The Arena novel Chapter 42

This weekend, I’m taking Kenna to the mountains to teach her how to use her dragon’s call. She turned three a few weeks ago, and Avani agreed to meet us because Kenna wants him there.

We leave at night, but I keep a slower pace because Kenna still hasn’t reached maturity and is much smaller than I am. At this pace and only flying at night, it takes us two days to get there. My daughter seems to enjoy being able to stretch her wings and fly so much. It’s nice to share this time with her, and I plan for us to start coming out here more often.

When we arrive at our designated spot, I see Avani in his human form on the ground. I belt out my dragon call to him, showing Kenna how to do it. He returns the call to me, still in his human form.

Kenna lands beside him. He takes his time looking over her dragon form, lifting her wings, checking her feet, and noting the onyx-colored stripes down her side. I can hear him telling her how beautiful they are and that she should wear them with pride. He’s so good with her.

I tell him I’m going to get food and for him to start a fire. Kenna needs to rest before we begin. I’m back quickly, and he has the wood piled up and is showing Kenna how to send a stream of fire to only light the wood, not start a fire in the forest.

He’s patient with her, putting out her fires when she pushes her fire too far or blows too much fire.

“I can’t do it!” she exclaims.

“Of course, you can. You’re a fire dragon. All you need is practice. Now that you’re three, you can start learning some of these things so that when you’re fully grown in a couple of years, it will be easy.”

He waits until she stops pouting and looks at him. “Try again.”

She does, taking a deep breath that a human child her age would never be able to take and then blowing a slow, steady stream of fire over the wood.

“See! There you go,” Avani says to her.

“Nice job, Kenna.”

“Mom, are we going to start coming here more often so I can fly and practice?”

“Yes, we are. You’ve reached the age where you’re mature enough to start doing some of the harder things.”

“What’s first?” she asks over dinner.

“Dragon’s call,” Avani says.

“First, do you know why your dragon’s call is important?” I ask her.

“No.”

“A dragon’s call is used to call other dragons if you are in trouble. It can also be used as a way to say hello, and when nearby, it can be used as a warning to others that something is wrong. But, most importantly, for now, it is to be used as a call for help.”

“It is also something that you can do in your human and dragon forms, although it’s louder and more intimidating in your dragon form,” Avani tells her.

We finish eating as we discuss the reasons for the dragon’s call. When we’re done, we sit facing each other in a circle.

“First,” Avani says, “Take a deep breath into your stomach.” He shows her how to do it, putting his hand over his stomach and making a point of forcing his stomach to distend so she can see where to draw the air.

“You try,” he says and watches as she mimics his position of having a hand on her stomach and lifting her head slightly to take a deep breath.

Both of us see her chest expand. It is a common mistake to take in air through your lungs and not to your stomach. Avani works with her and has her practice it several more times until she finally gets it.

He lays back and looks up at the stars, his hands behind his head. “Do you still care about him?”

He turns his head and looks at me. I continue to stare into the fire. “Yes.”

He nods. “Then you should go and see for yourself.”

I look at my daughter for a moment before turning back to Avani. “Will you stay with her? I’m going to check it out.”

“You know I will,” he says.

I start with the cave where I first took him. I haven’t been back here, and the memories are both wonderful and terrible. As I sniff around, I know that Avani is right. His scent may not be recent, but he has been back here more recently than I would have expected.

Next, I fly to where I spent several days crying over Cedric. I can smell Cedric’s scent, even more recently here than in the other cave. He would have had no reason to be here other than if he was looking for me.

I think back to my time here several years ago. Where did I go from here? I had flown here when I needed a place to grieve. Then, I heard someone in the forest, and I had flown away, not wanting to be found by Cedric.

I fly to my next spot, the place with the lake, and his scent is here as well. Cedric is definitely trying to find me, or at least he was in the last couple of years. When I get there, I see that the cave has been destroyed. I walk around, trying to figure out what set him off. I can only imagine his frustration at being unable to find me.

It was here that Ishir found me and told me I was pregnant. Here that we decided we would head to the city, but before we did that, we went to my cave of treasures. I’m leaping off the mountain ledge before I consciously think about what I’m doing. If he’s somehow tracked me this far, my cave is the next place he would find my scent. And my scent would be much, much stronger there since that cave has been in my family for centuries. Everything I have ever collected, everything my family collected over the centuries, is in that cave.

If Cedric finds my cave, he could use it as leverage to get what he wants – me.