Chapter Six - Part II

                                    

                                              
Over the days of their travel through Yennar Lei, Tesa's anger gradually lessened. She settled into the routines of travel, which were busy yet left her room for contemplation aboard the back of her dragon. Each day they woke and ate, broke camp, and flew with daylight above. As dusk fell, they would land and make camp. Each night after her chores and dinner, Tesa had to continue her mage training with Neela. 
                          
At first, Tesa still smoldered about her friends' betrayal and the time wasted in flight when they could have gone through the door. But lessons with Neela along with the feeling of progress as they flew closer and closer to their goal lightened her mood. Tesa still rebuffed Glenna's attempts to be friendly, though. Her mood hadn't lifted that much.
                          
They passed over towns and cities, always crowded around one of the many lakes or rivers that laced the Yennar Leian landscape. Each time they passed over a larger city, Tesa wondered if it might be their destination, but they continued to fly and camp in remote forests. 

                          
"Saldive is their biggest city, and it's also their farthest south," Neela said. Tesa already knew it, but she'd been pretending not to listen while Malía had briefed them the first night they'd landed. Though Tesa had wondered how they would know when they'd reached the southern border of Yennar Lei, she hadn't asked. She did have a sneaking suspicion, though. In her mind's eye she pictured the glittering reflections of hundreds, thousands of lights in the waters of a bay.
                          
"It might be useful if we did stop in one of these cities," Tesa grumbled as she stared in magesight at a swirling morass of magical energy that Neela had gathered in front of her. She squinted as she focused her mind to draw out all of the fire energy from the bunch and set it aside. "We could ask about them."
                          
A spark flew from her bundle of fire energy and smoldered on the ground. Neela stamped her boot on top of it and ground it out.
                          
"Focus," she said. "And you know we can't. The ambassadors negotiated a specific arrangement. We won't encounter hospitality in the cities if we fly in on dragons."
                          
Tesa sighed and moved on to the threads of earth energy. They were easier to pick out now that the fire was out of the mix. "I know."
                          
The revelation that ambassadors from Arethia had traveled to Yennar Lei through the magic doors had enraged Tesa when she'd found out, and anger still flared in her whenever she thought of it. She had been punished for going through the magic doors. The king and mage guard had forbidden anyone from using the bound magic that was supposedly so evil, but they used it themselves. 
                          
Her focus on the threads of earth magic wavered, and the strings she'd been pulling out of the mass of energies bounced back. The force caused the ball to swirl more, mixing the remaining energies even more. With a frown, Tesa tried to regain her focus on the earth energies, but her anger and frustration together thrummed through her, making concentration on magic seem impossible. She sighed and pulled back from the magic, shifting out of magesight.
                          
When Tesa looked up, Neela was glaring at her.
                          
"Well, I guess that's it for tonight," she said. She stood and brushed off her knees. Tesa followed.
                          
She lay awake in her tent that night, thinking of the people who'd watched as they flew over the smaller towns, pointing and running after them. If the dragons landed, would they be afraid? Had they ever seen a dragon before? Tesa knew from the book she'd found in the library in Areth that the first dragons were said to have come from Yennar Lei, but that there were no dragons there any more. Tesa fell asleep wondering why dragons hadn't thrived in both places.
                          
By the next evening, they were near their journey's end. As the dragons and their riders came upon Saldive, the sun was beginning to set.
                          
Warm air seemed to gush up under Orrie's wings, allowing him to float almost effortlessly, with just a few flaps here and there to carry him forward.