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Description
The sun set on another day in the desert, and the company was fortunate to find a small oasis to make camp and refill on precious water. While most of the company had gathered around a larger fire using palm fronds as fuel, Azra ignited a smaller fire from her Mark, and searched the flames for any contact from the Ranudel village. After a few minutes, she sighed with worry. No one had called out to her from the other side.

“Mind if I join you?” she looked up to see Lagulai having just pitched his horse next to hers.

“If you must…”

Lagulai’s brows furrowed. It wasn’t often that Azra had been reluctant to talk to him.

Azra stammered slightly. “I- I think something happened at the village. I haven’t been able to reach anyone to see what’s going on.”

Lagulai nodded in sympathy. The attacks seemed to be continuing even as they were on a journey to form the last alliance capable of stopping them. He knew what Azra was experiencing, since he too had heard nothing of his mother since the damaging floods that had taken out their part of Ranudel.

“Lagulai, do you think those could be my adoptive parents following us?”

He was the only one of the company she was confident in asking this question, especially given the cutting remarks of the others earlier regarding her ability to handle things on her own.

“I want to be optimistic and say yes… But I honestly don’t know. I didn’t see them. You may have been the only one who did.”

The reply was of little to no comfort for Azra. First it was her past that had eluded her, and now it was the fate of the ones who had cared for her for five years. No matter where she went, it seemed the unknown would always find a way back to her.

She mustered up a bit of courage and said what she thought. “I think they are. If they’re not physically alive, it could be that their spirits stayed behind to make sure I was okay. I’m going to see if they follow us again when we ride tomorrow.”

Lagulai gave her a worried look. “I don’t know if that’s the right decision, Azra. I know you care for them, but you can’t let your emotions for them distract you from the task at hand. All our lives depend on crossing this desert safely and on time. Whether you retain the loyalty of some of these folk later on could well depend on it.”

But Azra’s mind was already made up. Although she had heard Lagulai, she decided it was time to take matters into her own hands. Yes. If I see them again tomorrow, I have to meet them and talk to them. It’s time to put the mystery of what happened to our home to rest.

--

When Codi arrived at the village, he found it to be totally obliterated.

There was no sign of life anywhere, and the few buildings and surrounding wall had all been leveled. The release of dark magic he had witnessed in the forest must have snuffed out all life in its path.

Even the wall and gate surrounding the little hamlet had collapsed. Desperately, Codi searched through the wreckage to find any survivors. After coming up empty, he decided to divert his focus to finding supplies. He would still need to find food and water to sustain himself on the trek to catch up with Azra. But even more vitally, he needed a swift mode of transportation.

A soft knicker to his left caught his attention, and upon finding the source, discovered there was a single horse that had somehow survived the collapse of a small stable at the back of a demolished hut. To raise his luck, there was also a battered but still usable set of tack that he pulled from the rubble.

The dark brown horse with the white star on her face was shaken, but otherwise appeared healthy aside from some minor scrapes.

Codi did not know who had owned the horse previously or what its name had been, but he was still in need of a mount, and he could not simply leave the animal to an unknown fate when it had no one else to care for it. He decided he would adopt it as his own, at least for the journey ahead.

“You’re a lucky girl to have survived this disaster, aren’t you?” he spoke gently as he patted the mare’s forehead. “You need a name. How about… Luma. I’d say finding you has been the brightest light of hope I’ve found in a long time.” The horse gave his shoulder a nuzzle in agreement.
After setting his new companion up with the tack, Codi mounted her, still with some pain owing to his injured shoulder, but he was now ready to leave the village and make haste for Cymorene.
Together, they rode to where the gate would have been and took one last look at the devastation before kicking off and heading in the direction of the valley where lied Del’nurth and Nirocelt, the last stop before crossing into the desert.

--

Sure enough, in the late afternoon of the following day, while riding the lead across the desert, Azra glanced behind her and saw the two figures in the corner of her eye.

