Tin Thoughts (The Downfall Saga Book 2) Page 31

  “How’s he doing?”

  “Same as before. I wanted to say my goodbyes before we left.”

  “He’ll appreciate that.”

  She scanned the trees near the bottom of the hill and sniffed the air.

  “I hope we head out soon. There’s a storm in the air. A Downfall, I think, and a big one at that.”

  “No one can predict when one will occur.”

  “When you spend your life outside, you learn to see the signs. You see it in how the grass blows and the leaves rustle.”

  “That’s good news. There’s no way that they’ll want to sail in a big storm.

  “The Elders are anxious to leave, and I doubt they’d let a storm keep us here for another night.

  “I guess I’ll see you on the boat.”

  Eva gave him a trace of a smile, before heading off.

  Kort walked over to the large pavilion. He’d taken all of his stuff out of the tent he’d been sharing with Donovan, and dumped it on the floor of the pavilion.

  He entered and flopped down on the floor beside his belongings. He started crumpling his clothing into tight balls and stuffing them into his pack.

  “I was wondering when you’d be back,” said Ravyn. “A few minutes longer and we were going to burn everything to get rid of the stench.”

  “How can you tell jokes at a time like this?”

  “How can you not?”

  “If I didn’t like you so much, I’d probably hate you.”

  “There’s my little jokester,” she said, walking over to sit beside him.

  “I was telling the truth.”

  “Of course you were.”

  She shoved him and the two of them started wrestling with each other in his pile of dirty laundry. Ravyn quickly got the better of him and pinned his shoulders to the ground. She gave him a quick kiss on the end of his nose, before getting off of him.

  “Be a good maid, and clean up this mess before the Headmaster comes back,” she said.

  Professor Nads stopped by an hour later. “Grab your things and say goodbye to the island. We’re going home.”

  Chapter 34

  “Can you stop hammering for a second?” croaked Donovan.

  “Hey, how are you feeling?” asked Osmont.

  Donovan opened his eyes and had to blink against the brightness inside the tent. Osmont was bending down over him. It looked like he hadn’t shaved in weeks. The tent felt like it had been erected over a hot spring and reeked of unwashed bodies.

  Donovan closed his eyes and took a moment to inventory what he was feeling. He felt tired, his throat ached, and he had a splitting headache, but otherwise he felt okay.

  “Alive, I think.”

  “You gave us quite the scare. A lessor man would have been dead before we even got to you.”

  “What happened?”

  “What do you remember?”

  He closed his eyes again and tried to think of the last thing that had happened. He felt a chill go down his spine when he remembered killing Brighid and Finian. They hadn’t given him a choice, but he felt bad for how it had ended. He’d escaped with the white dagger, only to find Kort facing off with the manticore.

  “Kort. Is he okay?”

  “He’s fine. You wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him.”

  “Everybody else?”

  “Alive and well, and gone, except for Brighid and Finian who we couldn’t find.”

  “Dead.”

  “What happened?”

  “I had to kill them.”

  Osmont was quiet for a long time and Donovan drifted off to sleep.

  When he opened his eyes again, it wasn’t nearly as bright in the tent, and his headache was gone. He rolled onto his side. The tent was empty, but he could hear talking outside the tent.

  “I can hear you talking out there.”

  The tent flap was pulled aside and they entered the tent. Both Osmont and Tuff had smiles on their faces, and it looked like Osmont had taken the time to do some personal grooming since he’d last seen him.

  “You are tougher than an old boot,” said Tuff, clapping him on the shoulder.

  “How are you feeling?” asked Osmont.

  “Hungry.”

  “Good, I’ll get something for you,” said Tuff.

  “I’m not that hungry.”

  “The sense of humor is the last thing to return, so you must be feeling better,” said Osmont.

  Donovan pushed the pile of blankets off of himself, and got unsteadily to his feet.

  “How’s the shoulder?” asked Osmont.

  Donovan looked down at his shirtless chest. He still had the Blood Magic symbol carved over his heart, but he couldn’t find any sign of a wound on his shoulder, not even a scar. He stretched out his arms, and slowly rolled his shoulders.

  “Good as new. You did a good job on it.”

  “Don’t look at me.”

  Donovan looked over at Tuff who shook his head.

  “We couldn’t heal you,” said Osmont. “I don’t understand why, but no one was able to. You’ve been unconscious for the last ten days while your body fought off one of the deadliest venoms in the world.”

  “I’ll have some of that food now.”

  He picked up a blanket and wrapped it around himself, before leaving the tent.

  It was late afternoon, the sun would be setting in a couple hours. The sky was clear, and the air was cool.

  They seated themselves around a small fire. Tuff picked up a spit that had been resting on a rock beside the fire, and tore off a leg from whatever animal they’d roasted earlier. He handed it over to Donovan.

  Donovan took an experimental bite. It was tough, cold and tasted gamey, but he ate the entire thing and asked for more.

  “So what happened to you?” asked Osmont. “We heard everyone else’s story, but still don’t know what happened when you got separated from the rest of the team.” Osmont casually reached under his cloak and tossed the white dagger onto the ground beside Donovan. He then pulled out a folded piece of paper from one of his pockets, carefully opened it up, and handed it to Donovan.

