Keenin twitched his fingers and felt the hard band of metal resting below his hand. Light flashed across his closed eyelids. The places he knew were getting desperately far away and he could no longer say how many days had rolled by. Each was spent in the back of an enclosed cart, his hands resting in cuffs with long chains connecting to the inside wall, leaving him the smallest comfort of being able to lay down or sit. 

There simply wasn’t a way to get out, magic or otherwise. Since Judial had locked a thin cuff to his wrist, Keenin had been unable to make anything burn. This meant no signal fires, no burning down the cart around him, and no help from his elemental whom Keenin had started to feel like a voice in the distance.

The cart bumped again, this time with the clattering of boxes and the distraught clucking of a chicken. The dim light through the wooden slats gave Keenin a sense of his surroundings and had been enough to notice the painting of a red bird on stored bits of armor, the very same marking on the soldiers attacking Meladona. His bleak situation made Keenin wish that he could apologize to the people he left behind. What would Lester think of him? 

 He now felt a great deal of regret for ever wanting to leave his home and for wanting anything more than a simple life in the dirt. And Lester. He missed Lester more than anything. Lester had been the one to inspire him, showed him that struggling for himself could be worth it. All Keenin had wanted was to see all those homeless children get a chance to be equal and noticed in a good way. 

He took in a deep breath scented of pine, and let it go. Curiously, a white puff of his breath dissolved by his face. He exhaled another white puff to make sure he wasn’t seeing things, but there it was again. It was neither early morning nor the start of the fall season, but his fingers were a little chillier than he remembered.

“Is it getting colder?” a man outside asked. 

“The sun’s out,” another said.

“It’s just the wind,” a third mentioned. 

“Does it seem foggy?”

As the cart continued to creak along it did feel colder despite the sun on the roof. Then the cart rolled to a quiet stop.

“Why are we stopping?” Judial called up the line. 

“Sir!” one of the men called from a distance. “There’s a girl blocking the road ahead!”

Keenin could hear crying.

“Arrows up,” Judial called. “I’m not believing that fog and a girl in the road aren’t connected. Watch for bandits. I’ll take care of this.” 

Keenin couldn’t see the fog that they were talking about, but he heard the stretch of bowstrings and the step of a horse moving up the road.

“What if it’s a ghost?” a man whispered.

“Then you wouldn’t see her,” another responded. “Now quiet. Boss said he would manage.”

“Girl,” Judial called out. “Move off the road before we run you over. I am not in the mood for beggars or thieves.”

“Not yet. Not yet," he now heard the girl's desperate voice getting louder. "I know it’s here. I dropped my ring right here. I cannot go home. I cannot go home until I find it.”

Keenin couldn’t see out, but a dagger was suddenly thrust up through the boards below to force a gap in which a hand slid in and pulled. The board snapped and a single blue eye gazed through the gap. 

“What the hell was that?” 

There was the knock of an arrow and a thunk of a hit. Keenin felt a chill up his spine. The eye peering in disappeared and something growled. 

He nearly got whiplash as his cart was jolted forwards by a frenzied horse. He was so terrified for his life that he handley registered the ambient screaming, startled yells, the scrape of swords, and the knock of arrows to bows. 

His cart swerved and slammed onto its side, slid and broke against something that dented the roof. His wrists were skinned and bleeding, numerous cuts from flying debris burned across his skin.

He lay helpless, half hearing things outside as a blow to his head left his mind circling on inner thoughts. Blood dripped from fingers. His eyes were open, but he could see very little from where he was.

This felt like when Alaban tripped him for stealing. It would be nice to wake up back home, but no. His captors were sure to come pick up the pieces when they were done with this distraction. The wind seemed to be shouting and roaring while Keenin was developing a headache. The right side of his forehead felt like a bruised peach. 

“Can you hear me?” he heard a girl's voice ask.

Great, he thought. Now one of the thieves had found him. How much money would this new group get for selling him?

“Can you hear me?”

Wait, it sounded like Tess. Keenin opened his eyes wider and looked to the opening in the back of the cart, but nobody was there. Actually, he seemed to have been half asleep because the noises had quieted down. No wind. No shouting men or thudding hooves.

“What did we get?” a girl outside asked.

Just how many girls were there? Keenin heard a chicken clucking outside. 

“I thought it smelled like charcoal and chicken,” a boy said. 

“Just army supplies. I guess we can hide them,” the girl said. “But Clide, I told you not to show yourself. People might come looking for a dragon.” 

“Not if they’re smart. Besides, your ghost trick didn’t send them running like it was supposed to and that wind guy was really angry. I had to defend myself.”

A spray of what sounded like dirt hit the side of the cart.

“Another ghost,” the boy said. 

“These men attract ghosts like bees to honey. It’s disgusting.”

“You mean like bears,” the boy said.

“Like what—

“Let’s see,” the boy said.

Keenin expected to come face-to-face with the boy who spoke, but instead, a blue-tinted claw pulled the door open and the ridged head of a dragon peered in at him with ice blue eyes. It exhaled cold air through its slightly parted jaw in an expression that Keenin interpreted as surprise. Then it closed the door as though to forget about him.

“Hey!” Keenin called in annoyance. “This is weird for me too, but I’m really stuck here.”

“Clide, what are you doing?” the girl said, annoyed.

This time it was her that opened the door. This girl seemed to have dried blood down the side of her face, which suggested this was who had been shot with an arrow. She was just as suspicious as the dragon, who now was curled close to the ground as though trying to hide its large body behind hers. To be fair, he looked small for a dragon. 

“Oh, I’m sorry Clide was rude. I didn’t notice you,” the girl apologized.  

“Well, are you going to free me?” 

“You aren’t a criminal, are you?” 

“Obviously, I was kidnapped. Undo the chains please.” 

“I got it,” the dragon said. 

A long scaled tail wrapped itself around the dangling chains and yanked bolts and all out of the wood, showering him with dust. The dragon pulled him from the cart and held him still dangling near its snout. 

“You seem really calm,” the dragon told him, curiously. 

“Put. Me. Down,” Keenin stressed. 

He didn’t want any more magical encounters. He had seen enough griffins, elves, terror birds, and encountered enough aweful help to last a lifetime. 

The dragon named Clide set Keenin down gently and dropped the chains connected to his wrists into his hands.

“Do you want help?” the girl asked. 

“I’m sure I can manage a pair of rusty cuffs,” Keenin said. 

He would just pick the lock once they left. 

“Are you sure you don’t want to come with us?” the girl asked.