But she was at the head, and she couldn’t let on what she was going to do. If she was going to try meeting her adopted parents, she had to keep a low profile.

She was currently in no position to drop back to the rear without being noticed, so her best chance was during their next stop, which likely would not happen until that night.

However, while she was pondering her options, Onyx gave a shout, and signaled for the company to stop immediately. There was a dust storm on the horizon, and it was approaching them from behind fast.

The group huddled together as the sandy winds blasted them, and as Azra squinted through the wall of tan, she again saw the two figures approaching her. She knew this would be her chance. No one was likely to bother focusing on anything other than staying in place until the storm passed. She dismounted her horse, her eyes fixed on them the entire time, and as she let go of the reigns, she was immediately met with a tender embrace.

“Azra!” the voice was unmistakably from Glenyth, filled with immense relief of finding her child again.

“Thank goodness you’re okay!” she heard Camril’s voice join in.

Azra’s eyes opened a little wider. They usually say ‘Thank Cape’n’ when something good happens. But she found it didn’t bother her. Right now, she was just thankful to have two loving and unwaveringly supportive figures here to reassure her that everything would be alright.

When they let go from the hug, Azra was able to have her first good look at them. They looked exactly as she had expected them to, a little worse for wear after escaping whatever had happened to the village, but they were her adopted parents nonetheless.

“What happened? The village… Don’t tell me it’s—”

“Unfortunately, yes…” Glenyth’s voice trailed off. “But we escaped the disaster just in time to make a plan to follow you. We want to come with you on your journey.”

“Really?”

“Yes. If you are leading an alliance to secure victory over the ones who did this to us, we want to help, too.” Camril replied.

Azra was initially glad at the offer for help, but then she remembered what some members of the alliance had said before. “Mum, Dad… I appreciate your help, but I am a leader now. Everyone is looking to me to guide us all safely to Paradisaea, and the trip has been getting harder by the day. It was enough trouble having the alliance assembled to begin with, and it’s taken just as much work to keep them all together. We need a representative from every kingdom to persuade the Academy of Tairo to help us defeat the enemy. I would love to have you along, but… I’m afraid doing so will only bring up more doubt as to my ability to act on my own.”

Camril looked hard in thought. “Azra… I understand you have accomplished a lot, and not only have you helped restore your own kingdom, but others as well.” He seemed to agree with her point.

“But what have all these representatives from the other lands done for you all this time?”

Camril’s next question gave Azra pause.

“They agreed to join me in going to Paradisaea…”

“In word, yes, but what about in heart…?” Glenyth continued. “They don’t seem to support you with sincerity as they should. You don’t have to be friends, but they at least have an obligation to respect you. For all we know, they may only have agreed to your plan in the interest of themselves and their own kingdoms.”

They must have been following me long enough to catch some of our conversation, Azra thought.

“But what business is it of mine to know what their intentions are? We have a simple goal, and that is to make it to Paradisaea together. We’re almost there, and it should only take another week or so to reach the checkpoint in Cymorene. We can’t just split up or turn back now.”

“We’re not suggesting that they do…” there was an odd hint of slyness in Glenyth’s voice. “Why not put them to the test? They can go on to Paradisaea, and we can follow behind them together to see what they do. If they disband at any point, we will know where their true loyalties lie.”

It was an unusual piece of advice coming from someone Azra thought she knew well.

“What about my true friends? The ones I met on the way to Núrieth? They will be worried sick if I suddenly go missing!”

“You need not worry about them,” Camril replied. “Things will turn out all right in the end. You’ll see.”

Azra paused reluctantly, but there was a small voice inside her that seem to hum in agreement with what they were saying.

Maybe I should at least let Lagulai know first…

But the thought had come a moment too late. When she looked back up, Camril and Glenyth were fading back into the dust.

“Wait!”

“Azra, we will be back! You will not have much time to make your decision!” Glenyth called after her.