  Donovan looked down at the piece of paper. It had been soaked, stained and torn, but was clearly his map of the island.

  “This,” he said, pointing at the map, “I found in Eamon’s house.” He set the paper down on the grass. “The map led us to this.” He picked up the dagger and turned it over in his hands. “Does the name Ezhno mean anything to you?”

  “Should it?”

  “It meant something to Finian and Brighid before they turned on me. They also mentioned my father and the symbol on my chest.”

  They sat there is silence, neither of them knowing how to respond to his answer.

  Donovan tossed the dagger back to Osmont. “You’ll want to get Professor Wryhta to look at that, before giving it back to me.”

  Donovan reached over and picked up the spit. He began tearing off chunks of meat with his teeth.

  “Is there a boat waiting to take us home?” he asked between bites.

  “The boys sent us something better,” said Tuff.

  “It can wait until morning,” said Osmont.

  Donovan spent the next hour eating everything that they set in front of him, before going back to sleep.

  The morning was warm and overcast. Tuff cooked them breakfast while Osmont took down the two tents. They ate a small meal, before hoisting their gear onto their backs and heading to the coast. They stopped at the edge of a cliff which rose fifty feet straight up, out of the ocean.

  “Now what?” asked Donovan, scanning the empty ocean.

  Tuff pulled out a large whistle and blew on it several times. Donovan couldn’t hear any noise, but Tuff assured him that it was working.

  They waited for several minutes until Tuff pointed out two winged shapes in the sky. Donovan thought that they might be eagles, but they continued to grow as they flew closer, until there was no doubt that they weren’t any type of ordinary bird.

>   They churned up clods of dirt when they landed on the ground. Their heads looked like that of an eagle, but the size of a horse’s head, covered in white feathers with a dangerous looking beak. The forelegs and wings also looked like those of a gargantuan eagle, covered in large brown and white feathers which gleamed in the early morning sunlight. The rest of its body looked like a lion, nearly as large as the manticore, but with short tan colored fur.

  Tuff walked up to them without hesitation and rubbed his head against the head of the closest one. Tuff spend several minutes looking over the creatures while Donovan and Osmont tied all of their bags together into a large bundle.

  “What are those?” whispered Donovan.

  “They’re beautiful,” said Osmont. “I’ve always wanted to ride a griffon.”

  “Ride a griffon?”

  “Did you think they were going to fetch a ship for the three of us?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “Don’t worry. They’re not likely to let you fall. They’re more likely to kill you when you walk up to them.”

  “What?”

  Osmont broke into a grin and punched him in the shoulder. “Just shut your mouth and do what Tuff tells you to.”

  Tuff waved them forward, and they cautiously approached the griffons.

  “Don’t be shy,” said Tuff. “We’re going to be spending some time together, so you might as well get to know each other first.”

  Donovan gently ran his hand along the top of its smooth beak, before circling around the majestic creatures. They were even more spectacular up close. Two small white horns stuck out of the feathers on top of their heads. Their talons left deep gouges in the ground each time they took a step.

  “Do they live on this island?” asked Donovan.

  “Not these two,” said Tuff. “They came from a roost closer to home. The griffons here haven’t been domesticated yet, but now that we can safely sail here, it’s only a matter of time until we add them to the flock.”

  They tied their gear onto the back of a griffon before Osmont climbed up behind its wings. Tuff helped Donovan climb onto the back of the second one before climbing up behind him. Tuff showed him how to hold onto it with his knees.

  Tuff let out two loud whistles in rapid succession and the griffons began galloping across the ground. Donovan could feel its muscles heaving beneath his legs as it ran. It unfurled its long wings and leapt into the air. It took him several minutes to get used to how its muscles moved while it flapped its wings, but when he did, he quickly relaxed and began to enjoy the experience.

  They circled higher and higher until he could see the entire island far below him, it looked just like it did on the map. It felt like they were flying closer to the clouds than they were to the ground. The griffon banked out of the spiral and started flying south.

  “How does it know where we’re going!” yelled Donovan over top of the noise of the howling wind.

  “It doesn’t!” yelled Tuff into his ear. “It’s heading towards its home which is in the same general direction that we want to travel anyways.”

  The cold wind stung his eyes, and Donovan wrapped his cloak tighter around himself and enjoyed the ride.

  ***

  “Your time here is at an end,” said Headmaster Marrok. “There’s no way around it.”

  “That’s not fair,” said Donovan. “Please, there must be some way.”

  “You missed all of your exams for the second year in a row. I cannot allow you to continue to study at Haven.”

  Marrok sat behind a solid, wooden desk in his large office. His eyes were heavily lidded and weighed down with wrinkles, which made it look like he was half asleep. It looked like he’d aged more than a decade in the past year, but his voice was as strong as ever.

  Donovan looked into his withered face, and searched for any sign of mercy.

  “Please. I’ll do anything.”

  Donovan had started the year unsure if he’d continue studying at Haven. Since then he’d lost Eamon, passed on what might have been his only opportunity to talk to his father. On top of that, there was someone walking around who looked just like him. He had no idea how he could track any of them down.

