tight in her own. “You did what had to be done.”
“It can be undone, but the book must be hidden until he comes. They must not find it. If it falls to their hands the world is lost.”
“You have already hidden the book.”
“There is no more time Jen. The place where I have hidden it will open on my death. Go to the rocks, there will be an opening, you must go in and down the steps. It is there, burn what you find and take the book to a safe place, a place where they will not look. Take it deep into our lands, take it to the mountain Jen, they will not cross to the mountain. It is in your hands now, in yours and Saphyre’s. Hide it there until he is born.”
“Until who is born? Who are we to give the book to?”
He was growing weaker now. He could sense his death coming close as her voice came to him from a great distance. “He will have the power to see, the power of the dragon, but also the love of the elf. He will undo my folly and heal the hearts of the dark dragons.” He could see now for the first time the bond between them and what it meant. “Saphyre can you see? He will be a rider of many and he will hold the color of dragon fire in his soul. Saphyre, tell me, can you see?”
“I can see.” His voice came from the open doorway and Jen turned to see him standing as a man with her cloak wrapped around his waist.
“You know what must be done?” Jahara asked him. “You know what you must give?”
“I know.”
Jahara’s grip tightened on Jen. “You love him much more than dragon and rider, you always have. He will give up his dragon form for you. The one you must give the book to will come from his seed. Take him as husband and birth the one needed for the world to survive.”
“Father, we will take the book to the mountain, but I will not be the cause for Saphyre’s loss. You see my feelings, you do not see his.”
With his last breath he said, “Yes daughter, I do.” Jahara’s eyes stared out then in death as his last breath passed his lips. Jen screamed in agony at her father’s departure from the world.
Saphyre stepped up next to her and reached down, closing Jahara’s eyes as Jen laid over his body and wept. He stood as she grieved until the tears subsided and she lifted her head. “What is your wish?” he asked her when she stared out the window overlooking her father’s bed.
“My wishes are not important. I will follow his instruction.”
“All of his instruction?”
She was silent as she stood and left the hovel to find the book. Walking slowly to the rocks she had seen her father sitting on so many times in the past, she thought about her father’s instruction. Find the opening in the rocks, go down the steps and burn everything. Take the book to the mountain and hide it there until he comes. She pushed all other thoughts from her mind as she searched for the opening. When she found the opening he spoke of, she entered and lit an oil lamp resting close to the entrance. Using it’s light, she found the steps and went down. Burn everything and take the book. The book sat in the middle of a lone table and she lifted it into her arms, throwing the oil lamp into the shelf behind it. She stood as the potions and spells on the shelf began to burn, then turned and made her way back up the steps. The glow from the fire behind her grew brighter, lighting her path as she climbed and she held the book tight to her breast, leaving her father’s life burning behind her. Emerging from the rocks, she continued back to the hovel and saw Saphyre