Quest for Fire Book Three ~ Touch the Sky Chapter 1

Flakes of pure white snow slowly drifted down the sky, coating Zoltar’s hunched back spines in a thin layer of frost. He hadn’t moved in the last five minutes. His head was whirling like a hailstorm, while his body refused to move. What was he supposed to do now? He couldn’t just leave Shiraku and Emerald to the wind talons, but trying to rescue them would be a massive risk. I mean they’d just gotten out of prison, was he willing to go through that all over again? And could he really ask Felistia and Shriken risk their lives for two dragons they hardly knew. Sure Felistia knew Shiraku, but she didn’t exactly get on well with the grumpy sea talon. Would she really risk her life to save Shiraku? There was also the quest to think about. He needed to collect just two more things and then he could go home and save the whole shadow talon tribe. But how could he do that without Emerald? It was her island after all.

Zoltar gave a growl of frustration. Why couldn’t life be simple? Why did it always have to be so complicated? Tears of worry and anxiety started to well around his eyes and his throat felt like it was starting to swell up. All he wanted was a good night’s sleep, but that looked about as far away now as the sun climbing up the sky on the distant horizon. Tears where now streaming down his snout and all he wanted was someone to comfort him.

He sensed Felistia approaching him from behind, but he didn’t turn around. All around his paws were clear crystal drops where his tears had fallen to the snow and had frozen. He felt Felistia’s wing drape over his shoulder and her snout nuzzle his. Curling up closer to her, he wrapped his tail around hers.

“I can’t believe the wind talons took them,” he sniffed as he tried to stop the tears from pouring down his snout and onto the fresh layer of snow below. It was shameful for a shadow talon to cry. Shadow talon weren’t supposed to let their feelings affect them. This was what made them soldiers.

“It’s okay,” Felistia whispered, taking the wind talon scale from his claws, “We’ll find them.”

Zoltar looked up at her, surprised. Was she offering to go look for Shiraku and Emerald, even after what she’d been through in the last week?

“You mean you’ll help me look for them? You’re not just going to leave them?” Zoltar asked, wiping his tears away.

“What do you mean?” Felistia almost snapped, “You thought I wasn’t going to help you look for them? They’re my friends too you know.”

Zoltar smiled and slowly stood to his feet. He couldn’t just break down into tears. Emerald and Shiraku were in danger and they needed him to be strong.

He noticed Shriken standing alone under the tree, watching them. When he saw Zoltar looking at him, he ducked his head and shifted his gaze. He looked a little uncomfortable and kept shifting his wings.

Zoltar realized that he hadn’t even talked to Shriken yet which was kind of rude on his behalf since Shriken had rescued them and all.

Wiping his snout dry, Zoltar walked over to the young ice talon. Shriken saw him coming over and immediately sat up, ducking his head in submission. His wings were spread and his tail was curled in an extremely sophisticated way. Zoltar cocked his head for a second before recognizing that Shriken was acting the same way he’d act before a chief. But why? Zoltar wasn’t even a fully-fledged soldier let alone a chief, so why was the dragon from another tribe bowing to him like he was his leader?

‘He’s scared of me,’ Zoltar realized as he watched the ice talon’s eyes dart this way and that like a fish trying to escape a cat’s claws. Why though? He wasn’t much bigger than Shriken and it wasn’t like he had any authority over the ice talon. After all it had been Shriken that had saved them from the Ice Kingdom, not Zoltar. But then he had threatened to attack Shriken and Shriken didn’t know him very well, so it did kind of make sense that the ice talon was scared of him. Still, even though Zoltar did like the feeling of have authority, he knew it wasn’t right for an ice talon to act like this in front of a shadow talon.

“Hi… Shriken,” Zoltar said, trying to be pleasant, but it seemed to come out a bit more awkwardly than he’d envisioned in his head. “You know…you don’t have to be like that around me? It’s not like I’m your chief or anything.”

Shriken hurriedly scrambled to his paws, “Sorry sir, didn’t mean to offend you or anything,” he quickly apologized.

