to follow.”
“You’ve got a map?”
“Master Longwei gave it to me before we left.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“He said not to, until it was time.”
I shook my head softly and shook off my backpack. It landed with a thud on the ground. I sank down next to it and took the map from Cheng. It didn’t look like the kind of maps I was used to. It had funny dots and marks on it that I didn’t understand. I handed it back to him. “Even the maps are Greek.”
He chuckled again. “It’s a very old map, at least 300 years old. Master Longwei said there are only two in this world. He’s got one, and the other one is somewhere on the other side of the Wall.”
“Just tell me you know how to read it.”
“I can read it, Sort of.”
“Sort of?”
“I’m joking with you, Elena.” He laughed. “That look is priceless though.”
“Urgh!” I slapped him playfully. “My nerves are already shot. I don’t know what we are going to find there. Lucian didn’t even want to tell me.”
“Lucian communicated with you? How? Phones don’t work inside here.”
I took out my Cammy and it was dead. “Yes, he did,” I said as I kept staring at the Cammy inside my hand. “Lucian might not have had an extra ability, but he sure was special.”
“He mastered one of the transmission spells, didn’t he?”
“What is a transmission spell?”
“You can communicate with someone without the use of stupid towers or bars on your Cammy.”
I nodded.
“Which one?”
“I don’t know what they are called, but he appeared to me. He felt so real.”
Cheng’s eyes grew. “He mastered the dimperius spell?”
“The dim what?”
“A dimperius.” He looked at the ground. “Not many can. He sure was one hell of a guy.”
“Now he’s no more,” I said softly.
“Elena, it’s not your fault.”
“Cheng, don’t. I trusted Paul when I shouldn’t. I should’ve listened to you.”
“I had my doubts after a while too, Elena. He was really good at fooling everyone.”
I laid my head back against the tree’s bark and listened to the birds chirping high in the branches. I closed my eyes and let their cries transport me back to when he was still alive. It started to ache deep inside and I took a deep breath. “What if Lucian was my rider?”
“Don’t think like that. It would only drive you crazy. Besides, a dragon always knows, Elena. There is no what ifs with us.”
“How do you know? What does it feel like?”
“I don’t know how to explain it, it just is. It’s like when you know that the sky is blue and the ocean green. It’s not pink and it’s not red. You just know.”
I got what he was saying. So Lucian couldn’t have been my rider. Then who was?
He tapped my leg and I saw him looking up at the old lady’s nose. A light fell onto the path to the left of us and we picked up our bags.
Cheng walked with a map in one hand and a compass in the other as we walked through huge plants that made funny hissing noises. It really freaked me out and I walked as close to Cheng as I could. He just chuckled and shook his head slightly.
Yeah, I get it. I’m supposed to be a freakin’ Rubicon.
“Just slap them if they get in your personal space.”
“Who, the plants?”
“Yes, the plants. They’re very curious.”
I giggled at the image in my head, and somehow it made my fear of them disappear.
The path we took wasn’t worn like most were, and it made it really hard to see where we were supposed to go.
I kept bumping into Cheng when he would stop dead in his tracks. Once he confirmed where we were on the map we carried on walking.
“So what, your tracking ability isn’t that good?” I teased him after the tenth time we paused for him to look at the map.
“Not all dragons are born with that ability.” He kept looking at the map with a hint of a smile on his face. He looked at the compass then. “Master Longwei said this would happen.” He looked at his watch.
“What would happen?”
“It’s getting late, we need to go back until the compass can show us north again. It’s not safe to set up camp.”
We turned around and walked back for about half an hour, Cheng went a couple of miles further, just to be safe. He made a huge red marking on one of the trees and then took a different