  He didn’t think that he could handle living alone, a drifter with no goals in life, knowing that his family was out there somewhere. He needed something to latch onto, and Haven was all he had at the moment.

  “Can I retake the same classes next year?” asked Donovan.

  Marrok slowly pushed himself up from his chair, and began pacing back and forth in front of the large windows on the far wall. A fire burned in the fireplace, popping and crackling, and filling the room with its flickering light. Carved statuettes rested on the mantle above the fireplace.

  Marrok walked over to the old, dusty robe which hung from a hook on the wall, and ran a hand lovingly along its sleeve, before walking back to his desk.

  “I understand that this is an extraordinary situation which was beyond your control, but our rules are clear. I gave you a pass last year, but now my hands are tied.”

  Donovan stopped trying to hold back his tears. He held his head in his hands and wept openly.

  When the tears stopped flowing, he wiped his sleeve across his face, and looked up at Marrok.

  “I need this. I have nothing else to live for.”

  Chapter 35

  It had been a whirlwind of activity since they’d returned after winning the Paragon Prize Tournament. They hadn’t even had time to relax and appreciate what they’d accomplished, before he and Ravyn were locked together in her room, studying for their exams. If it wasn’t for Kort occasionally stopping by to distract them, or making sure they took a break for a meal, they wouldn’t have went outside at all.

  All of the studying paid off, and to no one’s surprise, they both received top marks in all of their classes. The practical applications during the competition had helped them more than weeks of studying could have accomplished. The biggest surprise was Kort, who went from barely scraping by the previous year, to receiving solid, if not spectacular, results in his classes.

  Before they knew it, their rooms were being emptied and their bags were packed. Kort and Ravyn were leaving Haven for the summer, and Caddaric would be heading home the next day, but first the three of them gathered for one final breakfast at a small eatery near their quarters. Most of the other tables were empty and the smell of grease clung to everything in the area.

  “So, who’s keeping the trophy?” asked Kort.

  “Do you want it?” asked Caddaric.

  “No. I have a long walk ahead of me, and don’t need anything else to carry.” He looked over at Ravyn and raised his eyebrows.

  “I don’t deserve it,” she said. “Donovan should keep it. He certainly earned it.”

  “I already tried to give it to him, but he doesn’t want it,” said Kort. “I thought he was going to hit me if I didn’t leave him alone.”

  “I don’t understand what’s going on with him,” said Caddaric. “He’s been so angry and has been trying to avoid everybody since he came back. You don’t think he blames us for getting injured, do you?”

  “No,” said Ravyn. “He’s been expelled ... well, not really expelled. He missed all of his exams, and now he can’t come back next year.”

  “He didn’t tell me that,” said Kort.

  “You probably cracked a joke instead of asking about his feelings.”

  “He’ll get over it,” said Caddaric. He cut off a piece of a sausage and ate it. “There’s so much more to life than school. It’ll take some time, but he’ll figure out what he wants to do eventually.”

  “Sometimes school can help you figure things out,” said Kort. “I never dreamed that I’d want to care for sick animals, but now I’ll be working with Mrs. Winslow for a second summer. I’ve learned so much this year that I may even be able to teach her some new things. I’m actually excited to go home and start working.”

  “Well, I’m not,” said Ravyn, roll
ing her eyes. “My parents are going to be disappointed when I tell them what classes I took.”

  “They’ll get over it when you tell them that we beat the top students from the other schools,” said Kort. He reached out and gave her hand a squeeze. “You should take the trophy so you can shove it in their faces if they question your choices.”

  Ravyn smiled at him before picking up her napkin to wipe a glob of egg yolk off of his face.

  “We really should be going. We wouldn’t want to keep my parents waiting.”

  “I’ll walk both of you to the gate.”

  The three of them paid for their meal and headed back to their rooms. They stopped by Kort’s room first and he threw his pack, crammed full of clothes, onto his back, and they headed to Ravyn’s room.

  Her room was spotless, and the only sign that she’d been living there was her trunk sitting on the floor. Kort reached down to pick it up, but Caddaric stopped him.

  “Allow me,” he said.

  “How things have changed since we first met,” said Ravyn with a laugh. “You remember when we were climbing up the path on that first night, and neither of you wanted to help me with my trunk.”

  “That’s because we didn’t know you yet,” said Kort, giving her a kiss on the cheek.

  “Besides, you packed a lot lighter this year,” said Caddaric.

  They left her room, and she carefully shut the door behind them. They left the Complex and followed the path up to the tunnel which ran past the Administration Building and out into the Nexus. The Nexus was as beautiful as always. The flowers were in full bloom and the trees had recently been pruned into exotic shapes. Before long, they had followed the winding path through the narrow throat of the valley and were heading through the tunnel which would take them to the buildings where they had spent their first year at Haven. No matter how wondrous the rest of the Haven was, these buildings would always hold a special place in their hearts. They walked between the buildings, and across the courtyard where Professor Severn had spent months teaching them how to use a staff, before stopping beside the large, wooden gate.

  “Well, this is it,” said Caddaric.

  “Say hello to the Queen for me, and ask her to never invite me to dinner again,” said Kort.