Capítulo 3: Chapter 3: Dragons in the Woods
Tris’ eyes widen as she whips around, running into the palace with Lucas hot on her heels.
“Tris. Tris!” he begs, but she doesn’t turn.
Hurrying into her chamber, Tris looks around to make sure she’s alone in her room. After flinging off her dress, she goes to her wardrobe and pulls open the drawer. In the bottom, under a few slips, she keeps a pair of pants and a blouse. Her mother doesn’t like her wearing boy’s clothing, but she made herself a few outfits for her journeys into the woods.
Once she has the blouse and pants on, Tris pulls out a leather bodice and laces it up with a strap. She also puts on her matching arm guards and digs out her hunting boots. Tris’ father had given them to her a few years ago when they were making daily trips into the forest. He told her they would protect her from snake bites and thorns.
Finally, she braids her long red hair back to keep it out of her face. Going into the woods at night is dangerous, and having loose hair over her eyes would obstruct her view. Tris heads back to the door and slips out into the dark hallway.
“What are you doing?” Lucas asks, causing her to jump.
Tris hadn’t even noticed he was waiting for her outside the chamber doors. She calms herself and keeps moving.
“Why are you still here?” she scolds as she slips down the palace steps toward the main entrance.
Lucas is right behind her. “I’m coming with you,” he whispers back. “You shouldn’t be off in the woods on your own at night. Your father would kill me if I let you go alone,” he adds in a whisper.
Tris wants to argue with him, but she knows he’s right. If she’s being honest, the thought of going into the woods alone at night frightens her. Tris stops by the armory and takes a bow and a quiver full of arrows.
She learned to shoot when she was very young. Nick was training at the time and her father allowed her to join them. Tris has continued shooting on her own whenever she finds the time. She’s actually deadly accurate.
Lucas fidgets next to her as she slips the quiver over her back. “Is that really necessary?” he frantically asks.
Tris looks at him and rolls her eyes. “I don’t know, but do you really want to go into the woods at night without any kind of protection?”
“Good point,” Lucas replies with a nod. He licks his lips nervously and grabs a lantern from the wall. With a snap of his fingers, the wick flickers to life.
Tris lifts her eyebrows at him.
“What?” he asks.
“Nothing,” Tris replies with a smile.
She heads toward the door as Lucas looks at the lantern and back at her.
He rushes out after her. “You thought I was going to set the armory on fire, didn’t you?” he says accusingly.
Tris doesn’t reply. Her stomach starts to knot as they approach the Northern trails that lead into the forest. Lucas swings the lamp causing the shadows to dance before her. Tris shivers as she remembers the stories Dowager Queen Nora told her as a child. The old Queen would pull Tris in close and whisper of creatures hiding in the gloom.
Now that she stands on the threshold of darkness the stories come flooding back causing her to hesitate.
“Do you want me to go first?” Lucas asks from behind her.
Tris is about to say yes when she remembers why she’s going into the woods in the first place. “No, I’ll be fine. We need to find my Father and the others before something bad happens,” she replies.
After taking a deep breath, Tris leads them into the cloak of darkness enveloping the forest. They walk along in silence for about thirty minutes before Lucas speaks up.
“How do you know where you’re going? I mean, the other group took the South trails. Shouldn’t we follow them?” he asks, trying not to stumble over all the underbrush overgrowing the path.
“My father took me out into the woods every day when I was your age. He taught me how to track and hunt. I remember him telling me that the Northern trails are good for hunting in the Spring and Summer months, while the South route is better for Fall and Winter,” she explains, holding a branch back until Lucas clears it.
“Oh,” he says as she releases the wood with a smack. “Why don’t they let you take the hunting party out if you know so much?” he asks sincerely.
Tris just chuckles. There’s no way the King would allow a woman to show him around the forest. She loves that Lucas doesn’t see her as an inferior gender, but many others don’t share his view. Before she can answer, torches pop up in the distance. It suddenly dawns on Tris that the Southern and Northern paths run close together at this point in the woods.
“Put the lamp out, they will see,” she instructs a little too late.
“Hey, you there!” someone yells.
“Show yourself or suffer the punishment!” another man shouts out from the group.
“They probably didn’t see you,” Lucas whispers to her. “I’ll go explain why I’m here. Will you be okay?”
Tris nods as he takes off toward the group of men.
“It’s Lucas, ward of the Wizard in the Kingdom of Isles,” he shouts as he walks.
The men mumble something as Lucas disappears into the night. Tris can only make out the light from his lamp as it dangles beside him. A few minutes later she watches as the dots in the distance begin moving away from her. Lucas must have been instructed to follow them and he couldn’t refuse without getting her in trouble.
“Okay,” she huffs to herself. “At least the moon is almost full and I have some kind of light.”
Tris takes a moment to calm herself before continuing on the path. She has walked this route many times, just never in the dark. She takes this time to consider the events of the day. What is she going to do about Nick? Her heart tells her that they are meant to be together. Her birthmark isn’t a normal mark, according to the Dowager Queen. In spite of her mother’s nagging, Tris knows the story is true.
There is a prophecy that has been written over the years. It states: ‘Dragons round the world shall fly till two born marks see eye to eye’. The Dowager Queen, or Granny Nora as she likes to be called, told Tris about the prophecy after she saw her mark. She explained that it was no ordinary birthmark. The spiral of brown on Tris’ thigh means she will bring balance back to the Kingdom of Isles.
Granny Nora couldn’t say how or why she believed this, but the look on her face told Tris she did with every fiber of her being. The Dowager Queen had called it a dragon’s mark, and Tris hadn’t thought much about it until the flying creatures started being seen around the Kingdom once more.
She looks up at the sky and back toward her path. “The clearing should be right up ahead,” she instructs herself out loud to try and stop her racing thoughts.
Tris can see the moon dancing on the water of the pond up ahead. It looks magical and she quickens her pace, eager to get away from the darting shadows of the woods. She knows her father would have taken the hunting party near the water where all the animals would gather to drink. Tris hopes to pick up on their tracks from there.
Walking to the water’s edge, she looks at her reflection on the mirrored surface. Feeling a renewed sense of self, Tris starts searching around for the group’s prints on the soft ground. The sounds of bushes shaking and twigs snapping pull her attention away from the ground. Tris doesn’t hesitate to ready her bow with an arrow as she surveys the area for another sign of movement.
A bush a short distance away quivers violently again.
“Come out or so help me I will strike you down!” Tris demands forcefully.
Soft growls come from the shrub before it falls silent again. Tris takes a few steps closer and is overcome by the sound of something crying. It isn’t a human cry, it sounds more like a small animal in distress. She doesn’t think twice as she lowers her bow and darts toward the sound.
After stepping around the large shrub, Tris stops and gawks at the creature before her. It’s about the size of a large cat and the black scales that cover it shimmer in the light of the moon.
“You’re a baby dragon!” Tris whispers in shock as the animal looks up at her with large black eyes.
Kingdom law dictates she is to kill this creature on sight, baby or not.
Her heart skips a beat and she raises her bow.
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