Before she could react, they were gone. Azra turned to grab Fuelorn’s reins, but when she reached out, she only got another blast full of sand. Her horse was not where she had been expecting him to be.

In fact, she could not see the forms of anyone else from the company through the blowing sand.
When the sand lifted hours later, she found herself alone under a glittering night sky.

--

The company had broken cover and moved on as soon as the dust storm lifted, but when Lagulai looked to his side, no one was in Fuelorn’s saddle.

“Halt!” he shouted, and hooves kicked up sand as the others caught up and also saw the horse without its rider.

Onyx and Étris looked at each other as they realized the worst. Azra had been separated from the group in the dust storm.

“The queen… Where has she gone?” Girdell asked after having rode from the rear of the group.

“Gone.” Lagulai sighed.

“But… she was right there with us the whole time!” Angus exclaimed. “We didn’t move at all during that storm. How could she have been left behind?”

“Unless she despaired on us and bailed. Though some of you may be surprised, I am not,” Siegfried felt obliged to say his piece.

Lagulai’s patience with the deputy’s remarks was beginning to wear thin.

“We have to go back and look for her! She’s led us this far, she can’t be far behind,” Angus continued.

“No.” It was Onyx. “I know these lands, and I can tell you that the storm shifted the sands around too much for us to navigate our way back. We are already behind, and if we stall any more, our portage across to Paradisaea will not wait for us. We must carry on.”

A pin could have been heard hitting the sand in the moment of silence that followed.

“I will lead us the rest of the way to Paradisaea,” Lagulai spoke up. “Azra would have my support, and she would have wanted the rest of us to carry on. I’m expecting all of you to listen to me the same as you ought to have her.”

A few nods followed, but those who had hassled the queen before still averted their gaze from his in disdain.

“We’ll use Fuelorn as a pack horse for now. If you want your load lightened a little, we can strap it to him so you can have a break as we go.”

After a quick change of resources to the extra horse, they started off again, all with the checkpoint and lingering confusion over Azra’s whereabouts on their minds.

Description
The sun set on another day in the desert, and the company was fortunate to find a small oasis to make camp and refill on precious water. While most of the company had gathered around a larger fire using palm fronds as fuel, Azra ignited a smaller fire from her Mark, and searched the flames for any contact from the Ranudel village. After a few minutes, she sighed with worry. No one had called out to her from the other side.

“Mind if I join you?” she looked up to see Lagulai having just pitched his horse next to hers.

“If you must…”

Lagulai’s brows furrowed. It wasn’t often that Azra had been reluctant to talk to him.

Azra stammered slightly. “I- I think something happened at the village. I haven’t been able to reach anyone to see what’s going on.”

Lagulai nodded in sympathy. The attacks seemed to be continuing even as they were on a journey to form the last alliance capable of stopping them. He knew what Azra was experiencing, since he too had heard nothing of his mother since the damaging floods that had taken out their part of Ranudel.

“Lagulai, do you think those could be my adoptive parents following us?”

He was the only one of the company she was confident in asking this question, especially given the cutting remarks of the others earlier regarding her ability to handle things on her own.

“I want to be optimistic and say yes… But I honestly don’t know. I didn’t see them. You may have been the only one who did.”

The reply was of little to no comfort for Azra. First it was her past that had eluded her, and now it was the fate of the ones who had cared for her for five years. No matter where she went, it seemed the unknown would always find a way back to her.

She mustered up a bit of courage and said what she thought. “I think they are. If they’re not physically alive, it could be that their spirits stayed behind to make sure I was okay. I’m going to see if they follow us again when we ride tomorrow.”

Lagulai gave her a worried look. “I don’t know if that’s the right decision, Azra. I know you care for them, but you can’t let your emotions for them distract you from the task at hand. All our lives depend on crossing this desert safely and on time. Whether you retain the loyalty of some of these folk later on could well depend on it.”