Zoltar cocked his head at this bizarre dragon. Why was he acting like this? It was starting to put him bit on edge. No dragon was this jumpy for no reason.

It was almost a relief when he felt Felistia’s cold wing tip brush against his. She looked at him with her deep golden eyes as if saying she’d-take-care-of-this.

“Shriken,” she put on of her moon silver wings over her brother’s back, “Zoltar’s not your chief. You don’t have to act so formal around him you know? He’s not like Shiler okay.”

Shriken nodded timidly as he seemed to huddle closer to his sister side. He looked so small next to Felistia; a completely different dragon than the one that had led them out of the ice kingdom. Where had that confident dragon gone?

Another question, that he’d been wondering about for a while now, popped into the front of his thoughts. Was Shriken here to stay or was he just hanging around for a little while before going back to the ice kingdom?

Zoltar gave Felistia a significant look and darted his eyes towards Shriken who was still nestled under her wing, his tail curled neatly over his talons. She seemed to understand and bent her neck to whisper something in his ear. He listened as his eyes glanced back towards the swirling snows of the ice kingdom. Zoltar thought he could see a strange fear in Shriken’s eyes, one of great trauma. But it disappeared as the young ice talon nodded his head enthusiastically and whisper something back in Felistia’s ear. His sister smiled warmly.

“He’s going to come with us, Zoltar,” Felistia stated in an almost stubborn voice as she twined her tail with her brother’s, “The queen will kill him for his betrayal if he goes back.”

“Well it’s not like I mind, so I don’t know why you’re acting as though I’m going to say no,” Zoltar hissed sarcastically. It wasn’t like he had much of a choice anyway. Felistia was almost twice his size and could easily overrule him.

“So…do you have a plan at all on how we’re going to rescue Emerald and that ridiculous sea wing?” Felistia asked as she gazed in the direction of the Wind Talon Mountains.”

“Well…no, not really,” Zoltar began slowly, “But it’s a long way to the wind talons, so I thought we’d think of one on the way there, since we don’t really want to waste any more time.”

Felistia looked sceptical for a minute as she listened to Zoltar, but after a bit of thinking she nodded her head, “I agree. We shouldn’t really sit around here thinking of a plan when we could think of one on the way there. I just hope this doesn’t turn into another fiasco like the ice talon kingdom.”

“Well now I’m offended,” Zoltar snorted, arching his neck indignantly, “As I seem to remember, it was you not telling me a bunch of very important things that got us into that particular fiasco thank you very much.”

Felistia put a paw to her snout as she tried to muffle a rush of giggles, “Okay Zoltar, okay I agree. It was my fault.” She burst out laughing again as Zoltar ruffled his wings and gave her another look of outmost disdain, “And I’m sorry. I already said that you know. You can’t get cross at me all over again.”

“Okay,” Zoltar laughed, “Just don’t go blaming me for it.”

“Fine,” Felistia replied, still trying to snuff her fit of laughter, “Let’s go.” And with that she leapt into the clear blue sky, her wings catching the late morning sun.

“You coming?” Zoltar turning to Shriken who was still looking a bit nervous as he watched his sister take to the air.

“A-ah yes,” he stuttered, looking back in the direction of the ice kingdom. He had his wings tucked in close to his body and was shifting from one paw to the other.

“Don’t worry. I know that you must feel a bit left out at the moment, but you’ll soon fit in,” Zoltar said encouragingly.

“Sure,” the ice talon said, squaring his shoulders and scrapping at the layer of snow below him.

“Come on, let’s go,” Zoltar roared joyfully as he joined Felistia in the cool open air, beating his wings in long sweeping arcs as he gained height. Shriken followed him silently. There was something wrong with this dragon. He just seemed a bit off and it was making Zoltar uncomfortable, but he had to give him a chance since he had saved their lives. He was also Felistia’s brother and she seemed to trust him.

Shrugging aside his thoughts, Zoltar aimed for the mountains rising up over the horizon. White mist swirled over their towering peaks and the silver snow capping the tops seemed to shimmer and gleam in the rising sun.