But Azra’s mind was already made up. Although she had heard Lagulai, she decided it was time to take matters into her own hands. Yes. If I see them again tomorrow, I have to meet them and talk to them. It’s time to put the mystery of what happened to our home to rest.

--

When Codi arrived at the village, he found it to be totally obliterated.

There was no sign of life anywhere, and the few buildings and surrounding wall had all been leveled. The release of dark magic he had witnessed in the forest must have snuffed out all life in its path.

Even the wall and gate surrounding the little hamlet had collapsed. Desperately, Codi searched through the wreckage to find any survivors. After coming up empty, he decided to divert his focus to finding supplies. He would still need to find food and water to sustain himself on the trek to catch up with Azra. But even more vitally, he needed a swift mode of transportation.

A soft knicker to his left caught his attention, and upon finding the source, discovered there was a single horse that had somehow survived the collapse of a small stable at the back of a demolished hut. To raise his luck, there was also a battered but still usable set of tack that he pulled from the rubble.

The dark brown horse with the white star on her face was shaken, but otherwise appeared healthy aside from some minor scrapes.

Codi did not know who had owned the horse previously or what its name had been, but he was still in need of a mount, and he could not simply leave the animal to an unknown fate when it had no one else to care for it. He decided he would adopt it as his own, at least for the journey ahead.

“You’re a lucky girl to have survived this disaster, aren’t you?” he spoke gently as he patted the mare’s forehead. “You need a name. How about… Luma. I’d say finding you has been the brightest light of hope I’ve found in a long time.” The horse gave his shoulder a nuzzle in agreement.
After setting his new companion up with the tack, Codi mounted her, still with some pain owing to his injured shoulder, but he was now ready to leave the village and make haste for Cymorene.
Together, they rode to where the gate would have been and took one last look at the devastation before kicking off and heading in the direction of the valley where lied Del’nurth and Nirocelt, the last stop before crossing into the desert.

--

Sure enough, in the late afternoon of the following day, while riding the lead across the desert, Azra glanced behind her and saw the two figures in the corner of her eye.

But she was at the head, and she couldn’t let on what she was going to do. If she was going to try meeting her adopted parents, she had to keep a low profile.

She was currently in no position to drop back to the rear without being noticed, so her best chance was during their next stop, which likely would not happen until that night.

However, while she was pondering her options, Onyx gave a shout, and signaled for the company to stop immediately. There was a dust storm on the horizon, and it was approaching them from behind fast.

The group huddled together as the sandy winds blasted them, and as Azra squinted through the wall of tan, she again saw the two figures approaching her. She knew this would be her chance. No one was likely to bother focusing on anything other than staying in place until the storm passed. She dismounted her horse, her eyes fixed on them the entire time, and as she let go of the reigns, she was immediately met with a tender embrace.

“Azra!” the voice was unmistakably from Glenyth, filled with immense relief of finding her child again.

“Thank goodness you’re okay!” she heard Camril’s voice join in.

Azra’s eyes opened a little wider. They usually say ‘Thank Cape’n’ when something good happens. But she found it didn’t bother her. Right now, she was just thankful to have two loving and unwaveringly supportive figures here to reassure her that everything would be alright.

When they let go from the hug, Azra was able to have her first good look at them. They looked exactly as she had expected them to, a little worse for wear after escaping whatever had happened to the village, but they were her adopted parents nonetheless.

“What happened? The village… Don’t tell me it’s—”

“Unfortunately, yes…” Glenyth’s voice trailed off. “But we escaped the disaster just in time to make a plan to follow you. We want to come with you on your journey.”

“Really?”

“Yes. If you are leading an alliance to secure victory over the ones who did this to us, we want to help, too.” Camril replied.

Azra was initially glad at the offer for help, but then she remembered what some members of the alliance had said before. “Mum, Dad… I appreciate your help, but I am a leader now. Everyone is looking to me to guide us all safely to Paradisaea, and the trip has been getting harder by the day. It was enough trouble having the alliance assembled to begin with, and it’s taken just as much work to keep them all together. We need a representative from every kingdom to persuade the Academy of Tairo to help us defeat the enemy. I would love to have you along, but… I’m afraid doing so will only bring up more doubt as to my ability to act on my own.”

Camril looked hard in thought. “Azra… I understand you have accomplished a lot, and not only have you helped restore your own kingdom, but others as well.” He seemed to agree with her point.

“But what have all these representatives from the other lands done for you all this time?”

Camril’s next question gave Azra pause.

“They agreed to join me in going to Paradisaea…”

“In word, yes, but what about in heart…?” Glenyth continued. “They don’t seem to support you with sincerity as they should. You don’t have to be friends, but they at least have an obligation to respect you. For all we know, they may only have agreed to your plan in the interest of themselves and their own kingdoms.”

They must have been following me long enough to catch some of our conversation, Azra thought.

“But what business is it of mine to know what their intentions are? We have a simple goal, and that is to make it to Paradisaea together. We’re almost there, and it should only take another week or so to reach the checkpoint in Cymorene. We can’t just split up or turn back now.”

“We’re not suggesting that they do…” there was an odd hint of slyness in Glenyth’s voice. “Why not put them to the test? They can go on to Paradisaea, and we can follow behind them together to see what they do. If they disband at any point, we will know where their true loyalties lie.”

It was an unusual piece of advice coming from someone Azra thought she knew well.

“What about my true friends? The ones I met on the way to Núrieth? They will be worried sick if I suddenly go missing!”

“You need not worry about them,” Camril replied. “Things will turn out all right in the end. You’ll see.”

Azra paused reluctantly, but there was a small voice inside her that seem to hum in agreement with what they were saying.

Maybe I should at least let Lagulai know first…

But the thought had come a moment too late. When she looked back up, Camril and Glenyth were fading back into the dust.

“Wait!”

“Azra, we will be back! You will not have much time to make your decision!” Glenyth called after her.

Before she could react, they were gone. Azra turned to grab Fuelorn’s reins, but when she reached out, she only got another blast full of sand. Her horse was not where she had been expecting him to be.

In fact, she could not see the forms of anyone else from the company through the blowing sand.
When the sand lifted hours later, she found herself alone under a glittering night sky.

--

The company had broken cover and moved on as soon as the dust storm lifted, but when Lagulai looked to his side, no one was in Fuelorn’s saddle.

“Halt!” he shouted, and hooves kicked up sand as the others caught up and also saw the horse without its rider.

Onyx and Étris looked at each other as they realized the worst. Azra had been separated from the group in the dust storm.

“The queen… Where has she gone?” Girdell asked after having rode from the rear of the group.

“Gone.” Lagulai sighed.

“But… she was right there with us the whole time!” Angus exclaimed. “We didn’t move at all during that storm. How could she have been left behind?”

“Unless she despaired on us and bailed. Though some of you may be surprised, I am not,” Siegfried felt obliged to say his piece.

Lagulai’s patience with the deputy’s remarks was beginning to wear thin.

“We have to go back and look for her! She’s led us this far, she can’t be far behind,” Angus continued.

“No.” It was Onyx. “I know these lands, and I can tell you that the storm shifted the sands around too much for us to navigate our way back. We are already behind, and if we stall any more, our portage across to Paradisaea will not wait for us. We must carry on.”

A pin could have been heard hitting the sand in the moment of silence that followed.

“I will lead us the rest of the way to Paradisaea,” Lagulai spoke up. “Azra would have my support, and she would have wanted the rest of us to carry on. I’m expecting all of you to listen to me the same as you ought to have her.”

A few nods followed, but those who had hassled the queen before still averted their gaze from his in disdain.

“We’ll use Fuelorn as a pack horse for now. If you want your load lightened a little, we can strap it to him so you can have a break as we go.”

After a quick change of resources to the extra horse, they started off again, all with the checkpoint and lingering confusion over Azra’s whereabouts on their minds.